Richard Spencer

Alongside writing music reviews whenever and wherever (we're meant to be together) I can, I play bass in local blackened post metal band Ba'al, in which fellow Now Then contributor Nick Gosling plays guitar. People have also told me I look suspiciously similar to the corpse-painted guitar player of local 'Easy Listening Metal/Corporate Black Metal' band Bleating Apocalypse... I also co-run the small independent music site We Are Unseen, and spend all my money ruining my ears at gigs.

I'm originally from down in the dirty depths of Sussex - specifically the Scientology haven East Grinstead - but have since become part of the statistic of people who come to Sheffield for Uni (University of Sheffield, BA English Language & Linguistics, Class of 2014 represent) and never leave. Literally - my day jobs since my year of graduation have all been at the University.

Despite listening to and playing music as heavy, disgusting and bizarre as I possibly can, I have equal love for electronic music, ambient, hip-hop, prog, folk, drone, classical, post rock and plenty more besides. I'm also a classically trained viola (and to a lesser extent, violin) player, and only stopped playing regularly in orchestras a few years back when the 'sick riffs' [citation needed] took too much of my time from me to balance both.

I've been writing for Now Then sporadically since 2015, and I have nothing but love and respect for the platform, and gratefulness the opportunities its given me to explore cool music, get my writing in front of people, and have a monthly argument/race with my bandmate Nick to try and be the first one to call dibs on the metal records.