The Monster Energy Aftershock Festival has announced it daily lineups and set times for this years event. Tool (in a rare U.S. festival appearance) and Avenged Sevenfold are the headliners along with Primus, Meshuggah, Korn, Disturbed.The fest takes place at Discovery Park in Sacramento, CA on October 22nd & 23rd. The lineup is below: Continue reading
The première music festival on the west coast, Monster Energy Aftershock is booked for a fifth edition this October 22nd and 23rd at Sacramento, California’s Discovery Park.Continue reading
In a little more than a handful of years, California’s Of Mice And Men went from metalcore newcomers to one of the greatest American rock bands today. They did this by making fine albums and touring constantly, building rabid following, and being all about their fans. However, the road to the top has not been easy by any means.Continue reading
Back for an 11th year in a row, Amnesia Rockfest near Quebec, in Montebello Canada will host mega bands such as Blink-182, Rise Against, Jane’s Addiction, Limp Bizkit and Ice Cube among the 125 bands who are slated to perform. Other bands scheduled to appear include Korn, Ontario punks Billy Talent and Sum 41, Bring Me The Horizon, Florida’s A Day To Remember, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Twisted Sister (farewell tour and last show in Canada), Puscifer, NOFX (performing their album Punk In Drublic), The Used (performing their album In Love and Death), At The Drive-In (reunion show), Underoath (reunion show), Blink-182’s Travis Barker (solo show), NOFX’s Fat Mike performing as Cokie The Clown (world-exclusive solo show), Lagwagon (performing their album Hoss), Millencolin, Streetlight Manifesto, Against Me!, Strung Out, Guttermouth, No Use For A Name (special tribute), Leftover Crack, Wizo, Flag, The Adicts, Misfits, Dead Kennedys, Steve Ignorant of Crass, D.O.A., Turbonegro and GG Allin (special tribute), Sepultura, Sodom (first show in Canada in 10 years), D.R.I. (first show in Canada in 20 years), Cannibal Corpse, Korpiklaani, Max & Igor Cavalera Back To ‘Roots’ (performing Sepultura’s Roots album), Corrosion Of Conformity, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless and Poison The Well (reunion show) and many more. Some defunct Quebec bands will temporarily reunite exclusively for Amnesia Rockfest, including Vulgaires Machins, Kermess, Raid, Démence and Yelo Molo. Festival regulars Grimskunk, Despised Icon, The Sainte Catherines (performing Dancing for Decadence), Voivod, Anonymus and BARF will be back this year. In addition, Québec Redneck Bluegrass Project, Bob Bissonnette, Gorguts and WD-40, alt rock legends Ludwig Von 88 (reunion show and only Canadian date) and Les Ramoneurs de Menhirs, Bérurier Noir’s Loran’s group.
Tickets are now on sale at www.amnesiarockfest.com and at Amnesia stores. Once again this year, festival weekend passes will be sold at very reasonable rates: $120 (plus fees and taxes), which comes out to less than a dollar per band! New this year: festival-goers can pay for their order in five instalments. VIP packages are also available.
For the 2016 edition of the festival, the VIP campground will be totally revamped to offer a unique experience to festival-goers. Again this year, several public transit options will be available, as well as an area for RV camping.
I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to hear this record right now or to write this review. I was not ready to learn David Bowie had died of cancer, and that this already rough start 2016 had already dealt my mental musical Parthenon another harsh blow. Before I was laid low by these events, I was intrigued by the ‘Lazarus’ music video and pre-ordered Blackstar (Columbia/ RCA) on Amazon. But I hadn’t played the album one time in a busy weekend. And then once the news came down, I retreated to what most do in these cases, share my sorrow publicly and played my favorites on a loop for a few days. Mainly relegated to what is on my old iPod Classic 160 GB, my portable Bowie collection is mainly the 70s albums I grew up on (Diamond Dogs, Station To Station, Low, Heroes, Lodger, my 1990s favorite Outside, and some obligatory hits here and there I’m sure everyone else knows well. I wasn’t sure how to approach this final album review from an artist I admired all my life, knowing this was the last new thing I would ever hear from him. I laid down in bed for the first few listens. Just in bed in the dark with my headphones on.
As much an album rooted in Bowie’s entire oeuvre, ‘Blackstar’ is equally an album that would have come from a future timeline or reality. The epic title track opens things up and is almost like a little elctronica-based rock operetta. It chirps to life at once, but soon morphs into a gorgeous, almost Gospel rock-inflected anthem. The third motif in the middle section has the grit and grace of any great rock song the man ever put down on wax. Vocally and lyrically alone, the performance moved me to tears right away. Of course these ominous whooshing churchly vocals, swelling and brooding horns and reeds, right along side with lyrics about life, death, fame and rebirth heard in the context of knowing he had died surely hit me harder than it would have otherwise. That doesn’t make this track any less amazing.
