ROCK bands from across the UK will descend on Keighley on May 12 for the town’s biggest annual heavy metal festival.

The line-up of this year’s Manorfest will feature nine loud-and-proud bands including Valafar, Xentrix, Evile and Memoriam.

Completing the line-up for the Victoria Hall gig in aid of Manorlands will be Ashen Crown, Ten Ton Slug , Damnation Hammer, Monolith Cult and Sellsword.

Manorfest made its debut last year and was billed as the greatest-ever line-up of international, national and local talent ever to play Keighley.

Headliners at the successful gig were Swedish rockers Grand Magus, playing straight after their world tour, with the line-up also including this year’s participants Memoriam and Valafar.

Manor Fest was born out of DioFest, a music event held in 2014 and 2015 to honour internationally-renowned musician Ronnie James Dio on the anniversary of his death from cancer.

The events at the Exchange Arts Centre in Keighley raised £4,000 each year to fight cancer, with tickets selling out before the event and a long waiting list of bands eager to give their time and talents.

As a result, organisers moved to Victoria Hall, with its greatly-increased crowd capacity and a chance to recruit bigger bands.

Evile, the headliners, are a thrash metal band from Huddersfield, who have built an international following over the past 14 years.

The band's debut album, Enter the Grave, was produced by Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark and was released worldwide in 2007 by Earache Records to critical acclaim, with leading heavy rock magazine Kerrang! saying they were spearheading the thrash genre’s revival.

Albums like Infected Nations, Five Serpent's Teeth, and School have followed.

Also high up the bill are Memoriam who promise an “authentic, raw flood of old school Death Metal destruction” focusing on death, war and loss.

The band, who toured Europe last year, will release their second album The Silent Vigil on March 23, with songs like Soulless Parasite, No Known Grave, Weaponised Fear and From The Flames.

Valafar, who have played Keighley several times, are death metal band from Bradford who are influenced by artists like Amon Amarth, Obituary and Entombed.

Xentrix are a Preston thrash metal band who, under original name Sweet Vengeance, became one of the leading lights of the British/movement in the 1980s, and have since sold more than 500,000 records worldwide.

Visit eventbrite.co.uk for further information and to book tickets.