Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to That's Not Matt. Last
Speaker 1: week we had a big reviews bag where we were
Speaker 1: tackling a whole bunch of sick new records that came
Speaker 1: out in May. But right now it's the beginning of
Speaker 1: June and this here is another edition of Hyperblast where
Speaker 1: we are with you every single week letting you know
Speaker 1: what's been going on in the world of heavy music,
Speaker 1: what releases you're going to want to hear from the
Speaker 1: world of heavy music, and have a good old natter
Speaker 1: all about that. That's what we're here to do. My
Speaker 1: name is Parian hairsh across from me to do this.
Speaker 1: Mark Anderson is back returning to the show. Hello Mark,
Speaker 1: Hello mate, how are you doing. I have had a
Speaker 1: very good week because I was at the weekend over
Speaker 1: in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coastline for Fortress Festival,
Speaker 1: enjoying a whole load of very very evil and very
Speaker 1: sick black metal. So in today's show, at the end
Speaker 1: of this I'm gonna talk about that little time that
Speaker 1: I had, talk about all the elite black metal proceedings
Speaker 1: that went on. So if you are a hardcore black
Speaker 1: metal and then you are going to want to stick
Speaker 1: around for the end of this show where I talk
Speaker 1: about all of that. But before we do that, we
Speaker 1: have got the you know, the earlier Hyperblast section of
Speaker 1: the show to do, and we do have. It turns
Speaker 1: out a whole load of news just new tracks wise alone,
Speaker 1: before we get into the drama and controversies and all
Speaker 1: of that, just purely new singles and that this is
Speaker 1: a fruitful week. So let's first things first get underway
Speaker 1: with all of that. Let's start with perhaps probably most
Speaker 1: long awaited of these, mastered on back with a track
Speaker 1: that is called Your Ghost Again. This is I guess
Speaker 1: the lead single from their upcoming album. The album has
Speaker 1: not been officially announced. We don't have a release date
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but it does look like the
Speaker 1: album is going to be called Poisonous Weapons, with an
Speaker 1: album art that I think that you if you see
Speaker 1: the tour poster that they've announced for the US run
Speaker 1: that we're also going to talk about. I believe that
Speaker 1: that is also the album cover for the record when
Speaker 1: it comes out. Don't know yet, but we do have
Speaker 1: concrete evidence of a master on album around the corner,
Speaker 1: and even more than that, we've got a first track
Speaker 1: from it and Your Ghost again. Obviously, there are many
Speaker 1: levels of significance to this Just the fact that it's
Speaker 1: new mastered on alone I always find to be significant
Speaker 1: because they are one of the most consistently brilliant bands
Speaker 1: of the last twenty five years of heavy music, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite bands of all time, so that's always exciting.
Speaker 1: But there is a particular you know, significance to this one.
Speaker 1: I think it's like the longest gap they've had between albums,
Speaker 1: like five years between Hushed and Grim and this one.
Speaker 1: But even more than that, it's the first record without
Speaker 1: Brent Hinz, who obviously first left the band and then
Speaker 1: really sadly passed way a few months after that last year.
Speaker 1: And the way that this this track has been described,
Speaker 1: you know, they've kind of likened it to, you know,
Speaker 1: the experience of basically, you know, inhabiting a place and
Speaker 1: seeing out of the corner of your eye, you know,
Speaker 1: the ghosts of the people who you were maybe once
Speaker 1: in that place with, and they've specifically, you know, referenced essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, being in the studio and that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and you know where where somewhere where they were so
Speaker 1: frequently obviously with Brent in the band and him him
Speaker 1: not being there. So that is the the thematic goings
Speaker 1: on of this track with that in mind, and there
Speaker 1: are definitely some more, you know, particularly lyrically, you know,
Speaker 1: emotionally heavier parts to this track, but this doesn't feel
Speaker 1: to me like one of those. Really, you're really pensive
Speaker 1: mastered on tracks in terms at least in terms of
Speaker 1: its sonic approach certainly. I remember when you know, Pushing
Speaker 1: the Tides came out as the lead single from the
Speaker 1: last record, and that's like a straight ahead banger, and
Speaker 1: then the record turned out to be a lot more,
Speaker 1: a lot more patient, and a lot more mood in
Speaker 1: melancholic maybe than just that first taste suggested. So who
Speaker 1: knows how much we might have to go on here,
Speaker 1: But I wasn't expecting such a frantic, heavy leading with this,
Speaker 1: like straight away when you press play, it's one of
Speaker 1: the crazier like late period mattered on riffs, Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of notes in the riff, and then even
Speaker 1: as the song goes on there's like genuine organ breaks,
Speaker 1: like there's one that happens early on that I thought, whoa,
Speaker 1: that's something, and then later on it comes back in
Speaker 1: a sort of more extended form, and it's like a
Speaker 1: full on like twenty tens Opeth like doodlelywoodly prog organ part.
