Metal music PR in London
Two lists, run as one campaign: the national metal press, and the London media and venue network that gives a national writer a reason to take you seriously.
Metal has the most fragmented press landscape of any genre and the most knowledgeable audience. Both facts point the same way: precision matters more here than reach. A writer who covers doom will not cover metalcore, the readerships barely overlap, and sending the same pitch to both marks you immediately as someone who does not know the genre.
What actually helps in London is scene legibility. The city's music press thinks in venues and orbits — the room you play in tells a features editor more about you than any description of your sound. A campaign that can place you inside one of those orbits will always outperform one that simply says you are from London.
A metal campaign run from London therefore works on two levels at once. The genre list reaches the writers who cover this music nationally. The city list builds the local foundation that makes the genre pitch credible — because an artist who already has coverage, radio support and a live reputation at home is a considerably easier sell than one who arrives with only a track.
The national metal list
The UK metal press, from the national titles down to the underground.
The principal UK metal title. Broad subgenre coverage with specialist writers behind each.
Skews towards metalcore, alternative metal and the heavier mainstream.
Comprehensive UK metal coverage across subgenres, and genuinely accessible to unsigned bands.
Independent and prolific, with a real commitment to underground UK metal.
Extensive live and release coverage, receptive to developing bands.
Digital home of the Metal Hammer and Classic Rock territory.
The London list
London-based and London-facing media worth targeting alongside the national titles.
Still the default listings authority for the city, with real influence on ticket sales for mid-size shows.
Peckham-based, youth-led and genuinely influential in London's rap and R&B scenes.
Dalston-based with international reach. Extremely influential across electronic and leftfield music.
Central to London club culture across garage, grime, house and bass.
Broad remit and receptive to emerging London artists across genres.
The rooms
The Windmill in Brixton has produced more press-relevant guitar bands in the last decade than any other room in Britain, and a residency there is a story in itself. MOTH Club and The Shacklewell Arms anchor the Hackney circuit. The Lexington and Sebright Arms remain reliable proof-of-life rooms for developing bands. Corsica Studios, fold and Venue MOT cover the club end. New River Studios and Cafe OTO serve the experimental scene. For a step up, EartH, Village Underground, Scala and Electric Ballroom are the rooms that signal an artist has an audience rather than a following.
How we pitch it
Subgenre precision, always
We establish exactly where you sit — and if you sit between two, we build two lists. Doom, blackgaze, metalcore, death, thrash, sludge, prog metal and post-metal have overlapping audiences but almost entirely separate writers.
The underground is the foundation
In metal, the specialist blogs and zines are not a consolation prize for missing the nationals. They are where the actual audience is, and they build the credibility that the bigger titles later respond to.
What's included
Metal artist in London?
Send us the track, the release date and where you have played. We will tell you what is realistic before you spend anything.