Seagraves - WRONG

Further to our earlier post with a review of the new Seagraves CD Weight of the World, Jez Walshaw kindly got in touch to remind us you can all check out the official video for the track WRONG online.
And where can you see this visual feast? well, look no further than after these words!

Seagraves - Weight of the World

Leeds veterans Seagraves return with a five track release Weight of the World, and it's good, dark hardcore punk rock.

Opening track Hollow Lies is a mid-paced track that sort of lulls you into a false sense of security before Seagraves smash you in the mouth with the second track Dreams are for Fools, with it's stop-start riffing and staccato double-bass attack, also jamming out some filthy grooves too.

Obvious, lazy comparisons are bound to be drawn, and there's a definite sound of your scene heavyweights like Converge et al, who the band have toured with, but I'd say the band remind me more of a homegrown World Burns to Death, especially on tracks like the title track here, which barrels along like an out-take from The Sucking of Missile Cock by the aforementioned WB2D.

Blood Runs Black is full of surprising twists and turns, a lot more melodic than I was expecting, and the final song, Wrong, is more furious breakneck kängpunk violence, which leaves you dazed, and (with the whole thing over after about 15 minutes), rather perversely, wanting another kick in the face at the end.

A cracking, powerful release reccomend for fans of Converge, World Burns to Death, His Hero is Gone, Botch ETC.

www.facebook.com/seagravesuk 
www.seagraves.bandcamp.com 
seagravesuk@gmail.com 

www.witchhunterrecords.bandcamp.com 
witchhunterrecords@gmail.com 

Incoming: Full Moon Dog Festival 2012

Hail, droogies! SJW here... I just wanted to give a big shout out and give all of our best to Len and the boys in the mighty ASOMVEL for the 2012 edition of the Full Moon Dog festival, being held at The Cockpit in Leeds, UK. Both myself and Patchie are as sick as dogs (pun intended) not to be in attendance for this year's show but we are planning on holding our own tribute to Jay Jay over the weekend, summoning the awesome majestic spirit that he brought to the stage each and every time he got the chance. What a guy... What a fucking guy!!

This is what it's all about, kiddies!!

The 2012 FMD fest line-up is a cracker, and it is sure to be a great day. We look forward to seeing the DVD when it is unleashed on the great unwashed masses some time in early 2013!

Break a leg guys! Stare at death & SPIT!

R.I.P Jay Jay - And long live ASOMVEL!!

Damnation Fest 2011 - Update

Damnation Festival announces 3 more bands for its 2011 line up

AVANT-GARDE Norwegians ULVER will play their first and only UK show outside London when they headline the Terrorizer Stage at Damnation Festival. The experimental collective will top the bill in an exclusive performance where they will showcase material from their latest 'War of the Roses' offering.

Joining them will be the black jazz of their countrymen SHINING and London's doom tinged instrumental four piece ASTROHENGE at Leeds Union University on Bonfire Night, Saturday, November 5.

The three genre-morphing acts add to the already stellar lineup of Decapitated, Doom, Amplifier and Dragged Into Sunlight at the seventh edition of the UK's finest metal event, with headliners and many more bands yet to be announced across at least three stages.

Festival director Gavin McInally, said: "We're generally excited about the bands we confirm, but the capture of Ulver for an exclusive show - and their first in the UK outside the London - is a bit special.

"The unique black jazz of Shining and experimental slabs of metal of Astrohenge are also fitting examples of what Damnation Festival is all about - offering fans something a bit different to well worn line-ups hosted across the country.

"We're throwing everything we have at making this line-up our best yet and with the continued support of the fans, Damnation Festival 2011, will be another blinding chapter not to be missed."



Tickets are on sale now priced £29 and are available from See Tickets: www.seetickets.com, Ticketline: www.ticketline.co.uk and Leeds Tickets: www.leedstickets.com


For more information visit the official Damnation Festival sites:

Web – http://www.damnationfestival.co.uk
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/damnationfestival
Twitter – http://twitter.com/damnationfest
Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/damnationfestival

KATATONIA @ Rio's, Leeds (07 November 2009) "Murder"

Went along to watch Swedish doomers KATATONIA last night, at Rio's in Leeds. Went along with our good buddy DesignVoid. Great show, though it was done & dusted by 22:00 (Rio's becomes a nightclub after a Saturday night gig you see). As such I think they might have cropped their set from the usual 18 songs to about 12. Jonas (AKA Lord Seth) used mainly "clean" vocals, right up until the last song of the night, Murder, which you can watch below.