Speaker 1: And I did say that come in, but the song
Speaker 1: overall is quite crushing, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this thing, I mean, that riff is so chaotic.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it's not too far away, too far
Speaker 2: removed from like a math core like maybe it's not
Speaker 2: math core, but it's like.
Speaker 3: It's an ingredient in the mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got that great sort of prog metal. I
Speaker 2: can't quite nailed down what time signature this is. It's
Speaker 2: such a bulldozer. And then at the end you get
Speaker 2: a proper like traditional heavy rift to bring it all back.
Speaker 2: It's great and yeah halfway through, but it goes full
Speaker 2: like Stephen Wilson.
Speaker 1: Like Sorceress full Rick Wakeman. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's a part that I can normally describe
Speaker 2: as Noodley. It's so good.
Speaker 1: I would go beyond Nudley and describe it as Boodley Woodly,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's the level that we're looking.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, these guys have grown extra mustaches right
Speaker 2: in that part. It's kind of how are you feeling
Speaker 2: about it. I'm really I'm really happy with it. I
Speaker 2: think this is song is so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it a lot. I mean, there's never
Speaker 1: been a lead single from a Maston record that I
Speaker 1: haven't love. Me, There's never been a Maston record I
Speaker 1: haven't loved really, but certainly the first taste of them,
Speaker 1: they're always like, yeah, the boys are back, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? This one did strike me in the
Speaker 1: So when the chorus from Brand comes in, obviously, it's
Speaker 1: a clean, melodic chorus like the song's about, you know,
Speaker 1: four or five minutes long, which is sort of in
Speaker 1: the rough ballpark of you know, Latter Day, last fifteen
Speaker 1: years or so mastered on stuff. But when the chorus
Speaker 1: comes in, it doesn't feel quite as radio as like
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not show yourself obviously, But even
Speaker 1: when you compare it to songs like Pushing the Tithe
Speaker 1: for example, you know, the lead single from the previous record,
Speaker 1: so it's like high Road or whatever any of those,
Speaker 1: when Brand's vocal comes in, it's not quite as like
Speaker 1: piercingly melodic. It has this slightly more haunted, psychedelic sort
Speaker 1: of effect on it, you know, with him doing the
Speaker 1: I Saw your Ghost again reverberating around and it's still
Speaker 1: like it's a good hook. I like that melody, but
Speaker 1: it does feel, I say, a little bit more shadowy
Speaker 1: maybe then your traditional like big brand led mastered on
Speaker 1: chorus tends to be. And then we factor that in
Speaker 1: alongside it, as we said, the kind of the more
Speaker 1: like more aggressive end of later Day mastered on riffing,
Speaker 1: but then also the full on like left field prog
Speaker 1: rock parts beyond what is in the standard Masterdon song.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really interesting and surprising mixture of
Speaker 1: elements and components to having, like here's your first taste
Speaker 1: of a new Masterdon song. Obviously, you know, not having
Speaker 1: Brent in the band. When the lead part comes in,
Speaker 1: it's not Brent, you know, it doesn't kind of cascade
Speaker 1: into your ear the way Brent lead parts always would.
