NAPALM DEATH @ DONINGTON 2007 - Video Clip

Merry Christmas gang. Here's a clip from the 2007 Donington metal festival, shot during the NAPALM DEATH set. Only thing is, there was no sound on the camera that we had with us that day (ah, 2007). So we've had to add some audio to this video, otherwise it would be in silence!

If I recall correctly the song that they were *really* playing was NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF.

Anyway, enjoy! :)

Most sincere apologies to Dawn of Gehenna.....

About eighteen months ago, at Holland's Roadburn festival, I was given a demo by a long haired chap outside the 013 venue.
I popped it in my pocket and forgot about it (this was the day of the Pirate Goth, so those of you that were there will know exactly WHY I managed to misplace it), until last week when I finally got around to re-ordering my CDs after moving house a year ago and I found it in a bag.
I went straight over to Metal Archives to check out the band, Dawn of Gehenna, and I read those two magic words "Doom Metal".
I'd (for some reason) not even checked out who the CD was by and had just sky rocketed it, thinking it to be some form of Black Metal. Shit, looking at their info it looked as if it was vocalist Mart himself who'd given me it. Sorry man, if you're reading this I apologise, maybe next time I'll buy you a drink and have a chat to make up for it?

Anyway, just popped it in, and it's top notch, trad doom with keyboards and everything.
Reminds me of Count Raven, crossed with what Anathema could have sounded like if they hadn't decided to try and be Pink Floyd.
Standout track for me is #2; Tidal Wave (of Airless Choking Dreams) Mart's powerful voice sits really well with these ears.

Anyway, what can I say? Better late than never. Sorry I took so long guys, but I love it!
Just found this info on their site:
In spring of 2007, some of the material from Taak's "Koerapööriöö" sessions was remixed on analogue technology which, combined with freshly recorded English lyrics, resulted in a promo/demo CD-R "Doom Enclave". About 200 copies were freely distributed to the curious (and the people wearing the "right" T-shirts, he-he) at the Roadburn 2007 festival in Tilburg, Holland. The rest will be sent to labels, so the disk can't actually be bought. If you believe you have a good enough reason to own one, please feel free to get in touch.

Doom on!

I had a Pagan Altar t-shirt on. Gwa'aaaan!!

Brutal Truth, Manchester Feb 2007

So there's another little adventure over.
On Monday Morning we flew out to Dublin and after a bit of wandering around we spent the afternoon in Eamon Doran's listening to Satyricon and Megadeth before we went across the Liffy for Total Fucking Destruction, Narcosis and Brutal Truth.

Total Fucking Desctruction were awesome, the highlight this first night was "Let the Children Name Themselves", Narcosis I had never seen before and I was blown away.
Totally OTT and sick as fuck, searing vocals and very talented musicians.
One to watch.
Brutal Truth were fucking great, they seemed to be having a great time up there and it was great to have a little windmill to the likes of "Walking Corpse".
Windmill?!? I've never fucking windmilled in my life before that, and hopefully never will again!

After the show it was hang around for a bit and then we went off to a dance club to rave all night, but that's another story for another time.

We flew back home on Tuesday and drove up to Manchester for the next date of the tour, arriving too late to see the extra group(s?) that were on before TFD.
TFD weren't as good as the night before for me, although the cover of The Exploited's "Sid Vicious Was Innocent" was an absolute belter!!
Narcosis were all over the fucking place (that's in a good way) again, and I'm amazed at how they can play and sing like that two nights in a row, never mind for a full tour!
Brutal Truth were, for my money, even better here tonight than in Dublin.
I dunno whether it was because they were able to smoke on stage here but they were intense and it was the most amazing pit I've seen at a show, ever, full stop.
Constant, all the way through.
I really wish I could have been to more shows on this tour but I could only give myself two days off that week.
Oh well, here's to Bergen Domkirke and Sunn O)))!!!

Brutal Truth, Dublin 2007

Currently, I'm sat at a terminal next to SJW in the departures lounge of Dublin Airport, having last night been to The Voodoo Lounge to see Narcosis, Total Fucking Destruction and Brutal Truth.
It was absolutely awesome.

TFD were great, Rich Hoak is now my hero.
He just pulls the best faces ever.
Halfway through they broke a string and Rich got up and read some poetry.
When he's playing the drums he looks like he's trying to wrap up a parcel of cooked spaghetti on a disintegrating motorbike on the motorway on drugs.

Leeds' Narcosis were awesome.
They have the most animated singer in the world; if he was in a band with Rich Hoak, the world would end.
Quite a lot of the set's vocals were delivered from all over the stage, in the pit, up by the bar, everywere!
Awesome modern grind.

Brutal truth are Brutal Truth, the were no real surprises in the setlist except a cover of Sister Fucker by EyeHateGod which was well sick.

Afterwards we ended up in some grotty pub, raving to some snide euromixes!
So now, we fly back to England, get something to eat, and then we are off to Manchester tonight to see them all again.

Brutal Truth could play any permutation of the set list Rich gave me, so I won't bother running through it.
They play Walking Corpse, don't worry!
Some sick merchandise as well.
You should try to get yourselves along to any remaining dates on this tour, if I could have got a week off, I'd go to all of them!

Pagan Altar, The Lamp of Thoth

Fri 5 October 2007 – Pagan Altar, The Lamp Of Thoth

On Friday night, Ste, Liam and I travelled off across to Yorkshire to see Doom Metal legends of yore, Pagan Altar play one of their two shows this year (The other being down in London).

Arriving at the Fenton quite early, we sunk a few pints of their (rather excellent) Guinness in the beer garden listening to Pagan Altar's soundcheck, before making our way back upstairs to watch the support band, The Lamp of Thoth.