In case you weren't aware, 2 of the guys from KATATONIA (the afore mentioned Jonas "Lord Seth" Renkse - he plays bass for Bloodbath - and lead guitarist Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström, who is on the far left in the Youtube clip above) are also in the Swedish death metal supergroup band BLOODBATH. Their E.P. Breeding Death from back in the year 2000 is one of THEE CLAW's favourite death metal records, you should check it the fvkk out!

The new KATATONIA record, Night Is The New Day, is available from Peaceville and all good record stores. I bought myself a copy of it recently from my local HMV of all places... I mean, just how mainstream can you get?!

Many thanks for the good people at Rio's in Leeds for sorting out the photo accrediatation for us.

Thou in the UK

Yep, we're down with this for sure.

Satyricon @ Rios, Leeds

I went along to watch Norwegian black metal legends SATYRICON play a show in Leeds this evening, a bit of a journey to get there but it was well worth the effort. They played everything that you would expect them to play; KING, Mother North, Fuel For Hatred and all the rest.

Damnation Festival 2008 (Patchie)

So, Saturday saw THEE CLAW head over to Leeds for the annual trip to the UK's most prominent underground metal festival, the 2008 Damnation festival.
This year's trip was a bit different for me than most of the road trips I've been on the with Thee Claw over the years, as I was joined by my girlfriend Becky who is four and a half months pregnant, so I knew there would be no going crazy in pits or getting covered in fake blood on this outing.
I didn't mind much because there were quite a few bands that I wanted to see, so let's get going.

We were also joined on this trip by the living legend that gave birth to the claw (The Claw, not Thee Claw), the godly being "Quagmire Petch". Gaze upon his metal countenance in the above picture and tremble.

After an unenventful trip through the Penines listening to loads of NWOBHM and King Diamond, we met up with the gang who had headed to Leeds from all four corners of this pleasant land, and went for a few pints...the sight of Quagmire drinking a pint of Stella with about two inches of candy letters in the bottom will live long in the memory.

We headed over to the venue just in time to buy some completely overpriced beer (£3.95 for a can of Tuborg? it's 90p a can in the shop at the bottom of my street!) and get a good position to watch the first band I wanted to see, UK thrash stalwarts Onslaught.
Their set was being recorded for an upcoming live album, which I guess will be pretty good to get a copy of to give to the baby when it's older, this being it's first gig and all! (as a side note, the little one had been asleep all day but immediately woke up and started kicking when Onslaught came on! Thrash baby on it's way!).
Onslaught played a mix of material encompassing their career, as you would expect from a band recording a live album.
They sounded top notch, Si's voice sounding as peircing and brutal as it does on The Force and Killing Peace.
Lots of people seemed to be using this time to get themselves decent positions for Carcass, who were headlining this room later, but when Onslaught had finished we went for a little walk.
Well, when I say went for a little walk, I mean we walked around in circles for about an hour, ending up in the Jagermeister room over and over again, bumping into people here and there.
We decided to sit down around now, get something to eat and get me a couple of drinks, before heading into the Rock Sound stage to check out Ramesses.
The other Claw Brothers weren't too bothered about seeing them as they were going to see them with Grief the day after so I left Becky and the bump relaxing on one of the sofas at the back and headed down just in time to hear them tear into "Master Your Demons"....I sweated a bit in that crowd and threw some total CLAWS, Adam looking menacing as fuck in an ancient Godflesh Streetcleaner shirt, and Mark hammering his drums to peices in the way only he can....amazing.

After this we headed over to the Terrorizer stage to catch Napalm Death... there were so many people in the room it was ridiculous, and when they started, all hell broke loose!
Becky and I were stood right at the back of the room (we could literally touch the rear wall) but we were getting shoved and jostled so much that we didn't want to take any chances and went back to the Rock Sound stage so I could get another drink. Devil Sold His Soul were on in here; we suffered their insipid Mr Fancy Pants Matalan Outfit Plastic Metal for half an hour or so, but at least we got amazing seats on the balcony (really a six foot hight wall at the side) next to the PA for a good view of Cathedral. DSHS - sub-par-cod-Isis-clone-mania. Avoid at all costs, unless you are going to kill them. And if you are, give me a call so I can film it. Geg-rock at it's finest.

