The Mega Monsters Tour with co-headliners of Gojira and Mastodon with Lorna Shore in support, arrived in Syracuse at the Upstate Medical Arena at The Oncenter War Memorial Syracuse. Say that five times fast. Starting back in April and going strong since then, the US portion is coming to an end, but a whole European tour remains. The Mega Monsters Tour is a massive undertaking and won’t come to an end until the beginning of December in Germany. Continue reading
London-based three-piece Urne announced themselves with the stylish Serpent & Spirit, one of the standout Metal debuts of 2021, and a gloriously dismal collection of songs that unashamedly paid homage to an influence of classic eighties Thrash Metal, mixed with an intriguing blend of traditional rock and melodic death metal.
It was a perfect spring evening last Tuesday in Sterling Heights when Alternative Metal giants Deftones brought their tour to town. The sun was shining, and the birds were singing when a line of traffic started to form outside the Michigan Lottery Amphitheater. Cars were bumper to bumper as they tried to squeeze their way into the sold-out show at this Detroit suburb open-air venue. The opening act of the tour, VOWWS, could not make the gig so the second band on the roster, the mighty Gojira opened up the night.
Twenty-plus years into a career doing anything in the world might make you take your foot off the gas pedal, especially an industry as brutal as the music industry. However, Manitoba’s Comeback Kid continue to challenge themselves to keep refining their sound, and sharpening their focus over a series of releases. The bands’ new album Heavy Steps (Nuclear Blast/New Damage) shows the veteran band of the scene lifting up the rest of us up with defiant music set on highlighting what makes life worth fighting for. uniting us.
Northeastern Indiana may not be the first area that would come to mind when considering a hotspot for art and culture. Yet Fort Wayne’s Clyde Theatre is a state-of-the-art facility that presents and celebrates some of the world’s greatest artists. Originally a movie house from the fifties, this recently renovated theatre carries a vibrant vintage vibe making it a local gem to the surrounding area. The place was lit with life last Sunday evening when hundreds of metal lovers swarmed through the venue’s historic doors. The French Extreme Metal act, Gojira was in town. These modern metallers have been on US soil for the last couple of months promoting their new album, Fortitude (Roadrunner Records, read our review here), which came out this past Spring. Fort Wayne was their third to last stop on this run, yet they made it clear they would be back state-side very soon. Over the last few years, Gojira is a group that has heated things up for the scene. They brought two new budding bands on tour to complement their fire. Alien Weaponry and Knocked Loose have their own high temperatures to give off, which ignited an evening of feverish and fantastic excitement. Continue reading
It should be clear by now that inertia and complacency are words that simply don’t exist in the vocabulary of French progressive death metal act Gojira, and with the latest album Fortitude (Roadrunner Records) the band have made some of their biggest and most diverse strides to date.
It’s the hottest day of the year. Stepping outside feels like walking into a furnace, and the pollen count is so high that even the bees are saying “yeah, that’s enough, thanks”. All because apparently, the sun has arbitrarily decided that in the space of twelve hours, everyone in the UK has to die by melting.Continue reading
Covers are a funny thing in music. Nowhere else in art is this level of flattery both respected and derided. Copies or recreations of painting or sculpture are often labeled as “influenced by” or worse, a forgery. All the remakes Hollywood keeps ramming our eyeholes with are mostly flaming hot garbage at summertime in New York City. With cover songs, the best ones are often not a note for note recreation of the original, unless it is an underrated artist or a little known song. From ‘Yesterday” to ‘Cum On Feel The Noise’, Covers have earned a place in our musical culture not only as a novelty. Others can take a well-known song and take it to new heights. Mastodon has done some stellar covers (‘The Bit’ from Melvins, ‘Emerald’ by, Thin Lizzy) and has now added all-time classic rock anthem ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin to the mix. Done in tribute to their late manager Nick John on the Stairway To Nick (Reprise Records) 10″ single for Record Store Day 2019, since Nick was a massive Zep fan. Tragically he passed away after a bout with pancreatic cancer in 2018. Mastodon will donate the proceeds from this release to research for that very disease. You can actually say they did it “because Nick John would have wanted it that way”. And you’d be right. He’d be touched. Continue reading
Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time” came out earlier this month, and ever since its release, the site has been sharing the personal lists that were sent in by some of heavy metal’s biggest names. So far we’ve seen the “Top Ten” from Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, Lars Ulrich, and Corey Taylor, and today we have another one. Continue reading
This past year will go down as one of triumph over tragedy, more so than any other recent memory. It seems that across the board suffering in the world and on a personal level has been paramount in people’s minds. The same can be said for French metal gods Gojira, whose Magma (Roadrunner) is nothing short of brilliance, created from a place of angst and suffering on a level the band hasn’t dealt with before. Not only is it is a technical and artistic marvel, it stands apart on an emotional level for the creators, as well as the listener. The if the best art is made from a well of pain, Gojira hit the bottom of the well and came through an ocean on the other side to get here. Continue reading