The rest of the album flirts with an array of stylistic choices. The powerful uptempo beat of ‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore’ comes with a subtle Sun-Ra style discordant beauty to it. A chaos that flirts with ruin, but holding together by a thread of greatness. David’s voice is just magical, and harkening back to his earliest work in a lot of ways. Donny McCaslin’s brass work just crushes on this track.
‘Lazarus’ is a song that along with its companion video will be analyzed, deconstructed and perhaps books will be written about for the next few decades I would imagine. The somber balladry of the tune can barely stand up to the titanic lyrics. It was hearing the collected writing of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross set to song. No doubt anyone who heard the track when it came out, saw it in a different light after David’s death. The eerie lyrics are not just prophecy, they are spooky real. Like a manifest from the before the grave. Many artists wrote with their own death as a specter in their life that was all too real to them. Hank Williams Sr., Warren Zevon, Frank Zappa, and hell, evenin the tragic case of Jeff Buckley; he must have “felt like he was dying since the day he was born” in the purest sense. Bowie was clearly leaving no illusions to chance with this track, so present and bare and raw about the sum of his life coming to a bittersweet end. And you never want the track to end, but it does as well.
At this point, after a track like ‘Lazurus’, it starts to be hard to even track quality on a real scale that has meaning, but I will press on. In a change of pace and tone ‘Sue (Or In A Season of Crime)’ is a slick blend of those killer collaborations with Brian Eno, but via the centrifuge of the many who followed in those massive footsteps too like Nine Inch Nails or more recently, Puscifer. ‘Girl Loves Me’ has a creeping rhythm and a call and response refrain. The full expanse of his singing range, including a not often enough heard vamp in his bass register is a thrill and treat. This song will find its fans, but really it’s just slightly above filler.
‘Dollar Days’ again finds us in familiar ground. Almost a call back to his earlier work: a deceptive, emotional, subversive, brilliant pop song. And lyrically again, so final and so very sad, it will break your heart to hear it. Special note goes to the piano work of Jason Lindner.
As the penultimate track evolves via a danceable beat into the beautiful final cut, ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’. It is the sound of an acceptance an artist saying goodbye forever. It would seem that the sentiment of the title is quite the opposite in reality. On Blackstar, Bowie left nothing behind or unsaid; if anything it’s a bit esoteric. Not just in a sense of this album, but his career and his life. And I am still not ready for this. And neither are you.
9.0/10
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Electro R&B and Rock collective The Black Queen has debuted a new video for their track ‘Distanced’. You can watch the clip at this link or below:
‘Distanced’ is the fourth video/single from the band’s upcoming album Fever Daydream releasing on January 29th . The other three videos released were ‘Maybe We Should’, ‘The End Where We Start’, and ‘Ice to Never’. Frontman Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan) is joined in The Black Queen by Josh Eustis (Puscifer) and Steven Alexander. Puciato commented on the ‘Distanced’ video:
“The video came about from Steve showing me cloud tanks, which were what a guy named Douglas Trumbull used to make the cloud effects in ‘Close Encounters.’ The visuals produced with those carried such a perfect combination of beauty and implied dread. We wanted to lean on the lyrics a bit in this song, which are about longing and fixation, the burden of absence, and figured we could do that in a more creative way than a normal lyric video, so I got together with Jesse Draxler, who we’ve worked with on the artwork for the album and ‘The End Where We Start’ single, and collaborated with on the ‘Maybe We Should’ video, and we built a cloud tank one night and shot endless amounts of footage until about five in the morning. We put the lyrics on heavy black poster board behind the tank, and then mailed them to people when we were done. The whole feel of this band has been so delicate and personal to us, and we’ve been so hands on with everything, so it’s nice to know that some people out there received a surprise piece of this video. That’s the part that was really gratifying. Knowing that like fifteen people would be like ‘what is this?’ and then see the video a day later. An element of human connection.”
The band has booked a début live performance which promises to be an exploration of the group’s audio/visual style on January 29th.
The Black Queen debuts live:
Jan 29: Complex – Glendale, CA – buy tickets here.
Pre-orders for Fever Daydream are live now on iTunes and Bandcamp.