I hadn't seen Cathedral since 1992 in Liverpool, so the whole disco-doom era passed me by in a live setting, and I was desperate to see them, with The Garden of Unearthly Delights being one of my favourite albums of recent years.
They didn't dissapoint!
Opening with Utopian Blaster (HUGGY BEAR OOOOH YEAH!) and going into Enter The Worms...I was leaning over the balcony with claws in the air!
When Lee Dorrian introduced North Berwick Witch Trials I abandoned my place and ran headlong to the front of the stage, meeting up with Thee Skum and SJW! Quagmire was off watching Carcass^♠, so he missed Corpsecycle the airing of new song Open Mind Surgery. During Equilibrium I nipped out for a breath of air *ahem* and had a peek in the near empty room were Pitchshifter were going through the motions with their also-ran nu-metal.
Nice lads Pitch Shifter, but they should have stuck to the Godflesh worship.
Cathedral finished their set with a one-two of encores Ride and crowd favourite Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)....amazing setlist although I was pretty dissapointed there was no room for Soul Sacrifice.

All in all a brilliant day out, I just wonder how they will top it next year!!
^♠I am reliably informed that Carcass DESTROYED all-comers at this festival. Songs from EVERY release were played, including, I believe, stuff from Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment. Ken Owen came out and played a little drum solo; apparently as soon as the room was full nobody was allowed in or out. Good on you Carcass, local boys come good.

Damnation 2008 (SJW)

SJW here, this is "live from the gig" update from this years Damnation Festival in Leeds. These things rarely work out, updating during the event I mean, but here goes anyway.

VENUE:
I dunno what this place is called yet, but it's a different venue than last year. Much bigger and much better. Kudos to thee promoters! 3 big stages, it's a good set up.

Bands:

Here's who I watched at this year's event.

TAINT
Welsh 3-piece, I caught 4 songs by these guys. We were a little late turning up for the event so Taint were already into their set when we first got into the venue and it took us a little while to find The Jagermeister Stage (AKA "The Main Stage"). Their song Drunk Marksman was particularly good.

ONSLAUGHT
Some guy just came onstage to announce that tonight performance would be recorded and released as a live album. This keeps happening to us. After a few rounds of "Damnation!" and "Onslaught!" the intro music ushered the band onstage to a rapture of drunken applause.
Whoa - Sy Keeler's vocals are amazing. That voice is peircing! It's just like on Power From Hell. Skum is stood here with me and he doesn't recognize all of the guys in the band... but they're a tight unit, you can't deny that.
Songs included Metal Forces, Planting Seeds Of Hate and Demoniac. Great set.

SIGH
After some atmospheric intro music, avant-garde metallers Sigh started with a fury. These guys are from Japan and this is their 1st gig in the UK for 13 years. Man, what a display. The 2 vocalists, one guy and one chick, are sharing an almost constant barrage of the singing duties, only he (Mirai Kawashima) was doing the high parts and she (namely "Dr. Mikannibal") was a lower growl by comparison! There's hardly an 8-bar of music without one of them adding a touch more in the way of vocals. It's non stop!
Plus also the good lady doctor is wearing a tiny leather mini skirt and bikini top... I nearly forgot to mention that for a minute! There's lots of flesh on show up there right now. How could I miss out telling you guys about that one? The photographers down in the pit appear to be jockeying for position in order to get the best view up her skirt.

More about SIGH:
The guitarist (Shinichi Ishikawa) has the most awesome bowl-head haircut and is wearing a camo t-shirt for some reason, meanwhile Kawashima-San (male vocalist) is wearing some kind if 19th century style pall bearer costume get-up. It's strange how each band member is dressed for a different genre of music!
I have just noticed that our lovely lady vocalist, Dr Mikannibal, keeps having to fix her bra top in between every song. There's a guy in the crowd nearby to where I am stood who has shouted "Show us your teeets!" about 5 times now, like that's real funny to him or something. I dunno eh!
Also she's playing a saxophone as well, but you cannot hear it so well unfortunately. man, she's the real deal.
Sigh finish their set with a cover of Venom's Black Metal. At the same time that they are covering this black metal classic, Dr Mikannibal is holding what appears to be about a dozen red candles, which are lit, up in the air, directly above her chest and letting the hot wax drip down onto her bare chest! Whoa, what a gal!
SIGH all about the performance - it's awesome!

BENEDICTION
I've just ran straight across from Sigh's set to catch some of Benediction's set over on the Terrorizer Stage in the next room. Walked in just in time to see a crazy pit being fuelled by tremendously fast thrash! Another well designed room for a metal gig, the outside of the room is raised up while the centre is like a pit, literally. I only got here to see the last ten minutes of their set. Looks like Napalm Death are on in here next, so I am sticking around for that.

NAPALM DEATH
Sorry guys but no live review during Napalm... but it's kinda hard to blog from in a pit! That's right, I was one of the bald guys in the pit running about at the front of the Terrorizer stage watching everyone's favourite grind band from Brumingham.

