Rocklahoma, now 11 years and counting has unveiled a massive lineup of rockers for its 2017 festival.Presented by Bud Light, the fest runs Memorial Day Weekend – May 26, 27 & 28, 2017 at “Catch the Fever” Festival Grounds in Pryor, Oklahoma, just outside Tulsa. Soundgarden, Def Leppard, The Offspring, Stone Sour, Seether, Three Days Grace, The Cult, Skillet, Ratt (featuring Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Juan Croucier and Carlos Cavazo), Jackyl, The Pretty Reckless, Pierce The Veil, Taking Back Sunday, Suicidal Tendencies, and more have been announced. Continue reading →
After a wobbly Saturday morning start, Akercocke carried on from where they left off a few years ago, improving and gaining/regaining fans as they went along. Rotting Christ sounded fantastic, The King is Blind completely owned the second stage for forty brutal minutes, and Fear Factory treated the crowd to all of 1995’s Demanufacture album while singer Burton C Bell tried his best to keep his voice from cracking. Paradise Lost played a set filled with heavier material, and Gojira stunned the majority of the audience with a set that not even headliners Mastodon could come close to touching. A typically eclectic set, the Atlantan four-piece struggled to get any momentum going, and even with the aid of some fancy video screens, only occasionally showed signs of being genuine headliners. A new version of old UK thrashers Acid Reign also managed to steal Mastodon’s thunder all the way from the second stage, playing one of the fastest and most enjoyable thrash sets of the festival while singer, ‘H’, looked resplendent in his shocking pink suit and top hat.
Gojira, photo credit Bloodstock Open Air on Facebook
And so to Sunday, and to the wonders of Ghost Bath. Only possessing the vaguest of knowledge about this band, I was simply unprepared for the next forty highly confusing (and occasionally eye-wateringly funny) minutes. Imagine a Black Metal band fronted by the shrieking goat from YouTube and you’d have a good idea of what I witnessed that morning.
Although the pedigree of the members of Metal Allegiance is not in question, I’m afraid the same cannot be said of their collective efforts. Cover version after horrible cover version was mauled and discarded, as people turned to each other in disbelief and disappointment. Playing all of 1996 album Nemesis Divina in full, Black Metallers Satyricon put in one of the performances of the weekend, even in the blazing sunshine. Finland’s Whispered took to the stage in their Japanese costumes and make-up and proceeded to win over an entire tent of confused onlookers. Technical Thrashers Vektor followed and even more people left with smiling faces. Symphony X gave everyone on the main stage plenty to sing along to, but Anthrax obliterated their memory in seconds. The last time the New York outfit played here in 2013, it was all fairly average, maybe even disappointing. But not this time. They were on fire from the second they launched into ‘You Gotta Believe’ until they left the stage to ‘Indians’. Nobody even cared that they dropped a couple of favourites in order to showcase newer material.
Anthrax, photo credit Gary Alcock
Even headliners Slayer struggled to keep up. Again, like Anthrax, it was a much improved performance from 2013, but things seemed to go a little awry in the latter stages of their set. For some reason, ‘Hell Awaits’ became an instrumental after the first chorus, and Tom’s demeanour changed from happy and smiling to fairly disinterested around the same time. Still, when they came back out for the encore of ‘South of Heaven’, ‘Raining Blood’, and ‘Angel of Death’ everything was quickly forgiven and forgotten. It was left up to New Orleans bandGoatwhore to close the weekend on the second stage, and they did so imperiously with one of the loudest, heaviest hours of the festival.
Slayer, photo credit Gary Alcock
From the almost comical amount of crowd surfers (Acid Reign alone clocked 263 in one hour – an average of over four per minute) to the spontaneous chant of “MAN IN YELLOW”, directed to one of the security staff stood on the scaffolding before Slayer, to the glorious weather and generally contagious good feeling of everyone in attendance (even a lot of the campsite toilets were still usable by the Monday morning!), there was only one place to be last week.
There were a few odd little problems, of course. Since the festival ended, a story has emerged that a girl was sexually assaulted in her tent, and the amount of moshpit idiocy seems to be on the increase again. Not, this time, from the shirtless circle-pitters and kung-fu merchants, but this time from the people who stand on the barrier all day, doing their best to punch and deliberately tear clumps of hair from any crowd surfer (male and female) unlucky enough to invade their personal space as they get dragged over the front. Making sure at all times, of course, that security have a firm hold of their target first so that they can’t retaliate.
The worst thing this year though was the repeated loop of the same bloody music videos on the big screen all weekend. When I arrived in the main arena on the Friday, I said “hey, this new Wormrot song’s great. I’ll definitely be getting the album”. By the time Saturday evening came around, I never wanted to hear fucking thing again. And as for the constant exposure to the videos of Wakrat and Blackberry Smoke, let’s just say that if I ever meet either of those bands in person, then it won’t end pleasantly for either of them.
