Already featuring a massive lineup of bands, Download 2017 has added 20 more names to the roster with Devin Townsend Project, Code Orange, Max & Iggor Cavalera playing their ‘Return To Roots’ show, Sick Puppies, rapper Machine Gun Kelly, Sikth, Suicide Silence, Ty Bryant And the Shakedown, Krokodil and many more announced. Continue reading
Ghost Cult once again brings you another “End Of Year” list, full of memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the world. Today we have Simon Glacken of I Like Press, one of the top publicists in the UK. If you happen to not know his name, you certainly know the bands he reps due to his tireless work such as Anathema, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, Darkthrone, 65daysofstatic, Bloodbath, Black Moth, The Pineapple Thief, My Dying Bride, TesseracT, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, SikTh, Mos Generator, Crippled Black Phoenix, and Cradle Of Filth to name just a few. We thank Simon for his thoughtful and detailed list of his Top Ten Albums of 2016.Continue reading
Tomorrow kicks off the 21st Brutal Assault Festival with Parkway Drive, Neurosis, Arch Enemy, Behemoth, Mastodon, Abbath, Devildriver, Exodus, Ministry, Nile, Obituary, Satyricon, Ihsahn, Dark Tranquility, Dying Fetus, Unearth, Conan, Voivod, Taake, Septic Flesh, Insomnium, Stuck Mojo, and Mono among others. Making the festival unique compared with other events are the art exhibition, horrror film festival, revolutionary Cashless/Access card system, and other features that have always made Brutal Asault the leaders in the festival going experience. Previously announced bands Electric Wizard (visas) and Terror (surgery for Scott Vogel) have cancelled and replaced with Uffommamut and Raised fist respectively.
Wednesday kicks off with bands like Abbath, Mastodon, Neurosis, Devildriver, Mutooid Man, Chelsea Wolfe, Tribulation, Conan, Vektor, Gruesome, Shining and more.
Thursday features Parkway Drive, Gojira, Ministry, Exodus, Ihsahn, Dark Tranquility, The Black Dahlia Murder, H20, Animals As Leaders, Immolation, Aborted, TesseracT, Obscura, and more.
Friday has Arch Enemy, Moonspell, Taake, Satyricon, Cattle Decapitation, Sigh, Coroner, Obituary, eptic Flesh, Voivod, Raised Fist, iron Reagan, In The Woods and others.
Saturday closes things out with headliners Behemoth, Agnostic Front, Insomnium, Moonsorrow, Destruction, MGLA, Venom INC, Archgoat, Stuck Mojo, Holy Moses, Stick To Your Guns, Lightening Bolt and more. Tickets are still avaialble at this link:
Long-running and legendary Brutal Assault Festival takes place again this year for their 21st edition. Taking place which takes place in a military fortress Jofesov in Jaromer, in the Chech Republic the four day festival runs from August 10-13th. In addition to headline acts Mastodon, Ministry, Parkway Drive, and Behemoth, the fest features names from across all genres of rock and metal such as Aborted, Agnostic Front, Angelcorpse, Animals As Leaders, The Algorithm, Archgoat, Birdflesh, Bury Tomorrow, Conan, Coroner, Dark Funeral, Dark Tranquility, Devildriver, Die Krupps, Disavowed, Destruction, Electric Wizard, Eskimo Callboy, Exodus, Eyehategod, Gruesome, Hypnose, Immolation, Insomnium, Iron Reagan, Jig-Ai, Knuckledust, Leprous, Mgla, Misery Loves Co., Mithras, Moonspell, Mono, Mutoid Man, Nile, Obituary, Omnium, Gatherum, Satyricon, Septicflesh, Shining, Sigh, Sikth, Slagmaur, Taake, Terror, Textures, The Black Dahlia Murder, Tribulation, Vektor, Valkyrja, Voivod, Whiplash and more. Tickets are on sale now with camping packages at this link:
Extreme geeks everywhere rejoice as for the first time in nine years, tangential Watford sextet SikTh returns with a new product. Latest mini-album Opacities (Peaceville) seems a little more influenced by the vocal melodies of natural descendants TesseracT, though their own progressive atmospheres remain in evidence.
hankfully, despite the occasionally touching and sometimes overwrought emotions here, the savage switches and screams that have influenced so much in the emo and djent scenes during the last two decades are coursing through the set, almost as if to justify the band’s re-emergence. The mechanical creativity and robotic rants of ‘Philistine Philosophies’ might easily have been anachronistic but the personalities and character of the protagonists shine through the vocalising to make this over-mined sub-genre vital once again: the brutal drops and duelling screams as organic and fiery as they are entertaining.