This was the first time I'd heard Lamp of Thoth, although I'd been hearing good things about them for a while, especially from Liam in the car on the way down; he was telling me the whole story about where the name "The Lamp of Thoth" comes from, and I was more than impressed.

Proper old style, rocky doom, with eccentric evil vocals from vocalist The Overtly Melancholic Lord Strange and awesome leads from guitarist Randy Reaper.

NWOBHM-styled stuff, with an overall doomy feel. An awesome cover of Cirith Ungol's Frost and Fire to close the set as well; I picked up a copy of their Cauldron of Withcery 10 inch EP as well.
This is a band who I'm going to keep an eye out to go and see them again, they were fucking awesome.

If what I had been told, this was Pagan Altar's first gig for twenty five years or something, and we were lucky enough to be amongst the 25 people who paid to see it (like I say, I only counted 18. Trve Kvlt).
I can honestly say I wasn't too sure what to expect of the most cultishly followed of all doom bands after such a lengthy lay off; but any fears were alleviated when we were sat in the beer garden listening to them soundcheck The Wake of Amadeus.

The lineup includes original members Terry and Alan Jones on vocals and guitars respectively and have been helped out on this tour by Rich "Militia" Walker on guitars.
Terry's nasal vocals were on top form (even if he did miss his cue to come in on one track, but for god's sake it's been 25 years) and it was amazing.

A big, shit-eating grin isn't something that's often associated with Doom Metal, but I had one on my face for the entire set. "Black Mass", "Sentinels of Hate", "Black Mass", "Pagan Altar" no "Time Lord" but they did play for over 100 minutes.

A Mythical and Magical night indeed, true thanks go to the Miskatonic Foundation.

The Sinking Belle

Sunn & Boris (Featuring Jesse Sykes on vocals) - "The Sinking Belle"

Recorded live at The Forum, London on December 10th 2007.

Passing by
Rose and emeralds
In silence I
Stand alone

And out of you
Grey birds fly
The gravel path
You qualified
Pretended to
Favor few
The walls are fine (?)
In hollow time

The shape I'm in
Oh she knows so well
My hearts become
Her sinking belle

The sinking belle
Oh the sinking belle
I'm worried now
You're worried now
I

The sinking belle
Oh the sinking belle
You're worried now
You're worried now
I

We're smaller than
We used to be
What came from you
Is now inside of me

Don't ask me why
Oh, don't ask me why
All my life,
All my life
Wear in black and white

The sinking belle
Oh the sinking belle
I'm worried now
You're worried now

The sinking belle
The sinking belle
I'm worried now
You're worried now
I

The sinking belle
Oh the sinking belle
You're worried now
You're worried now
I

More info here.

Gorilla Biscuits @ Manchester Academy

The Gorilla Biscuits reunion show in Manchester tonight was something else. Every song was sung with passion and it was easy to see that Civ meant every word of the lyrics as he sung them. It fact, the whole band looked as though they were having a great time up there on the stage. Easily one of the best gigs I've been to in 2007.

Note: Support on this night was from Honour Among Thieves and Blueprint For A Downfall.

Ramesses / Unearthly Trance

SJW:
Another gig tonight, number 25 of the year for me, this time it was at the Star & Garter pub in Manchester (right next to Piccadilly train station). The first time I went to the S&G was to see Jesu when they played on 6/6/6, that was a great night of music too. Star & Garter has one of the loudest sound systems I've ever heard - I am presently sat here writing this, half deaf, thanks to the sheer volume of it in fact.

I really enjoyed tonight's gig. I'd never seen either Ramesses or Unearthly Trance before this show, both of them are three-piece bands with doom elements to their music. I especially enjoyed Ramesses, their set tonight was very tight, slow and heavy. Unearthly Trance were a surprise to me, all of the band members look more like they could be from a hardcore punk band rather than a doom / black metal band. Plus they are from Brooklyn in New York, not so well known for black metal! Their set was all good stuff, they even stayed on for an encore and played an 11 minute track to finish off the evening.

Metalliclaw

Another day, another gig... this time we got to visit Wembley Stadium in London to see some band called METALLICA.


So we went to Wembley stadium yesterday morning, set off from Liverpool at about 8am and arrived in London for about half 11. Not bad timing. The Metallica gig was great, excellent weather throughout the day a good line-up too, and as a bonus we got to see the new Wembley Stadium as well. What a place that is.


Support on this day was from HIM, Machine Head and Mastodon. I wasn't there to see any of them so I didn't pay that much attention, sorry. I took a look at MASTODON though, they were pretty good. They played a set at Donington earlier this year (when me and PATCHIE sneaked in there without tickets) but we turned up late and only caught the back end of their set. So it was good to finally see them properly. I used to be into MACHINE HEAD when I was a lad, but I guess my musical tastes have changed somewhat in the meantime. I am not a big fan of American frontmen shouting "LET ME HEAR YA!" every 5 minutes during a gig, so Rob Flinn definitely wasn't my cup of tea.

Metallica's setlist (at a guess):

Creeping Death
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Kirk Solo #1
Sad But True
Disposable Heroes
Kirk Solo #2
The Unforgiven
And Justice for All
The Memory Remains
The Four Horsemen
Rob Solo
Orion - Whoa!!!!
Fade To Black
Master Of Puppets
Kirk Solo #3
Battery
No Leaf Clover
Nothing Else Matters
One
Enter Sandman
Whiplash
Seek and Destroy

Apologies to PATCHIE and SKUM for nearly falling asleep at the wheel and killing us all on the M6 during the drive home. I don't mind doing that kind of stuff when I am driving on my own because at least then it's only me and my life that gets disrupted. It's a different matter when there's other people in the car and I start tripping balls from lack of sleep. Sorry guys.

Trouble @ Leeds

Check out this video from the Trouble gig in Leeds last night.



Possibly thee gig of the year.