Overall though, and yet again, Bloodstock Open Air was a roaring success.
For those of you who may be unaware, Bloodstock Open Air is a UK festival which began at the Derby Assembly Rooms in 2001. After four successful years, the decision was made to turn one festival into two. One would remain at the same venue, while a bold, open air venture would take place at Catton Hall in nearby Walton-on-Trent. The outdoor festival proved to be a hit, the indoor show was subsequently dropped, and the annually held event has gone on to expand in both size and stature ever since.
Bloodstock 2016 Thursday crowd, photo credit BOA on Facebook
Thursday’s festivities were kept fairly low-key as usual, with short, enjoyable sets from Karybdis and Sumer, with Ireland’s Psykosis left toreally get the party started. The evening was rounded off by the newly renamed Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons (formerly Phil Campbell’s All Starr Band), the former Motorhead guitarist ploughing through a selection of Motorhead covers plus ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie, ‘Sweet Leaf’ by Black Sabbath, and ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ by ZZ Top. Joined on stage by Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider and Pepper Keenan of COC for a truly memorable version of ‘Born To Raise Hell’, the band eventually brought things to a rousing climax with a cover of ‘Silver Machine’ by Hawkwind.
Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons with Dee Snider, photo credit BOA on Facebook
Friday is where the entertainment really begins at Bloodstock though, and you don’t get much more entertaining than songs about unicorns and space wizards followed by a battle cry of “We are Gloryhammer and we sing songs about hammers!” Evil Scarecrow followed, and you simply haven’t lived until you’ve held your pincers in the air and scuttled from side to side for the mighty ‘Crabulon’. Corrosion of Conformity played a typically crowd-pleasing set of which my only criticism would be ‘Clean My Wounds’ being used as the backbone for a rambling, ten minute long jam session. Venom‘s Legendary bassist/vocalist, Cronos, snarled and joked his way through their set, but the band let themselves down with a poor choice of songs. No such problems from Behemoth though, who played latest album ‘The Satanist’ in its entirety before finishing with a blistering encore of ‘Ov Fire and the Void’ and ‘Chant For Ezkaton’.
Britain has always held a special place in Twisted Sister‘s heart and it really showed in their last ever performance here. Drawing the biggest ever crowd for a Bloodstock headline act, it was the perfect send off for one of the finest American Heavy Metal bands to ever grace a UK stage. Diamond Head finished off the evening on the second stage in competent, if unspectacular style. At least they didn’t sound like a tribute act to themselves like they did the last time I saw them.
Returning to the studio after an absence of nine years, West Midlands NWOBHM act Diamond Head go down the self-titled route with their comeback album Diamond Head (Dissonance).
Guitarist Brian Tatler may be the band’s only original member, but new singer Rasmus Bom Andersen sounds like he’s been in place for years. The band have returned to their classic sound, and his voice suits them perfectly. In fact, if it wasn’t for the album’s crisp production, you could be fooled into thinking this latest offering had been lost in the vaults for years.
There’s nothing here which is going to change the world, or suddenly turn the band into megastars, but if you want to hear what the follow-up to 1982’s Borrowed Time (MCA) could have sounded like without all the Prog waffle and experimental nonsense of Canterbury (MCA) then this really is the album for you.
Tatler’s playing is superb, and the riffs fly at you from all directions. It doesn’t even matter that some of them sound a little familiar. The solos are sweet and precise, the choruses are memorable, and the whole thing is just enjoyable. Something a Diamond Head album hasn’t really been for years.
‘Shout At Devil’ and ‘Speed’ rock seriously hard, ‘Diamonds’ is a great closer, ‘All the Reasons You Live’ is nice and dark, and the amusingly dirty ‘Wizard Sleeve’ with it’s “can I come inside your wizard sleeve” chorus is a song which really does sound like it could have been recorded in the early ’80s.
A fine, and long overdue return to form by a band who don’t sound like they’re desperately attempting to recapture former glories, but who are just doing what comes naturally.
And I didn’t even mention Am I Evil or Metallica once.
Ye gods! Somebody in this band fucking loves a bit of Black Sabbath! Hawkwind and Deep Purple too I’d wager. Now, I’m not normally one for Stoner, Doom or Space Rock, but this album is quite charming, as it has a certain Southern (as in New Orleans, not New Cross) sensibility about it that stops it from descending into the sludgey pit of boredom that bands of those genres so often inhabit. Think of it as Corrosion of Conformity with Ozzy singing and Monster Magnet producing in the early 1970s. Then chuck a bit of Hawkwind at it and you’re done.