Speaker 1: But it does have this real roaring, squalling kind of
Speaker 1: part towards the end that fits again the sort of
Speaker 1: vitriolic nature of the song and then that final riff
Speaker 1: that you were talking about. The production credits for this
Speaker 1: track and I guess the rest of the album are
Speaker 1: kind of mad because apparently it's co produced by Kurt Balu,
Speaker 1: which we know that guy, and the promise of a
Speaker 1: Kurt Blue produced Masterton record is just that should get
Speaker 1: every single heavy music fan's tongue absolutely, you know, salivating,
Speaker 1: and that that riff crunch bit at the end does
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, that's what you want from that, but
Speaker 1: that it's co produced along with Kurt by a guy
Speaker 1: called Patrick Berger, who is a Swedish producer I believe
Speaker 1: who is most if you look him up, he's most
Speaker 1: known for doing pop musicians, as in Charlie XCX, Carli
Speaker 1: ray Jepsen. He co wrote Dancing on My Own by Robin,
Speaker 1: one of the most like beloved pop songs the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. And he's even worked with Taylor Swift. And
Speaker 1: so you've got a Taylor Swift collaborator, co writer of
Speaker 1: you know these great Robin hits or whatever, and Kurt
Speaker 1: Blou and what the fuck is that? As a like, yeah,
Speaker 1: those the two guys we're going to get collaboratively, like
Speaker 1: make guy record that's fucking weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah you did that.
Speaker 2: And then also, like you say, the song itself having
Speaker 2: so many different components, what the fuck is this record?
Speaker 1: I like?
Speaker 3: That makes me?
Speaker 2: I mean I was already so excited. I love master
Speaker 2: Don but like, what the fuck.
Speaker 3: Is this record gonna be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Again, there's lots of anticipation expections
Speaker 1: of the record considering just the circumstances around it. But
Speaker 1: just like what we have from a first taste here,
Speaker 1: and like the credits on the record are slightly bizarre
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I echo exactly what you said. I'm
Speaker 1: always excited for Mastered On. I wouldn't say I'm like
Speaker 1: any more excited for this Mastered On than any other
Speaker 1: one in their history, because they're just a band who
Speaker 1: I've always loved, but color me intrigued as ever, and
Speaker 1: I have very much enjoyed, you know, the time I've
Speaker 1: spent with this first trap from it and just to
Speaker 1: follow follow up and polish off the the Mastered On news,
Speaker 1: they have as said, they've announced a US tour. They
Speaker 1: have toured the US so much in the last like
Speaker 1: five years. Come and do whatever here please, but full
Speaker 1: US run later this year. As I said, if you
Speaker 1: want to get a look at what seems like it's
Speaker 1: going to be the album cover, I imagine it's the
Speaker 1: crazy Beastie that's on this tour poster, but the bill,
Speaker 1: they've just put together a black Gaze bill for some reason.
Speaker 1: They're being supported by Death Heaven and alcest which is
Speaker 1: like a cool. Mastardon have such diverse touring partners, like
Speaker 1: if you look at all the runs that they've been
Speaker 1: able to do, and it's cool that they can lean
Speaker 1: into any one direction this time, but this time going like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get like the two most important bands in
Speaker 1: a particular subgenre that we don't really have anything to
Speaker 1: do with, but we guess like some of our fans might.
Speaker 1: Like if you are a US based black gays loving
Speaker 1: Mastodon fan, and that is the dream night.
Speaker 3: Give me that. I'm so jealous. That is the ideal
Speaker 3: night for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really good. As said, don't know when the album's
Speaker 1: going to be coming out now, but of course we
Speaker 1: will be looking forward to it. We do have more
Speaker 1: concrete news about the new album from Weezer, which is
Speaker 1: going to be coming on August the twenty first. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we knew it was a Weser album coming. We already
Speaker 1: had a song a handful of weeks ago, but now
Speaker 1: we have news several into details here. It is a
Speaker 1: self titled record. From Weezer, which obviously means also it's
Speaker 1: a colored album. It is the Gold album, which for
Speaker 1: some reason I never entered my head as a color
Speaker 1: that Weezer had left to do. But I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Gold album sounds fucking cool, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a ring to it. What I don't
Speaker 1: like is that they're not on the album cover, because
Speaker 1: that has to be a colored album tradition. I want
Speaker 1: to I think they should be like prospectors, you know.
Speaker 1: They should have been like in like eighteenth century mining
Speaker 1: gear with a giant pick over their shoulder, being like,
Speaker 1: oh gold, you know what I mean. Instead, it's just
Speaker 1: it looks like, I don't know, they watch the throwne
Speaker 1: album cover or something, which is not as cool.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't look like a rock album, which whatever.
Speaker 2: You're right, they should be dressed like Stinky Pete from
Speaker 2: Toy Story two, like.
Speaker 1: Exactly, imagine you have fun that they could have.
Speaker 2: Remember Golden Nuggets, the serial, Just those four guys put
Speaker 2: the donkey next to them.