Those twisting, intricate riffs baffle and confuse delightfully throughout the soaring ‘Under the Weeping Moon’, but some of the vocal lines here and in the otherwise poignant closer ‘Days Are Dreamed’ appear rough and tired, the harmonic cleans also seeming somewhat strained – the coruscating yells are staccato and feral enough to win the battle but it’s here that an occasional lack of spark is initially highlighted.
Overall this is a welcome return, albeit seeming a little dated, and it’s very possible that new fans of the scene spawned by these guys might find much to like. Borne out further by the more mature (I’m being kind here, you understand) sound of ‘Walking Shadows’, however, the bouncing, switching sound fails to fully disguise the lack of instantaneous chaos and youthful risk that this kind of music – Meshuggah excepted – largely demands. More energy and some fat-trimming please…
6.5/10
PAUL QUINN
[amazon asin=B017HMYZ5E&template=iframe image1]
Since their inception in 2009, New York City’s The Things They Carried (either an obscure reference or a simply naff name, likely the latter) have been on a self-produced quest to push musical boundaries with their, self-proclaimed, “Nerd rock” hybrid of styles and oddity. With a début full length under their belts and some lineup changes (by now seemingly the staple characteristic of any metal act that delves in to the world of Prog), they appear to have found some stability, and a new EP which sees their vision come to some fruition.
Consisting of 5 tracks, two of which push the five-minute marker, Melancholia (Revival Records) is a fairly short sample for the unacquainted but one that packs a plethora of styles, twists and turns. Album opener ‘18G’, for example, proves a very dissonant number, which brings to minds the likes of Sikth and The Dillinger Escape Plan; veering from extreme pace and more melodic sung passages, and even deathcore breakdowns. The following ‘Nightingale’ then shows an almost folk like start with a clean guitar and vocal before it builds once again.
Proceedings only really begin to simplify on the mostly acoustic ‘Death Of The Nameless’, where its simplistic nature feels out-of-place and unnecessary. It also highlights the real shortcomings of Steve Schwartz’s vocals, which, as versatile as they prove, at times are pretty weak and lowest common denominator; here especially they are very limp.
What 3TC (as they are affectionately known by local fans) set out to do here is very bold, especially for a band that is still in relative stages of youth, and for the most part it comes off very well. At times there is a mind-boggling level of technique and abstract styles that somehow flow together seamlessly. Other times there are moments that show they still have some naivety and are still not quite the finished article. Certainly ones to keep an eye out for however.
6.5/10
The Things They Carried on Facebook
CHRIS TIPPELL
SikTh has launched a PledgeMusic crowdfunding campaign towards releasing a new EP and a December headlining UK tour. Vocalist Mikee Goodman said of the project:
“We did not realise our music had spread so far! I believe we have amongst the most passionate and energetic fans in the World. I am honoured to play to them. But what we have been asked most is about new music. My desire to make new Sikth music is as strong as it’s ever been. I can’t wait to get started!”
Dec 05: Classic Grand – Glasgow (UK)
Dec 06: Academy 2 – Manchester (UK)
Dec 10: Marble Factory – Bristol (UK)
Dec 11: Academy 2 – Birmingham (UK)
Dec 12: Forum – London (UK)
Dan Weller Producer Q&A Part 1 PledgeMusic update is live!!http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/sikth/updates/52809
Posted by SikTh (official) on Thursday, May 7, 2015
Big 69 Festival Heavy Metal Pilgrimage has added Carcass as their headliner for the 2015 edition. The event is a two day event, happening January 17 and 18, 2015 at Richardson and Cruddas, Mumbai in India. Watch the trailer for the festival here.