Best gig of the day so far IMO. I knew all of the songs after all! Well 95 percent of them at least (they played a couple of new songs from an upcoming record).
One complaint from during this show - the on-stage bouncers were being rather heavy handed with anyone trying to stage dive during Napalm's set. I understand that these guys have ajob to do (I am a doorman in another line of work, in case you didn't already know), so I know that you have to be firm but also keep safety as a priority. Which is why I got very angry when I saw one bouncer react to a guy who was in mid-air, diving from the stage back into the crowd, he stopped the guy back grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back to the stage! That could have turned out to be a very nasty dislocation! Very unnecessary. And its not as if the band were put off by the stage diving.
Anyway, it wasn't that big a deal I guess.
Something I just learned: N.D. have been going 28 years this year. Imagine that! Speaking of old-school Napalm Death, next band up is CATHEDRAL...

CATHEDRAL


This show was Cathedral's 1st gig in 2 years, or at least Lee Dorrian told us from on stage.
They played North Berwick Witch Trials! I love that song!
It seems that each band gets better as the day goes on at this festival.
Bravo Damnation!

Cathedral Setlist @ Damnation 2008:

Utopian Blaster
Enter The Worms
North Berwick Witch Trials
Cosmic Funeral
Carnival Bizarre
Corpsecycle
Open Mind Surgery (New!)
Equilibrium
Cathedral Flames
Melencholy Emperor
Upon Azerel's Wings
Ride
Hopkins

Okay that's it, end of my "live review". Hope it isn't as bad and as jumbled as I kinda expected it to turn out!
It's been a great great day. Just a shame that the guys who put Damnation together this year weren't able to arrange THEE CLAW a photo pass to get our SLRs in for a few photos. Hell, we asked... I guess maybe we might get lucky in that department next time round. In any case, there's no complaints from our end of the deal - it's been a total ball of a day. Plaudits all round to the organisers, this was one of the best festivals we've been to this year (and we've been to a fair few so we're good judges as far as festival metal goes!).

Now I just hope my car is still in 1 piece and parked where I left in behind the fenton.....

You can't please all of the people all of the time...

...but it would be nice to please some of them some of the time.

As you can see, the running order of the bands playing at the Damnation Festival in Leeds next weekend have been announced. I apprecite that sorting out the running times for festivals is a bit of a logistical nightmare but, fucking hell.....Sigh, Benediction and Ramesses clashing? Napalm Death and My Dying Bride clashing?
One thing I am glad of though is that Carcass and Cathedral are clashing.
I must have seen Carcass about 15 times in Liverpool between 1990 and 1992, so I'm really not bothered about missing half of Arch Enemy cover Carcass tracks with Bill and Jeff*.
As this is the only UK gig the "re-united" Carcass are playing, hopefully everyone will be in there watching them leaving me plenty of space to enjoy some good disco-doom from Cathedral who I haven't seen since mid 91.  And as for Pitchshifter...what in the name of Fenriz are they doing on the bill? Hopefully loads of kids will be in there watching them.

*I know Carcass have reformed to do these shows for the benefit of Ken Owen who will most likely never work again, let alone play the drums, and I think that's very, very admirable of them, their motives for doing this should never be doubted by any metalhead who has a brain.  I've bought my ticket, so I've done my bit. I just won't be watching them.

Nile, Grave & Bal Belphagor @ Leeds Rios, 21st September 2008

Me and THEE DAWG went to see NILE in Leeds last night, great gig! It was absolutely jampacked with stinking sweaty death metal fans in the city's best rock venue, I haven't seen a gig there so full for quite a while. So much for the credit crunch! Neither of us had any clues about who was going to be supporting NILE before we arrived at the gig, so imagine our delight when we discovered it was GRAVE. They played a binder of a set, lots of old school death - they reminded me a lot of GOREFEST. The 1st act on, BELPHAGOR (called "Bal Belphagor" on the ticket) are an Austrian outfit, they were going for a VENOM kind of sound. All in all a great bill of death and sweat!

NILE, GRAVE and BELHEPGOR, Leeds Rios...

The mighty Nile played at Leeds Rios last night with support coming from austria's Belphegor and old school swedish death metal veterans, the most excellent Grave

All bands were on form, I got some pictures but they turned out shit, SJW got some cool pics though.
What can I say about Nile?, I've seen them before, they're amazing live and I'm glad I caught them last night cos I missed them this year at Graspop due to them clashing with Testament.
Leeds Rios is a great venue with good sound and it was packed in there for Nile, an excellent turn out.

"I want to see you bang your fucking heads!"