Speaker 1: Come on, where is the Golden Nuggets album?
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 1: You have fucked up. But I will let them off
Speaker 1: because there's also a single out called we Might as
Speaker 1: Well Be Strangers, which features the band Wednesday, who I
Speaker 1: confess I don't we know anything about, but I understand
Speaker 1: that they are a recently, you know, fairly popular band
Speaker 1: in the kind of the more alternative leaning world. But
Speaker 1: this song considering as said, we got a track from
Speaker 1: this record like a month or so ago, and we
Speaker 1: spoke about it and I'm like, yeah, this is like solid,
Speaker 1: but it didn't grab the headlines right. The mainly interesting
Speaker 1: thing about it was that it was like the first
Speaker 1: song in about twenty years that Patrick Wilson had written.
Speaker 1: It was a fine, but didn't necessarily jump out to
Speaker 1: us so immediately as like, this is a standout Weezer song.
Speaker 1: This track, I mean, for a start, this is like
Speaker 1: an emo song like that. I can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time that Weezer had this like organic level of production sound.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that was okay human, but that obviously
Speaker 1: lent in a very particular kind of classical direction. This
Speaker 1: is like an old school, almost nineties esque emo. We's
Speaker 1: a song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's proper like throwback to nineties alt rock. Like
Speaker 2: River sounds raw on it, not that he's like screaming
Speaker 2: and yelling, but.
Speaker 3: You can hear the cracks in his voice.
Speaker 1: I know what I mean. Yeah, there's the.
Speaker 2: Roughness to it, and that the interval sort of like
Speaker 2: bassing guitar on top of each other. It reminds me
Speaker 2: of the debut Placebo album and like stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and like you say, Emo and all this, and it's
Speaker 2: so I mean, I'm head over heels for this. I'm
Speaker 2: so so happy. I don't care if they're not on
Speaker 2: the album cover. Just give me the album, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe laugh on. The opening line of the song is
Speaker 2: happy birthday, thanks for the value.
Speaker 1: That just strikes herre in an interesting way. At the
Speaker 1: third time you hear it, Nancy and you know said
Speaker 1: vicious references a bit played out, but whatever, the song
Speaker 1: is lovely. Like I agree, like the guitar and vocal
Speaker 1: melodic harmony that goes on with that core riff is brilliant.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't really know much about Wednesday, but
Speaker 1: like decent counterpoint to you know, Rivers on the second
Speaker 1: verse of it kind of reminds me of you know,
Speaker 1: the song go Away with the singer from Best Coast,
Speaker 1: which is the one that blew up on TikTok. Really
Speaker 1: bizarrely like a couple months ago and became huge, So
Speaker 1: maybe this will be I don't know, purposefully, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I want to call it
Speaker 1: as cynical as that, But what I was going to
Speaker 1: say is that maybe it could tap into a similar effect,
Speaker 1: right if there are people who are you know, have
Speaker 1: been enjoying that song, maybe it's their first Weezer song,
Speaker 1: it's you know, reasonable, and then this one comes out.
Speaker 1: It's like, ah, that kind of has a slightly similar
Speaker 1: sort of you know, duet flavor to it. And I agree.
Speaker 1: Even though like it's quite a you know, languid, melancholic
Speaker 1: kind of song, there's a really like passionate delivery to it,
Speaker 1: particularly on the Bridge. There's a real like urgency that
Speaker 1: Rivers approaches it with and I haven't heard him like
Speaker 1: that in a long time.
Speaker 2: Actually, there's there's one song on Hurley where he sort
Speaker 2: of does that, but like, you know, I mean for me, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, and.
Speaker 2: It's nice to hear him sound urgent, like he needs
Speaker 2: to get something out. Because he's our sweet little like
Speaker 2: songwriting machine man, it's not often that we hear like
Speaker 2: actual emotion from him. And on the chorus. The chorus
Speaker 2: melody is so bittersweet and so big and so catchy.
Speaker 2: But the thing that really like lifts it, even though
Speaker 2: it's already brilliant, is.
Speaker 3: That if I say you were a song.
