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Hello

I am a Manchester-based journalist and editor, specialising in music and culture. Alongside running my magazine, Out Of Rage, and working as a PR representative with Opaline Press, I have a wealth of experience in print, online, broadcast, radio, and social media. 

I am always up for an adventure, so if you're keen to work with me,  contact me at ambertayebrooks@gmail.com. 

Recent Written Work

Out Of Rage •

REVIEW: Poison The Well - Peace In Place

When an album is titled with anything to do with peace, it’s rarely peaceful. If it’s the first in almost seventeen years, you know you’re in for a riot. Floridian post-hardcore heavyweights POISON THE WELL are back in the game, continuing their lasting legacy of being one of the most influential metallic bands for the hardcore underground. Following almost three decades of that signature primal desire to create brutality, Peace In Place has pushed past innovation, into a fragmented landscape th...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

ALBUM REVIEW: Where The Light Leaves - Varials - Distorted Sound Magazine

Right okay, it’s time to fess up – who hurt VARIALS? As the most emotionally-charged release to date from the Philadelphia heavy unit, new album Where The Light Leaves is a masterclass in getting heavy and crashing out. This new chapter sees the band fully realised, hellbent on absolutes and crowdkilling through the pain. 

This record is the closest metalcore is going to get to a villain origin story, as deathcore tropes have finally pulled the extreme metallers to the dark side. The past three...
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: Die Spitz and Aerial Salad

No one knows anarchy like punk-rock Texans DIE SPITZ. As vocalist/guitarist Ellie Livingston struts the stage in her scarlet cowboy boots, she roots the all-consuming doom-laden riffs that lash the crowd with fast, uncontrollable energy. With their latest album, Something To Consume, the band chose carnage over composure, opting for sieging a supermarket in the music video for Throw Yourself To The Sword. Whilst there are no weapons present within the cavernous depths of Manchester’s Gorilla, th...
Out Of Rage •

BEYOND EXTINCTION: The constant cycle of human suffering in Where They Gather

You'd think that when deathcore heavyweights BEYOND EXTINCTION are getting in the zone to play a show, they'd live up to their status of being one of the biggest rising stars in extreme music. As they're bombing it down the highway blasting the silky tones of DURAN DURAN and SPANDAU BALLET - their picks, of course - the band are anticipating an intense set, wall-to-wall with brutal bangers. “You should hear what we play in the van!” begins guitarist JUDE BENNETT “You'd imagine it to be really ha...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

LIVE REVIEW: Ice Nine Kills @ Co-op Live, Manchester - Distorted Sound Magazine

From gut-busting breakdowns to slasher-filled moments of suspense, both on screen and in the pit, ICE NINE KILLS UK and European leg of the A Work Of Art tour promises nothing short of a spectacle. Boasting the debut of their infamous Silver Scream Con in London – the band’s own frightful horror convention – they bring with them their first headline stadium run outside of America. Here, the real nightmare before Christmas can be seen in the near 20,000 horror metal fans descending in their drove...
Kieran Atkinson
Out Of Rage •

COVER: FALSE REALITY is the Out Of Rage Artist of 2025

As a band built from a wicked infusion of hardcore, thrash, and the extreme, meeting through shows in the London scene and creating a project that pulls together the best of the genres' abrasive foundations, FALSE REALITY are defined with Faded Intentions. Whilst the record has only been released in November, throughout 2025, they’ve sown the seeds to make this full-length debut a knockout for the UK underground.After a year of making their presence known with the release of their 2024 Path Of S...
James Smith
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: Lambrini Girls and Shelf Lives

From the moment 2025 kicked up a fuss, making its rowdy and rambunctious entrance, so too did Brighton bruiserweights LAMBRINI GIRLS. With only ten days into January, we were blessed with the unapologetic debut Who Let The Dogs Out, a triumphant wrecking ball of a record sent straight into the fractured foundations of British society. It was here that the age-old, authentic fundamentals of punk snagged themselves around vocalist Pheobe Lunny’s tongue, as the band seethed about toxic workplace pr...
Kieran Atkinson
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: False Reality, Sovereign and Divine Hatred