The Black Queen on Facebook
The Black Queen on Instagram
It has been quite a year for Puscifer and their leader, Maynard James Keenan. Although he gets the most ink for his association with Tool, it is with Puscifer that Keenan seems to be more in tune with these days. It’s not a surprise that their recent Money Shot (Puscifer Entertainment) is a stellar album, but the level of comfort Keenan and his collaborators share in writing and performing is noticeable. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the theater of it all in person, but the staging and costumes are a guise to draw you in closer. It doesn’t hurt that his band features some amazing talent with mainstays Mat Mitchell, Carina Round and Jeff Friedl; now joined by Mahsa Zargaran and Paul Barker (Ministry) who all play flawlessly together. Keenan per usual is hiding out, preferring to be heard and rarely seen in the middle of a traditional wrestling ring. In one of the most unconventional settings for a concert ever, one of musics’ great frontmen makes his home. Making extra use of the ring was high-flying opening act Luchafer. Captured on the last night of the tour in Prescott, AZ by Melina D Photography, we learned that Puscifer doesn’t need a submission hold or a finishing move to get their message across.
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Puscifer, who just wrapped a spate of tour dates in the US last week, have booked a second leg of the tour for this spring. All dates will be again supported by Luchafer. General on sale tickets and VIP experiences go on sale on December 23rd. The band is supporting Money Shot (Puscifer Entertainment) which was released October 31st.
Puscifer 2016 tour dates, with Luchafer:
Mar 17: Fox Performing Arts Center- Riverside, CA
Mar 18: Comerica Theatre- Phoenix, AZ
Mar 20: Pikes Peak Center- Colorado Springs, CO
Mar 22: Orpheum Theatre- Omaha, NE
Mar 23: Minneapolis, MN – Northrop Auditorium
Mar 25: Riverside Theater- Milwaukee, WI
Mar 26: Devos Performance Hall- Grand Rapids, MI
Mar 28: Coronado Theatre- Rockford, IL
Mar 29: Old National Centre – Murat Theatre- Indianapolis, IN
Mar 30: The LC Indoor Pavilion- Columbus, OH
Apr 01: Stage AE- Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 02: The Fillmore Detroit, MI
Apr 04: Akron Civic Theatre Akron, OH
Apr 05: Center for the Arts – Buffalo, NY
Apr 06: Sony Centre for the Performing Arts – Toronto, ON
Apr 08: Merrill Auditorium Portland, ME
Apr 09: The Paramount – Huntington, NY
Apr 10: Santander Performing Arts Center- Reading, PA
Apr 12: Bergen Performing Arts Center Englewood, NJ
Apr 13: Count Basie Theatre Red Bank, NJ
Apr 16: Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium – Providence, RI
Tickets are on-sale on – Wednesday, Dec. 23 – with VIP packages available simultaneously via.
Puscifer – touring line-up
Maynard James Keenan – vocals
Carina Round -vocals
Mat Mitchell – guitars
Jeff Friedl – drums
Mahsa Zargaran – keyboards/vocals
Paul Barker (Ministry, Lead Into Gold) – bass
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Part two of the Ghost Cult Magazine countdown to our Album of 2015.
And now the end is near, and so we face 2015’s final curtain, and once more the Ghost Cult army got together to vote for their favourites. The results? Over 20 writers pitched and voted on over 220 albums ranging from indie pop to the most horrific savage tentacle laden death metal showing the depth and breadth of the official Ghost Cult Album of the Year for 2015.
The countdown (to extinction) continues…
40. Arcturus – ‘Arcturion’ (Prophecy)
“Once again every track has its own theme and spirit – the “carnivalesque” sound that has been part of their image since LMI is still present… but in terms of musical excellence and thematic power it matches or even exceeds that classic album. Whether or not you’ve ever engaged with Arcturus before, do so now.”
39. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – ‘The Night Creeper’ (Rise Above)
“Throw (it) on at the end of a long day and just let fuzz consume your mind…The Night Creeper is an album worthy of a place in your doom collection. It’s got all of the darkness and foreboding of regular doom but without putting you (me) to sleep.”
Review by Aleida la Llave here
38. Kontinuum – ‘Kyrr’ (Candlelight)
A swirling, enchanting brew of post-rock with touches of blackened metal and psychedelic swirls, as melancholia most vivid is wrapped in progressive motions and dreamy epics and delivered to the sub-conscious in swathes.
37. Cloud Rat – ‘Qliphoth’ (Halo of Flies)
“Qliphoth is a snapshot of a ferociously dedicated and hardworking band continuing to carve out their own unique sense of what Grindcore can be. Cloud Rat have offered something both rare and interesting, and have made themselves genuinely the best new Grindcore band in years in the process.”
36. Khemmis – ‘Absolution’ (20 Buck Spin)
A cocktail of stoner, progressive and doom metal, unafraid to stretch it’s mighty wings to allow an epic to pound and unfold, and proud to worship at the altar of The Riff.
