There’s a wonderfully surreal moment in The Simpsons when Abe Simpson inexplicably proclaims, “the Swedish are coming! The Swedish are coming!”. Well, tonight in frosty Birmingham, that’s exactly what’s happening. Hailing from the land of Abba, Ikea, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, three of the finest exponents of melodic death metal have landed in Blighty to bang heads and kick bottom.Continue reading
For just one weekend the Banc of California Stadium was transformed into a carnivalesque outdoor funhouse for the Adult Swim Festival. The stadium was alive with colorful distorted animations reminiscent of children’s cartoons and claymation scenes warped and hyperbolized beyond the mind’s comprehension, while a giant Meatwad dome sat across an even larger inflatable slide shaped like Morty’s head vomiting a rainbow.
On November 3, 2019, the relatively quiet college town of New Haven, CT welcomed a five-part, earth-shaking line up to their prized venue, Toad’s Place. Back-to-back headbangers, Santa Cruz, Tempting Fate, He Is Legend and Whitechapel, all supported Atreyu on their 20th-anniversary tour and packed out the intimate venue. None of the “do not mosh” signs stood a chance against the excitable and enthusiastic fans who could not resist a circle pit.Continue reading
The Fresh-faced act Gatecreeper and the veteran collective Exhumed both recently released shiny new full-length albums. Just six weeks ago we were gifted with some fresh and fearsome material from these great groups. Now they have joined forces on the road to play their new fantastically foul tunes. The Sanctuary was an ideal venue to host a stop on this tour. It’s the perfect size and atmosphere for the fans to experience an intimate and enjoyable encounter with these Death Metal experts. Just outside of Detroit, The Sanctuary caters particularly well to the heavy. This pocket-sized music club proudly hosts some of the best metal shows that come through Michigan. With venues like this, and local acts like Mutilatred, show us that the metal scene in this state is alive and well. The enthusiastic gang of guys in Mutilatred opened the show with a spunky, spirited set. They even handed out actual paper flyers which gave the night a marvelously old school feel. Continue reading
For years, metal and hardcore have been regular bedfellows but that wasn’t always the way. Back in the ’80s, metalheads regularly ran the risk of getting beaten up if they attended hardcore or punk shows. Skins and Mohawks did not take kindly to long-hairs stepping onto their turf, and vice versa. It wasn’t until the emergence of more popular bands like Slayer who, by straddling both genres, showed that the two sets of fans were capable of co-existing without confrontation.
I can still remember the very moment the band Cold came hurtling into my atmosphere like a brilliant meteor, hell-bent on causing upheaval. Scooter Ward and his musical cohorts were the direct support band for the St. Louis, Missouri Industrial band, Gravity Kills. Cold, with their first studio album, just released, was still flying under the radar as far as getting mainstream exposure and radio play. The small venue in La Crosse, Wisconsin was sold-out on that balmy summer evening. I was unaware of how my life would be altered forever by a band I had never even heard of when I walked into that venue.Continue reading
Exit 111 Festival, aptly named for the highway exit in Manchester TN, made its début October 11-13, 2019. Arriving in powers of three, it was three days of riffs, rock, and rowdiness. One part Metal, one part Rock, one Southern rock, and a whole lot of nostalgia, the event hosted three stages: the Rise Above Stage (honored suicide awareness and featured many of the Classic rock/Southern rock acts), Heaven Stage (the main stage and home to the headliners), and Hell Stage (spotlighted mainly heavy artists).Continue reading
When thinking of the power metal scene in general, you would be forgiven for not necessarily considering Britain an institution of it. Considering that Germany has offered the worldwide scene the likes of Helloween and Blind Guardian, and Finnish groups such as Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica, it is unsurprising that power metal shows in the UK come few and far between, despite the country’s roots in the highly influential NWOBHM genre.Continue reading
If you have read these web pages of Ghost Cult, you know one of our favorite albums of 2019 is the solo début album from William DuVall of Alice In Chains. While many know him for fronting that legendary band since their comeback in 2006. However, as discussed in our review of One Alone, Duvall’s lengthy career has traversed genres and time-space in a way that all great singer/songwriters can. The album is introspective, yet fiery and lends itself to this solo setting. With the artist doing a brief tour to promote the release, we were excited to see a new side of the man in person at Cutting Room in midtown east neighborhood of Manhattan. Continue reading
When Axl Rose waxed romantically about cold November rain in back in 1992, he clearly wasn’t singing about Leeds on a Saturday morning. A cold, depressing day darkened by oppressive black clouds showering their misery relentlessly from above, there is nothing romantic about Leeds city centre. However, above the sound of rain pelting against umbrella canopies, and cars splashing through ankle-high lakes of dirty water, there is hope. Somewhere out there is Damnation Festival.Continue reading