Speaker 2: Bit it was just like it's like you're you've ascended
Speaker 2: the mountain. You think you're at the top. Oh shit,
Speaker 2: there's still more mountain to go. You know, it brings
Speaker 2: something greater and makes it greater. Like I've listened to
Speaker 2: this song oh God times today.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I know nothing about Wednesday, but she's got
Speaker 2: a great voice, that great like lacks of daisical, sort
Speaker 2: of too cool for school vibe. She really compliments Rivers
Speaker 2: on the verse like I think this is the best
Speaker 2: Weezer song Ah God.
Speaker 3: In ages.
Speaker 1: I will answer that obviously. This is the first major
Speaker 1: Weser project since the Season's records, which are like two
Speaker 1: three years old at the stage, and they were wank.
Speaker 1: So the last time Weezer were good was twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: when they put out both Okay Human and Van Weezer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is unquestionably the best material since then. So
Speaker 1: we had five years of you know, uh some in
Speaker 1: between Wheezer years. As happens, they drift away, they come back.
Speaker 1: We all know this. This is the cycle of the
Speaker 1: Weezer fan. It's not new, but on the strength of
Speaker 1: you know, the first single was decent, maybe all you
Speaker 1: know jump out to us more when we got the
Speaker 1: full record, this one is a great Weezer song, and
Speaker 1: it feels like, after you know, five years since the
Speaker 1: last time they were good, off the back of this
Speaker 1: song we can go, it seems like Weezer are good
Speaker 1: again because this is a really strong song.
Speaker 2: I hope, so I want to believe. I always believe. Also,
Speaker 2: I have a boom to pick. Everything is surrounding the
Speaker 2: announcement of this album is like the twentieth album from Weezer.
Speaker 2: We're not doing this. We're not counting each season's EP
Speaker 2: as an album.
Speaker 1: We can and that might also include Teal, which you
Speaker 1: know is up for debate whether you include covered album
Speaker 1: or not. So I lost track of weeze like even
Speaker 1: though we've done the full special talking about every single week,
Speaker 1: but I have one track of what counts and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: But it does seem like this might be the first
Speaker 1: good Weezer album since Okay, Human and Van Weezer came
Speaker 1: out five years ago, so fucking sweet, I do believe.
Speaker 1: Then we also have a few weeks ago there was
Speaker 1: a little period where the signs seemed to be pointing
Speaker 1: to Greta van Fleet of course, the band who've never
Speaker 1: heard Led Zeppelin before in their lives, possibly splitting up.
Speaker 1: And instead, once we put that show out, it was
Speaker 1: announcement of like, oh no, we're back, guys. We had
Speaker 1: like a two three year hiatus whatever, but we're back,
Speaker 1: and we went okay, all right, fine and moved on.
Speaker 1: But now they're like actually properly back, and they've put
Speaker 1: out a single called play or Games. And this is again,
Speaker 1: I guess the big you know, reveal of their kind
Speaker 1: of comeback routine right now. I'll be real with you,
Speaker 1: this song as it's been released right now, I don't
Speaker 1: think I needed to spend any time with because where
Speaker 1: we also got the announcement a couple weeks ago, it
Speaker 1: is like, oh no, they're not breaking up there, They're
Speaker 1: still around. There was like footage that went round of
Speaker 1: them playing this song together, and that fucking chorus right
Speaker 1: of matey boy going play a guy became like a
Speaker 1: vocal stym for me for at least like two three days,
Speaker 1: Like I was walking around, I'm like, okay, that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm in a way, I'm almost glad gretvan Fleet are
Speaker 1: back just because of how like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: weirdly addictive not listening to the full song fuck that,
Speaker 1: but just watching the five to ten in that turned
Speaker 1: out to be. How is that Like there's at such
Speaker 1: an incredible level of either lack of self awareness or
Speaker 1: just not caring at all, that that is such a
Speaker 1: thing that they could be beaten with that, Like people
Speaker 1: have always said that amongst you a led Zeppelin, whatever,
Speaker 1: aerosmith Sventy's rock type clones, he has a particularly shrill
Speaker 1: voice and pushing it that far and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the hook of our comeback single. In a way
Speaker 1: I have to respect it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I like? This song is a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Sort of I don't know how to even think about
Speaker 2: it because objectively it's horrid. It's really stupid, and like
Speaker 2: you say, it's like it's either really lazy and like,
Speaker 2: oh who gives a ship we can put it out anything,
Speaker 2: or a delusion of grandeur. I like to believe it's
Speaker 2: a delusion of grandeur I have. I think it is
Speaker 2: the two such a such a soft spot. And you'll
Speaker 2: know this as my long suffering best mate. If music
Speaker 2: is funny, I really just like it.