35. Melechesh – ‘Enki’ (Nuclear Blast)
“If ‘Ethnic Metal’ is a poor fit for Melechesh’s music, Black Metal is almost as inappropriate. The snarled vocals and trebly guitars put it superficially in that style, but the song-writing owes more to classic Thrash and Heavy Metal, filtered through the ever-present Mediterranean voice.”
34. Puscifer – ‘Money Shot’ (Puscifer Entertainment)
Album of the Month – November “Puscifer delivers money shot after money shot in the form of aural enjoyment. So, instead of pounding away at your keyboard on social media bitching about the next Tool album, maybe you should hit up YouTube and try out Puscifer.”
33. Black Breath – ‘Slaves Beyond Death’ (Southern Lord)
“Produced by Kurt Ballou, the album crawls, kicks, stamps, and screams abuse into your face, pulverizing you in a variety of different ways; never dull with the slower parts merely serving to accentuate the chaotic flurries of speed and aggression when they do arrive.”
32. Cradle of Filth – ‘Hammer of the Witches’ (Nuclear Blast)
“Hammer Of The Witches is a competent enough album by a band who know exactly what they’re doing, and fans of their most recent material will find something worth listening to here, but those still waiting for a return to former glories may need to decide whether we’re happy to settle for the next best thing”
31. Nightwish – ‘Endless Forms Most Beautiful’ (Nuclear Blast)
“Nightwish, the rulers of symphonic metal have returned and are ready to take over the world with their new album Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Trying to pick out highlights from this album is like trying to pick needles out of a stack of predominantly needles – there is not a strand of hay in sight.”
People descended on Tempe Beach Park in Tempe, Arizona Halloween weekend for the first ever Monster Mash Music Festival. Set up in the shadow of Arizona State University and right on the water, it was a great location for a big music festival. Once Tool was named as the headliner, it turned into a must see event since the band has barely toured the last few years. I flew out from Boston, by some good graces of friends for the show. The rest of the lineup was equally stacked, so it looked to be a great time in the making.
Saturday at the fest was a pretty short day between the two. It was cool to meet people not just from across the country, but across the world. I met people from Australia, Germany, Toronto, and Brazil and more. I saw more Tool band t-shirts than at any point in my entire life combined. The Halloween atmosphere was awesome with people in costumes. The whole town seemed to be in awesome spirits from the local folks I ran into.
The event was spread out with one huge stage with large screens on the sides if you couldn’t get up close. This was a factor towards the end of the night each day as the fans packed in all day. Based on demand, Tool had merch at the front gate and the special custom Monster Mash Tool posters were sold out way early, much to the chagrin of many. Still, the rest of the fest was well stocked with a massive beer garden, some cool foodage (the mediterranean wrap guys had the best grub of the weekend) and other vendors. I spent some time at the To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) table, talking about the charity, learning all about mental illness and suicide. They are awesome and making a dent in helping people.
The first band of the weekend was With Our Arms To The Sun, and they just totally surprised everyone. They are well-known locally from AZ, but with the crowd from all over, so they were really playing to all new people today. Front man Josh Breckenridge really brings it in terms of charisma and style vocally. Their best song ‘Great Black Divide’ was frankly beyond belief and you should stop reading this review and go hear it now. Also props to drummer John McLucas, the kid is a beast. These guys will be on our radar for a long time to come. Aeges from LA was up next and they were in the Halloween spirit in costumes ranging from a hotdog with mustard, a monkey to Jason Vorhees. Aeges came to rock faces off and they did just that. The band just has that cool modern rock thing that bands like Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails (think last ten years) have, that sets them apart. People didn’t seem to mind the late afternoon sun baking us dead since the band was slaying.
It was kind of a mixed bag for Coheed and Cambria. I can’t profess to being a super Coheed fan, but being a lover of prog I have always had a respect for them. However, with their new album the Color Before the Sun, it just felt like the band had mailed it in to me. Playing a third of the set from the new album, you could just feel the air leave the venue during these tracks. They of course crushed it on all the classics. It’s a tough spot for the band that have indeed been visionary, but at least live they still deliver on the old jams. Primus however, was just gold. Although they faked me out with the inflatable mushrooms from their Chocolate Factory album, it was all greatest hits for an hour straight. The band was tight, having recently wrapped up a year on the road and Les Claypool was in top form. He joked during the set about Tool’s Maynard James Keenan during the set. On any other night, it would be hard to follow these guys.