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.

Ravens Creed, Leeds Fenton, May 26th 2008

We knew it was going to be a good one.
It was a bank holiday and we were all off, we'd been invited to a barbecue at our friend Diz's (who has moved from Liverpool to Leeds).
We travelled down in the afternoon, stopping off on Saddleworth Moor but not finding any bodies.


We were a bit too early for Dizzy's party, so we popped along to see Dawn and Mark and Ben and Amy on the way, finally rolling up to Diz's just in time to be spoiled rotten with the spread of vegan and vegetarian (with meat for Skum and SJW) food they had prepared. Nice one Diz, it was great to see you again and meet your better half at last too!
So from here we popped up to the Fenton to meet up with Dean and get into some beer.
"Irish" John even popped in, fresh from the Planet X 25th Anniversary celebrations in Liverpool the day before, looking all windswept and dramatic.

I missed the first band, and I wasn't into the second one, sorry. Another band had to pull out for some reason or another, so after a few pints it was time for Ravens Creed.

Ravens Creed feature members of Orange Goblin, Iron Monkey, Cerebral Fix, Sabbat (UK), Skyclad.... a total who's who of the true! But put aside any idea you may have of what they sound like, it's pure early thrash worship here, total Venom/old Slayer style stuff with an unmistakably British swagger.

The crowd was a bit sparse (it was Bank Holiday Monday like I say) but those of us that had bothered to turn up were treated to war-obsessed, serial killer thrash metal, all held together with some fucking amazing drumming from Jay Graham.
Every time I turned to look at Dean he was just like "...drums..." haha.

Ravens Creed should really be massive, with all this fake nu-thrash that's currently doing the trendy magazine rounds, they could blow them all away with a true love for the music and a proper thrash metal pedigree, but they'll probably stay ultra underground in England, because this country wouldn't know a good thing if it drank all their beer, kicked it out of it's own house, then pissed in the fireplace.

Watch them, they're top notch, squire.
(extra claw points to SJW for pulling the car over on the hard shoulder of the M62 Motorway in the dead of night and making the Thee Claw strut up and down to AC/DC's "It's a Long Way To The Top" whilst trucks and cars hurtled past at 90-odd miles an hour)
Link:Ravens Creed

Exodus European Tour Dates - April 2008

American thrash legends Exodus are heading over to Europe in May 08 for a handful of dates across the continent.

2008-04-08 The Underworld, London (UK)
2008-04-09 Rio's, Leeds (UK)
2008-04-10 The Voodoo Lounge, Dublin (IRE)
2008-04-11 Cathouse, Glasgow (UK)
2008-04-12 The Corporation, Sheffield (UK)
2008-04-13 Groningen, Vera (NL)
2008-04-14 Eindhoven, Dynamo (NL)

Lamp Of Thoth (Band) - Lamp Of Thoth (Song)

This video is from when we went to Leeds (5th October 2007) to watch the legendary Pagan Altar's 1st gig in 25 years. Lamp Of Thoth were the only other band who played on the night and - maaaaan - they were awesome.

I hope we get to catch more of the Cauldron Of True Witchery again sometime during 2008.

Trouble @ Leeds

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



Possibly thee gig of the year.

Trouble, Leeds Rio's - Tue 29 May

Went to see Trouble play in Leeds last night. What a show, possibly my best of 2007 so far (and that's saying something!). Loud as hell too - as I write this it's a full 24 hours later and my ears are still ringing.

The setlist included a couple of tracks of the new album, and each time they were about to play one of the new numbers Eric Wagner would stop for a second and tell the crowd "You all won't know this one yet". Sorry Eric but I kinda already have heard it... several times! And it's awesome! But don't worry though, I will be buying a copy of the CD when it finally gets released ok dude.

The setlist for the show was something like:

R.I.P.
The Sleeper
Touch The Sky
Plastic Green Head
Assassin
Pray For The Dead / Endtime
Mindbender
Goin' Home
End of My Daze
Memories Garden
All Is Forgiven
Revelation (Life and Death)
Psychotic Reaction

Encore #1:
Bastards Will Pay

Encore #2:
???

They came back on stage for the second encore and said that they don't usually do a 2nd one, this was the first second encore of the tour. I dunno what they played though haha, little help? The song of the gig though (for me at least) was Mindbender.

All through the show Eric was smoking & drinking and occasionally disappearing off stage and then reappearing after about 30 seconds. Also he kept stopping between songs to grab hold of girls in the audience. White metal you say? Sure, whatever! Whatever you want to call it though, this gig is one of the best I have ever been to.