Speaker 3: It is bad, I'll find it funny.
Speaker 2: Therefore I will like it, especially if something is like
Speaker 2: so confident and like trying to be like a party starting,
Speaker 2: like come on, guys, we're all dancing. It's a boogie,
Speaker 2: we're funking, and it's that bad and that embarrassing. I
Speaker 2: really I find that so infectious and so funny. I've
Speaker 2: listened to the song, I mean a few times today.
Speaker 2: Earlier I was I was cooking dinner with my brother
Speaker 2: and I was like, do you want to hear this
Speaker 2: stupid song we have to talk about? I put it
Speaker 2: on and by the end we were like clapping along,
Speaker 2: adding your own like whoa yeah, come on, like really
Speaker 2: getting into it considering it's crap. It's so infectious, like
Speaker 2: like you, I'm glad they're back because that chorus makes
Speaker 2: me happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm somewhat sillller that. Like I said, I was
Speaker 1: just like just just vocal ticking that frages when it
Speaker 1: was first revealed. But what what come back what returning
Speaker 1: the single? Yeah, kind of surprised that this has come
Speaker 1: out so soon, I suppose, but they're striking on theye
Speaker 1: and is hot. I'm poyed to serve. I've got a
Speaker 1: new single. I believe this is. I'm going to take
Speaker 1: this as currently a standalone saying rather than a reveal
Speaker 1: avenue record or anything, because obviously the Fallen Start record
Speaker 1: is just a year old now. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got a track, why not why not put it out?
Speaker 1: Dead reckoning from Employed to Serve and this considering the
Speaker 1: last album Lent the furthest they ever had into like
Speaker 1: it's kind of mainstream adjacent net will feel right, like
Speaker 1: songs for big festival stages that kind of vibe. This
Speaker 1: starts with.
Speaker 4: A fucking like brutal death metal like slamming riff, Like
Speaker 4: this is way more brutal than anything they've done in
Speaker 4: a hot minute, like Justine's doing some like kind of
Speaker 4: more necrotic shit, which does like the look in my
Speaker 4: eyes that kind of stuff. There's frantic like spidery lead
Speaker 4: guitars crammed into every nook and cranny, you know it.
Speaker 4: There's a bit about like one minute fifty in where
Speaker 4: Sammy just hits this like weird like gorguts tech death
Speaker 4: kind of way, kind of god and sticking this on
Speaker 4: was like, oh shit, Okay, I know, obviously, I know
Speaker 4: that you guys have this in you, but I didn't
Speaker 4: expect to be hit with it at this exact moment.
Speaker 4: And I'm certainly not mad about it.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I had no idea what to expect, like you,
Speaker 2: but then immediately being hit by like an employed to
Speaker 2: serve song that like has suffocation in it wicked. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's so heavy, it's so brutal, that bit where Sammy
Speaker 2: hits the like fucked up guitar, and then it's sort
Speaker 2: of the song sort of is building to something grand.
Speaker 2: I thought we were going to go into a big
Speaker 2: like solo section or something, and then a big melodic
Speaker 2: but still sort of like a fucked up like choir
Speaker 2: melody comes in and I'm like, oh shit, this rips.
Speaker 2: It's so good, like it's almost I don't know. They
Speaker 2: seemed like a band who were just always creating and
Speaker 2: always wanting to write stuff, And I think it's obviously
Speaker 2: very natural for people who love metal as much as
Speaker 2: we know they do if they write something slightly more
Speaker 2: commercial in the last record.