“I shouldn’t have worn a tracksuit to a show!”, exclaims FALSE REALITY vocalist Rachel Rigby. Since the release of the London hardcore quartet’s latest record, Faded Intentions, the heat behind the band had been amplified tenfold, and the response sweltered - packing out the infamous Boom Leeds with a horde of sweaty moshers. With her head down and pacing the stage quickly, she has a moment to think before screaming that she’s lost a nail.  Joking that “you can’t take the Essex out of the girl”,...
Out Of Rage •

WITCH FEVER: The witching hour and exploring the gothic in FEVEREATEN

Amy Walpole is not a witch. However, the people she knows who study witchcraft say that she’s attuned to it - some even surprised by the fact that she doesn’t practice it. It’s easy to draw conclusions, as she does like to collect things, like bones and branches, or keep special objects that hold power. She tells OOR that sometimes, she does tarot. In her art, she's inspired by natural forms and horror imagery, knotted tightly with paganism and the rural north. Above all, she likes to read about...

DISTORTED SOUND: Pinkshift - From Chaos To Clarity

A year ago, PINKSHIFT set the world on fire. One Nation, a single kindled by the rising political climate and the decisions made by those at the top level, set ablaze a manifesto of change for young punks in America, some of those who may be voting for the first time. The message was clear, to make sure their generation was represented, intending to move forward with their firecracker band of skate-park punk, hope and togetherness.
Sabrina Ramdoyal
Distorted Sound Magazine •

LIVE REVIEW: Parkway Drive @ AO Arena, Manchester - Distorted Sound Magazine

For PARKWAY DRIVE, destination was always an integral part of the band’s brutal design. Born in the sweaty basement brawls of Byron Bay’s ‘Parkway House’ and destined to dominate globally with a devastating vice grip, over the last twenty years modern metal has gained impressive Australian ambassadors. As they wave the flag through the swarming crowds during their entrance into Manchester’s AO Arena on their anniversary tour, the heavyweights finally size up to meet their fate: 23,000 formidable...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

ALBUM REVIEW: Flesh Stays Together - Dying Wish - Distorted Sound Magazine

DYING WISH are immortalised with their fatal third record Flesh Stays Together. As it stands, it is safe to say that this is the album that will define the Portland metalcore quintet – asphyxiated with the chilling reminder that horror reveals the beauty in the band’s complex sound. 

With the release of 2023’s Symptoms Of Survival, there was something chaotic lurking in the depths of the record. As one of the first opportunities to let Emma Boster’s silken vocals carve through the tracks like a...
Ace Cheng
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: Basement, Anxious, Dynamite and Midrift

Almost ten years ago, five guys from sleepy Ipswich opened for BRING ME THE HORIZON. At the time, basking in the pop-centric lull of That’s The Spirit, plucky openers BASEMENT would make the mark with releasing the first singles from their third studio album Promise Everything. Here, their set would be defined by their second album Colourmeinkindness, which would eventually gain a cult following with time and nostalgia, and was honored wholeheartedly with a full album playthrough at Outbreak Fes...
Ace Cheng
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: Basement, Anxious, Dynamite and Midrift

Almost ten years ago, five guys from sleepy Ipswich opened for BRING ME THE HORIZON. At the time, basking in the pop-centric lull of That’s The Spirit, plucky openers BASEMENT would make the mark with releasing the first singles from their third studio album Promise Everything. Here, their set would be defined by their second album Colourmeinkindness, which would eventually gain a cult following with time and nostalgia, and was honored wholeheartedly with a full album playthrough at Outbreak Fes...
Libby Percival
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: No Play Festival 2025

For hardcore, it begins and ends with the scene. For Out Of Rage, a magazine deep-rooted in the hardcore identity, Liverpool’s No Play was the perfect finale to the festival season. The Scouse promotion has ensured that heavy music has had a home on the Mersey all year round, but in Port City, last weekend’s festivities were the cherry on top of it all, in their own terms the Liver Bird on top of the Royal Liver Building, or even the Mohamed Salah on the Liverpool FC starting formation. No Play...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