The previously announced lineup already includes:
Fleshgod Apocalypse
SikTh
Hacktivist
Underside
Plague Throat
Albatross
Providence
Demonic Resurrection
Gutslit
Devoid
Inner Sanctum
Chronic Xorn
Grammy Winning Effort
Escher’s Knot
Undying Inc
Noiseware
Zygnema
For the past few months UK based riff lords Krokodil have been making all sort of headlines, most involving people referring to them as “Slipknot’s new bassist’s other band”, which is completely unjustified and harsh as it is hardly judging the band on its own merits. With all the coverage, the eyes of the metal world are on Krokodil as they prepare to unleash their debut album Nachash (Spinefarm) so it’s a very good thing that the album is rather bloody brilliant.
The band, which contains members from a menagerie of great British bands such as Cry For Silence, Sikth, Gallows and of course the mighty A, as well as now Iowa’s own metal behemoth Slipknot, Krokodil sound like a well oiled riff making machine and from the sounds of Nachash the machine has been working overtime on this release. With a heavy dose of Mastodon in its veins, Krokodil are a groove juggernaut that pummels all in its path with its three guitarists of fury, a decision that usually over complicates the material but in this case triples up the guitar tracks, like Helmet making it sound as heavy as a ten ton rhino that’s thinking of gaining a few pounds.
With a formula that blends groove based riffage with a later day Cancer Bats bounce and groove is a fantastic mix which keeps up the pace till the bitter end, this on top of the high quality production of the album which makes it sound colossal. If the album does have a mild weakness it is that the vocals are a tiny bit one dimensional, the hardcore barks work well with the up tempo nature of the albums and work perfectly on the second track ‘Skin of The Earth’, but can come across as one note when the album gets into its final few tracks.
Overall, Nachash is a quality release from a band who deserve a lot more credit for their musical output and certainly do not deserve to be known simply as that other band with someone from Slipknot in, they’re not a DJ Starscream or Dirty Little Rabbits. As for this being the bands’ debut album, hopefully there will be even better to come from the band in the future, but for now Nachash is a cracking start to their career. Its high tempo, riffy and most importantly contains quality throughout.
9.0/10
DAN O’BRIEN
True invention often comes from the least likely of sources. Augmenting the obtuse tendencies of math rock with Gamelan percussion you would expect from some radical new act from the Far East. Yet Niskala call Manchester, England home.
The origin of the band is certainly not the only unconventional aspect of this bewildering and intoxicating ep. The percussive assault blends perfectly with the downtuned riffs and weird and sinister vocals which are delivered supposedly in Balinese.
‘Kekawa’ evokes images of Cannibal Holocaust with its native chanting and sinister witch doctor laughter. It’s a truly demented cocktail of heavy music and haunting ambience. The samples of crickets chirping and the pan pipe intro don’t prepare you for the onslaught of ‘Sarebi’. This number offers a brief moment of familiarity with a gang chant taken from Mr Bungle’s “Goodbye Sober Day” yet it is delivered clearly as a homage to an influential act rather than an attempt to plagiarise one of their heroes.
Mastering quiet to loud dynamics Niskala realise the importance of building tension before unleashing their vicious tribal racket. Off kilter rhythms keep you on the end of your seat waiting for the next barrage of distortion and snarling vocals. Image abandoning members of Sikth and Secret Chiefs 3 on an island with only instruments and 70s horror films to inspire them and you’ll be close to the disturbing yet engrossing sounds of this intriguing release.
‘Kelem’ builds on angular stabbing ostinatos with some truly bloodcurdling screams. It’s the sound of feral tribesmen cannibalising eastern music with western extreme metal in a bold and authentic fashion. As disturbing as some of this stuff sounds it also feels like a wicked time was had by its creators. A fact which translates very well when experiencing this tense cocktail of jungle madness. At only three songs under fifteen minutes this journey to forbidden paradise is all too brief but suffice to say it will whet the appetite for forthcoming works. Intense and exotic Niskala produce the sound of shamanistic rituals and bewildering devilment. We gleefully await their next chapter.
8/10
Niskala on Facebook
Words: Ross Baker