Of course the largest crowd of the weekend was packed in tight for Tool, upwards of 35,000 people by some reports. Security seemed nervous about the number of people, but overall I think they did a great job. Tool’s legendary special effects heavy show was put in place and the lights went down and a huge cheer went up. The band came on stage and I thought something was unusual about them. I noticed drummer Danny Carey wearing a read headband and then I saw bassist Justin Chancellor and his fancy bell-bottoms. I said out loud “Are Tool dressed as Led Zeppelin for Halloween?” And indeed they were. No only that, they were dressed as the band and how they looked in the film The Song Remains The Same. Then Adam Jones began the familiar notes of their cover of Led Zep’s ‘No Quarter’ played and my mind was blown. It set the tone for the night, with a lot of feel-good throwback songs in the set list.
Next they played another rarely heard track, ‘The Grudge’. Normally when I have seen Tool in the past it was always a note for note, flawless performance. Each member of the band tonight seemed to be kicking the rust off in their own way. Mistakes were made, but they were few and barely noticeable to most. To me it lent an air of fragility to the band that I dig. These guys are human beings after all, not machines. Maynard was in great form in particular. He also seemed to be having a lot of fun up there, and made jokes at the band, some fans, and professed his career highlight as seeing Batman in the front row.
The band played another old-school gem in ‘Opiate’, a new song was played (now know as a smaller part of a longer track) dubbed ‘Descending’, a killer drum solo by Carey, and several of their biggest hits. All in all, the show felt like a triumph. I felt lucky to be there.
Sunday I got to the venue early, hung out with some industry folks and hydrated like a mofo on this arid, cloudless day. Ghost was up first and it was a packed crowd early right in front of the stage. I was up close and it seemed 50/50 Ghost fans and people who had no idea who they were. It was interesting to see the band deal when they didn’t exactly have the full command of the crowd. But by the end of the set, songs like ‘He Is’, ‘Year Zero’ and the surprising closer of ‘If You Have Ghost’ seemed to convert many to the flock.
Puscifer came next, and along with it the first performance of their new material for their album Money Shot (Puscifer Entertainment). Dressed as a mustachioed, pot-bellied, speedo wearing Captain America complete with shield, Maynard Keenan’s other muse seemed a lot more relaxed than his other act the night before. Aside from Maynard, the band were all dressed in snazzy suits and Lucha Libre wrestler masks, except for drummer Jeff Friedl who drew the unlucky leather clad BDSM sub get up in the sweltering heat. The presentation is all on purpose with Puscifer, but serves only to force you to face the music on their terms. And it is brilliant. Opening with the fitting ‘Grand Canyon’, one gets the immersive musical experience Keenan and his troupe are aiming for. Hearing Keenan and Carina Round trade vocal lines and weird stage mojo with each other live was one of the highlights of the weekend, and maybe my entire year.
After that I made the decision to leave the pit and get some more water and a better vantage point. Where Puscifer was high-art theater meant for the small stage, Deftones would bring the thunder of an arena band. Front man Chino Moreno whooped and crooned, running all over the set and jumping into the crowd numerous times. Although he claimed to be drunk before doing an on stage shot early on, he sang well. He did have microphone issues the entire set which was a bummer, especially when his mic cut out for half a song at one point. Joined by local resident Max Cavalera (Soulfly/Killer Be Killed) for ‘Head-Up’, it was another unforgettable moment, and the best pit action moment of Sunday too.
With darkness falling and a huge stage set unveiled, it seemed like a lot of fans were in the house to see Rob Zombie. With his over the top imagery, the stage was decked out in tribute to Universal Movie Monsters. Sadly, Rob’s voice was shot from three straight weeks of shows. During the first song he struggled to sing at all. He addressed the crowd about this after and said he refused to cancel or cut the set short. Instead he was a trooper and danced, sang his best, and asked the crowd to pitch in. I think many other artists would have bailed, but props to Rob for caring about his fans.
Linkin Park came out to close the night and the weekend for Monster Mash Music Fest. Similar to Tool, they came out in costume (cool zombie makeup, bros) and they also seemed oddly rusty. Perhaps it was mainly Chester Bennington, who has toured up a storm lately with LP and Stone Temple Pilots. It’s easy to see why these guys are one of the biggest bands in the world, even if they forgot some of the words to two of their biggest hits (‘One Step Closer’ and ‘Numb’, ugh). However, Linkin Park puts on a hands-down stellar show. From impressive lights, to solo spots for most of the guys, including a full on EDM set and DJ Joe Hahn doing a Fort Minor mini-set, it was excellent. The crowd was tired, but into it as the music rang out in the desert night for the last time. Based on my experience, I’d like to see this fest come back next year and every year!
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PHOTOS BY MELINA D PHOTOGRAPHY
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