ALBUM REVIEW: Genknosis - Knosis - Distorted Sound Magazine

Ryo Kinoshita’s latest project, KNOSIS, encompasses all. During their debut record, the gravitational pull of complex emotions, intense catharsis, and enraged outbursts has been compacted to form the beginnings of a brilliant shining star; one that guides him through the darkness, but also sets the path for the direction of the future of Japanese, if not global, metalcore. In Genknosis, we see Kinoshita’s world with a deep understanding of introspection and with the greatest attention to detail....
Distorted Sound Magazine •

ALBUM REVIEW: New World Heat - Fox Lake - Distorted Sound Magazine

We’ve done our time with the legacy of LIMP BIZKIT. Fred Durst’s baggy-jeaned bravado and the – he said, she said – bullshit that turned nu-metal on its head in the nineties. Even now, hip-hop heavy has the same heat as it did when the Undertaker rolled into Wrestlemania XIX on a Harley. Headlining Reading Festival aside, the influence of the chocolate starfish has captivated the next generation, thankfully without the need for backwards baseball caps. 

Whilst bands like BLACKGOLD, SILLY GOOSE...
Out Of Rage •

LIVE FROM THE PIT: The Big Outbreak Review 2025

2025 was the year Outbreak truly became countercultural, a razor-cut celebration of the sharpest edges of the music spectrum. In the overcast haze of Sleep Token headlining Download, and with it the speculation about the future of live music, Outbreak offered a lineup which was arguably the largest statement piece that European, if not global, hardcore could offer, a thrilling insight into the future of the genre, a reality where Turnstile could headline a festival the same weekend as Charli XCX.
Out Of Rage •

DESOLATED: On finding peace and gaining strength from the hardcore community

When it comes to hardcore heavyweights Desolated, guitarist Richy Unsworth has always felt more comfortable playing intimate venues, with devoted crowds that ooze with disorder. “I love it when it properly kicks off, and you’ve got a massive pit. That’s my perfect vibe. I like stage divers, but they don’t happen very often for us, because I think there is not normally a front row, they sort of evacuate.” Perhaps that’s why the title of Desolated’s new album, ‘Finding Peace’, works so well; there...
Out Of Rage •

REVIEW: Desolated - Finding Peace

Hardcore has come a long way in the last nine years, and we’ve seen the monumental rise of the genre, going from strength to strength in underground venues to monstrous no-barrier sets at Coachella. Charli XCX made it known to the heavy music girlies that 2025 will be a Turnstile summer, and even in the UK, the community descends in its droves to Manchester for Outbreak Festival.  In the blink of an eye, how we perceive a genre rooted in community, with its raw brutality of sound and unwavering...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

Top 10 bands you must watch at Slam Dunk Festival 2025 - Distorted Sound Magazine

The iconic Slam Dunk Festival is back for 2025 – and the Vans-wearing, Monster-drinking, pizza-eating elder emo’s will arrive in their droves to Leeds and Hatfield to kickstart the beginning of festival season. Headlined by the phenomenal A DAY TO REMEMBER, the Floridian five-piece will set the tone for the nostalgic barrage of pop-punk that sets the high standard across the weekend. Amongst the checker-printed chaos, the festival also champions metalcore, Midwest-emo and the brightest rising st...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

ALBUM REVIEW: Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience - Bury Tomorrow - Distorted Sound Magazine

BURY TOMORROW have always been a band flooded with emotion, but could also survive the toughest oncoming storms. For their latest release, Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience, their eleven-track odyssey into darker waters, is navigated with the intense forces of relentless self-destruction, overwhelming anxiety and a deep absence of emotional clarity. 

Regardless, the relentless nature of the band, through the uncertainty of the pandemic and then the future of the melodic metalcore outfi...
Distorted Sound Magazine •

FEATURE: LANDMVRKS - The Darkest Place I've Ever Been

Assembling the dismembered limbs of their single, Creature, well over a year before beginning the production of their latest record, the members of French metalcore collective LANDMVRKS realised that in order to create life, it needed to meet its maker. The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been is an album that embodies the damaging spiral of mental health, whilst putting yourself into your art becomes as much of a struggle as it is an enduring strength.
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