“It’s a taxidermied chick, dressed as an elf.” The curious thing being held up for Kerrang! to get a proper look at is, indeed, as described. It was, explains its owner, known to the black metal world as Abduction leader A|V, a present from a “full-time artist weirdo” friend. “When we see each other we’ll exchange gifts, and she’ll usually have something like this.” On another occasion, said friend presented A|V with “a 20-kilo carrier bag of bones”. It’s these that you see as part of his presentation to the world, hanging round his neck, beneath a face obscured by a mask also made of remains. “They’re 200-year-old cow and sheep and pig bones dredged from the silt in the Thames, probably from a Victorian butcher’s shop waste pipe,” he elabora...