Speaker 3: Fuck it, why not just put a death metal song
Speaker 3: with a great beatdown in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so cool that that breakdown part is so
Speaker 1: like twenty ten Death Corps almost like it's sap. Like
Speaker 1: that breakdown sounds like it'd be on a new era
Speaker 1: of corruption by White Chapel, you know, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of the clean, cleaner I suppose, the kind of melodic,
Speaker 1: you know, multi tracked bridge bit that is the part
Speaker 1: that to me sounds like the strongest you know, continuation
Speaker 1: on from what they have been doing, and that it
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit like when you hear like the
Speaker 1: big gang vocal tracking from bands like Beleef and Within
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, who are sort of in the
Speaker 1: similar realm of what you know. Latter Day Employed Observe
Speaker 1: has been like that stuff is still in there, but
Speaker 1: this is just a like way more of you know,
Speaker 1: fast and aggressive, brutal you know, slut on that. And
Speaker 1: I agree, you know, when you take the last record
Speaker 1: and yeah, we spoke about how diverse the last record
Speaker 1: is when we reviewed. It's like that, here's like a
Speaker 1: weird goth metally song, Here's a song with Jesse Leach
Speaker 1: on here's a song with like electronics like it was,
Speaker 1: you know, try and stuff out. When you take all
Speaker 1: of those things and then also factor this like as
Speaker 1: you say, kind of suffocation adjacent employed to serve song
Speaker 1: in with that, then they have, like you got to
Speaker 1: give him a lot of credit for covering a lot
Speaker 1: of ground even in just like the last eighteen months,
Speaker 1: let alone their entire you know, catalog up to this point.
Speaker 1: But a very nice surprise getting not just a new
Speaker 1: employer serve track, but one that is like this fucking
Speaker 1: no nonsense with its brutality. So definitely check that one
Speaker 1: out if you haven't already. Even more new music, we've
Speaker 1: got a new album from Jamie Lenman on the Way,
Speaker 1: who seems to have taken his like brief little couple
Speaker 1: year retirement period and gone. Now I've not got that
Speaker 1: in me at least for now, because he seems to
Speaker 1: just have come back to making records and so on.
Speaker 1: But there is a new album which is called Puke.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be out on August the seventh. There's a
Speaker 1: single from that called not Likely as well, but new
Speaker 1: Jamie Lenman on the Way. That's all good exciting new
Speaker 1: music stuff. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk
Speaker 1: about something stupid and horrible both, But here we go.
Speaker 1: It's our job to report this stuff. Bal Morra, who
Speaker 1: were one, say were? I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: or are. Everything's fucking up in the air with this
Speaker 1: at the moment, but bal Mora one of the most hyped,
Speaker 1: certainly bands of the like metalcore revival right of the
Speaker 1: for the past like two years. I would say they've
Speaker 1: kind of felt like the chosen ones of that scene,
Speaker 1: like considering I'm talking like, you know, two thousand and
Speaker 1: two esque, you know, revival, so called real metalcore right,
Speaker 1: and we get so many of those bands coming out
Speaker 1: of the hardcore scene. But the one of those bands
Speaker 1: who have emerged in the last you know, handful of
Speaker 1: years who seemed to be building the most like steam
Speaker 1: behind them is this band bal Mora. We spoke about
Speaker 1: on the show before. They had like a run of
Speaker 1: several EPs that were all again continually like each one
Speaker 1: more so I hyped and built up a lot of steam,
Speaker 1: all of which was you know, lending a lot of
Speaker 1: anticipation to when they would put out a debut album.
Speaker 1: We've been saying that for a while, like, yeah, when
Speaker 1: the debut BAMAR album out, we'll review it and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. That album came out last Friday, and
Speaker 1: immediately considering I already thought it could have been an
Speaker 1: interesting conversation, considering I was seeing like mixed responses, like
Speaker 1: both very positive and very negative about actually the debut
Speaker 1: album and all the whether it fulfilled or didn't fulfill
Speaker 1: the hype that they had going into it. But pretty
Speaker 1: much as soon as it was out, they got hit
Speaker 1: by that old you know, scourge of the rock and
Speaker 1: particularly Parkore and punk scene sexual misconduct allegations, and their guitarist,
Speaker 1: Jay Torbler, who was the focus of those allegations, was
Speaker 1: announced to have stepped away from the band. But since
Speaker 1: then it's just sort of like snowballed in terms of
Speaker 1: I guess primarily people taking umbradge with the wording of
Speaker 1: their statements and how you know, well or poorly they
Speaker 1: may have expressed and faced up to these things, and
Speaker 1: this kind of snowball of negativity surrounding that seems to
Speaker 1: have gone further to the point where the entire existence
Speaker 1: of the band currently seems up for you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's uncertain, right. Their initial statement, I will
Speaker 1: readoubt is in the past few days, we've seen the
Speaker 1: evidence and screenshots of the behavior of our guitarist engaging
Speaker 1: with someone under age. We the other four members, Danny, Paul,
Speaker 1: Collin and Chaz don't fuck with us at all. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Jay will be stepping away from the band, and our
Speaker 1: summer tour will continue as planned. We're sorry, what's for
Speaker 1: what seems like a lack of transparency, Just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to navigate and continue all the shows
Speaker 1: we have booked and planned to play. All of our
Speaker 1: love goes out to the promoters, are tour mates, and
Speaker 1: everyone who fucks with us on some real shit balmorra.
