heavy metal
Kieron Tyler
“Jazz,” exclaims an audience member just after Plantoid launch into “Ultivatum Cultivation,” tonight’s second song – also the second song on the band’s recent second LP Flare.He’s got a point. What’s emanating from the stage at East London’s Moth Club is more a candidate for a description as jazz rather than the math rock – or even the prog rock – tags often cropping up when trying to pin down Plantoid. Jazz: in this case a take on the genre fusing a Miles Davis Bitches Brew sensibility with, in contrast, softer things; things suggesting a familiarity with Gary McFarland’s Sixties Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s the first date of Manchester rockers Witch Fever’s European tour and things are off to an iffy start. Drummer Annabelle Joyce has food poisoning. It was touch’n’go whether the band would play. But they do. Singer Amy Walpole advices us that Joyce may need to leave and puke at any point. But the crop-haired drummer’s made of sterner stuff. They hold their own. The band shaves two songs off the set but it matters little. Witch Fever rock.But let’s rewind. Support act Cowboy Hunters have a buzz growing. It’s easy to see why. The Glasgow duo are an original. They appear to an initially Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Fuck Thatcher, fuck neoliberalism.” After these words from the stage, an audience response. “Fuck Thatcher” echoes the approving shout from the darkness.The performer expressing his views is the Sheffield-based folk-rooted stylist Jim Ghedi. What he’s said has not come out of the blue. There is context. He is introducing “Ah Cud Hew,” a song included on his In the Furrows of Common Place album. He learnt it from Ed Pickford, a County Durham singer and songwriter with a family background in coal mining. The song – “I could hew” – is about the decimation of the coal industry during the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Last time we heard from Blackburn heavy rockers Sky Valley Mistress, they were a four-piece who'd recorded their 2020 debut album in the Mohave Desert (strong hints at their musical motivation lie in their name, drawn from Welcome to Sky Valley, an album by Kyuss, Josh Homme’s pre-Queens of the Stone Age outfit). They return as a duo, with the album Luna Mausoleum, laid down in Leeds. While it retains the riffological poundage of their origins, it’s an invigorating leap forward in terms of sonic invention and songcraft.Now consisting of singer Kayley “Hell Kitten” Davies and guitarist Max Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Thrash metal’s “big four”, the ones who originally set the genre rolling, are, famously, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. These are American bands. In Europe, another band has a decent claim. They are Germany’s Kreator, whose early work, particularly 1986’s Pleasure to Kill, boasts venomous attack the equal of any peer. Decades later, their 16th studio album sees them offer similar velocity, if with more melodic finesse.For Kreator, wider appreciation was a long time coming. Their global breakthrough came with 2005’s Enemy of God (their 11th album!), and they’ve since Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The stylish gentlemen pictured above are Crimson Earth, a band active from 1970 to 1976. Regardless of their longevity, the Dorset-based outfit failed to attract national attention and didn’t release any records. There was an audition for EMI, local media support and a deal with a Bristol booking agency but cigars were not forthcoming.Even so, a 1972 tape of the band has been disinterred and one track from it – the explosive, irresistible “Heathen Woman” – was included earlier this year on the agenda-setting Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy!!, an extraordinary, wild-ride compilation of never- Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHMartel Zaire (Evil Ideas)Montenegro-born, Cyprus-based producer Martel Vladimiroff is a hard man to find out about. His meagre online imprint and extensive global travels make him seem more like “an asset in the field” than a musician. Whoever he is, his new EP, four tracks drawn from his second album of the same name, is a unique idea, well-executed. Inspired by the imperial ravaging of Africa and the ongoing horrors of its modern equivalent, with the Congo as prime exemplar, it’s a conceptual head-trip. A dense gumbo of African field recordings and tribal drums play off Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Witch Fever are a rising four-piece, originally formed in Manchester. Their debut album, 2022’s Congregation, was a raw, sludge-punk howl that represented singer Amy Walpole’s livid rejection of the stridently patriarchal Charismatic Church of her upbringing.Since then, they’ve toured with everyone from Biffy Clyro to IDLES, and gathered a righteous amount of attention (and, of course, they look great). Their second album is less laser-focused on religious subject matter. It’s a match for its predecessor but with greater use of atmospheric effects and electronic trimmings.Opener “Dead to Me Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Comedy is strange old thing; it’s supposed to be funny ha-ha, but the laughs can often come from a dark place, as evidenced by Nick Helm’s latest show (which I saw at the Arts Depot in London). His mental health has been a backdrop to previous show, but No One Gets Out Alive is his most personal yet as he references the end of an important relationship some years ago, and charts how his television breakthrough proved to be a false dawn in his career.But before he gets into that, some housekeeping, as Helm rearranges the venue’s seating to fill up a few empty spaces at the front. These Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The history of popular music is littered with bands who fulfilled everything needed to make it. Then fate kicked them in the teeth. Goofin’ good time Brit heavy rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up have had some rubbish luck.In 2019, after slogging the circuit for a decade, their fourth album was signed to Parlophone, they supported The Offspring and Sum 41 on US tours, and their new song “Back Foot” was an ebullient pop-metal classic. They were on the brink of breaking big.We all know what happened next. That virus closed the world. But, worse for the band, frontman Matt Bigland became seriously ill, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Manticore was owned by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and their manager. The organisation provided the name for the band’s label. Apart from ELP and its individual members, the best-known signees to the imprint were Italian prog-rockers PFM and former King Crimson member Pete Sinfield. Despite this new album’s title, Motörhead were not with Manticore.However, Lemmy and co used ELP’s Manticore Studio in Fulham – in what used to be a cinema – during August 1976 when they showcased for prospective record labels. The release of the album they had recently completed for United Artists appeared to be Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Swiss electro-rockers, Young Gods have been around for 40 years, but this in no way should suggest that they’ve gone soft in their old age. These days, vocalist Franz Treichler looks like the psychopathic Bob from David Lynch’s original Twin Peaks TV series and still exudes a certain malevolence – which is more than reflected in their new album Appear Disappear.The Young Gods’ influence has been readily acknowledged over the years by the likes of David Bowie, Mike Patton and even U2, to name just a few. Their sound draws from the same sonic seam as industrial metalheads Ministry and Nine Inch Read more ...