Metal music PR in Manchester
Two lists, run as one campaign. The specialist metal press, and the Manchester media and venue network that gives a 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.
It also carries a weight of history that cuts both ways. Manchester bands get read, which is an advantage. They also get compared, immediately and often lazily, to four decades of predecessors. Getting ahead of that comparison is a specific piece of work and it belongs in the first draft of the pitch, not the fifth.
A metal campaign run from Manchester therefore works on two levels at once. The genre list reaches the writers who cover this music seriously. 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 metal list
The underground and specialist layer, which in metal is not a consolation prize. It is where the audience actually is.
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.
Small-run print and digital zines within each subgenre. Disproportionate credibility inside the scene.
Community and internet radio metal programming, with small but fanatical audiences.
Doom, black metal, tech-death and hardcore podcasts, each with its own committed listenership.
The Manchester list
Manchester's local music media, which is unusually strong for a UK city outside London.
Community station with strong emerging-artist support and a real audience among the city's musicians.
Long-standing Manchester station, particularly strong on dance and urban music.
Rock-oriented commercial station with genuine local commitment.
Broad reach across Greater Manchester. A general-audience desk, so it needs a story rather than a release.
Independent cultural coverage with real credibility locally. Competitive, and usually reached with some coverage behind you.
The rooms
Night & Day Café remains the room a Manchester band is expected to have played, and its ongoing licensing fights have made it a story in its own right. The Deaf Institute and YES cover the step up, with YES's multiple rooms making it useful at several stages of a band's development. Band on the Wall carries genuine institutional weight after its refurbishment. Soup and The Peer Hat serve the more experimental and DIY end. Gullivers and The Castle Hotel anchor the Northern Quarter small-room circuit. Beyond those, Gorilla, Academy 2 and New Century mark the transition to a real touring audience.
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 Manchester?
Send us the track, the release date and where you have played. We will tell you what is realistic before you spend anything.