The problem with revival bands like this is that they can often struggle to find their own identities. I think Sweat Lodge‘s Talismana (Ripple) suffers a little from this tendancy, as it can often sound like a 70s rock compilation that’s been chopped up & stirred together. On the other hand, their love for that period is obvious and they clearly know their history (only 9 tracks!). The sounds, effects and hooks are all perfectly pitched and it’s frankly astonishing to hear something like this being recorded today. Impressive. So if you like your 70s rock & metal, you’ll love this. Also, if you like modern revival and mid-fi stuff like The Sword, Spiritual Beggars or Wolfmother it should likewise give you an earection.
The album opens with somewhat derivative but wonderfully named ‘Tramplifier’. Standout tracks are ‘Bed of Ashes’ (this could almost be Sabbath), ‘Phoenix Ascent’ (Deep Purpletastic and my favourite), ‘Heavy Head’ (great riffs, lots of layers, varied vocals, a spacey midsection and a cheeky tease of an ending) and ‘Banshee Call’ (a Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac intro that opens out into straight up Diamond Head – lovely).
Top job from a clearly talented and passionate band.
Enforcer’s shtick was old before they had even recorded their first demo. But four albums into their career and they can pen a good ode to classic 80s metal. The Swedish four piece – Olof Wikstrand (Guitars & Vocals), Joseph Tholl (Guitars), Tobias Lindqvist (Bass), Jonas Wikstrand (Drums) – probably know it’s not 1982 anymore (we hope…), but they don’t care.
It’s good, mindless fun, and that’s ok.
From the opening notes of ‘Destroyer’ you know what you’re going to get over the next 40-odd minutes; no pretence, no bullshit, just big riffs, melodic hooks, shout-along choruses and the urge to wear nothing but denim and leather. This is pure high octane 80’s metal from 2015.
You like galloping riffs? We got it. High-pitch wailing? You know it. Air-guitar inducing solos? Of course. Enforcer have done their research; Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, Saxon, plus numerous lesser known ‘cult’ acts; all your favourite NWOBHM influences are present and accounted for. It’s a meticulous copy of all the best bits of heavy metal’s classic years combined with a good ear for hooks. You could make a game out of identifying which riffs they’ve stolen from which band/album.
From Beyond (Nuclear Blast) has a default tempo of fast. The likes of ‘One with Fire,’ ‘Hell Will Follow’ and the opener all scream speed metal. ‘The Banshee’s simple but addictive chorus and twin lead guitars has future crowd pleaser written all over it, while ‘Below The Slumber’ and album closer ‘Mask of Red Death’ are both six-minute mini-epics; starting slow and quiet before bringing a plenitude of riffs and noise.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with From Beyond; if you liked any of their previous efforts (or indeed any other super retro act) they’ll be plenty to enjoy here, and if you have a craving for authentic sounding metal from three decades ago you’ll be more than pleased. But anyone chasing anything more than nostalgia will find nothing particularly to enthuse about.
When you think of Seattle, the first things that usually come to your mind would be grunge, over priced coffee and a distinct feeling of melancholy which coincidentally has led to some of the best music ever to be produced, whether that be from The Melvins, Nirvana or Jimi Hendrix. Despite its rich musical history, you don’t expect Seattle to produce that many NWOBHM tinged thrash bands. After 25 years Sanctuary has returned with their new album The Year The Sun Died (Century Media) and in all honesty it might be worth the wait.
Despite the controversy surrounding frontman’s Warrel Dane’s decision to momentarily decommission progressive metal giants Nevermore to restart Sanctuary taking most of the press coverage around the release of this album, it would be foolish to not look at this album on its own merits. The Year The Sun Died is a sleekly produced modern trash album that packs one hell of a punch, in terms of its frenetic guitar leads and powerful drums that power the album forward like a charging rhino.
Warrel Dane recently informed fans worrying about his vocal ability that he could still nail the high notes from the bands previous albums and he has certainly proved his neigh-sayers wrong here. Dane is on fine form with his powerful almost operatic NWOBHM vocals which draw the obvious parallels to them of Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford.
While its certainly more of an early days of thrash album than the heavier era or Exodus or Kreator, The Year The Sun Died certainly has its moments of thrash goodness, but overall the album is more Diamond Head than Slayer.
Overall, Sanctuary have hit a home run with their return album. The riffs are there as well as the one of the best production jobs you are likely to hear this year, the albums sounds like a razor sharp turbo charged Judas Priest and has the kind of bite that came from the Andy Sneap produced Megadeth albums. It is real treat for fans of anthemic, polished melodic metal.