Speaker 1: That was the initial statement, and I think, quite reasonably
Speaker 1: a lot was made of the fact that they end
Speaker 1: the statement not by even though they are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we do not condone this this behavior, and Jay, you know,
Speaker 1: will be stepping away from the band, they end the
Speaker 1: statement not by expressing solidarity with you know, the victims,
Speaker 1: but to going thanks to all the promoters and our
Speaker 1: tour mates, right, and everyone who is still supporting with us.
Speaker 1: And I think, like I said, quite reasonably, a lot
Speaker 1: of people went, hey, that's it doesn't seem like the
Speaker 1: people you should be you know, referring to in this
Speaker 1: exact scenario, and there was a lot of backlash against
Speaker 1: that of you know, are they taking this particularly seriously?
Speaker 1: Shall we say? The follow up to this is that
Speaker 1: one of those members, their bassist, Danny Kuneo, put up
Speaker 1: another sort of follow up thing where he says, I said,
Speaker 1: this shit band is nuked. Don't fuck with all this
Speaker 1: weirdo shit, my fault slimes. I'm out. I started this
Speaker 1: shit years ago with my homie Brandon kind of a
Speaker 1: turned into a shitty monster of a band. Don't fuck
Speaker 1: with people using their bands to act. We're talking to
Speaker 1: their who are younger slash vulnerable, and yeah, like the
Speaker 1: final part of that is essentially the crux of the matter.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to cast any more over that
Speaker 1: is what it is right now. But I'm not alone
Speaker 1: in thinking that just like the inability to form a
Speaker 1: sentence in a way that is like mature, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, is a major part of what's actually
Speaker 1: upset people here, Like this continual wording of statements like
Speaker 1: fucking fake gangsters, basically like saying my fault slimes, which
Speaker 1: I had to like audibly quash my laughter while reading
Speaker 1: that out. When I'm talking about sexual miscondut allegations, I
Speaker 1: should not be laughing at that, But it just feels
Speaker 1: so absurd to be reading that statement out loud, combined
Speaker 1: with again the initial statement where they were again thanking
Speaker 1: the tour mates and promoters and all of that, it
Speaker 1: just seems like people who are I know that they
Speaker 1: are younger musicians, right, like this is a group of
Speaker 1: a younger band, people who are like nineteen twenty whatever.
Speaker 1: It just seems like they don't really have the emotional
Speaker 1: maturity or like this just feel like a kind of
Speaker 1: state where you should have gone to an adult and gone, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe look over this a little bit, because they just
Speaker 1: come across like fucking idiots basically, which is not helpful
Speaker 1: to taking the matter in question seriously.
Speaker 3: It's far too casual.
Speaker 2: It's like they found out their guitars stole like someone's handbag.
Speaker 1: Is that time my fault slimes? I'm out, what do
Speaker 1: you mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's so like it feels like not an
Speaker 2: ounce of thought went into it. Like, like I said,
Speaker 2: it's way too casual. It's way too, like trying to
Speaker 2: keep up some weird persona they have. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like you say, it's childish and not really it's a
Speaker 2: bad apology in a way. We haven't really seen them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: because they do acknowledge it and they do believe the victim.
Speaker 2: Otherwise the statement wouldn't be the way it is. But
Speaker 2: they never explicitly say that, like it's just yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know what they were thinking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it feels like people who do not
Speaker 1: have the skills required to have fought through this statement
Speaker 1: and put out something that is emotionally mature enough to
Speaker 1: be handling such extremely sensitive subject matter right where, you
Speaker 1: really want to read through these type things where you
Speaker 1: put and make sure that you are expressing what you
Speaker 1: want to express clearly right. That That would be my
Speaker 1: advice for anyone of any fucking profession or whatever, if
Speaker 1: you ever find yourself, like you know, for any reason,
Speaker 1: and you have to make some kind of statement of
Speaker 1: like yeah, I'm sorry about that, you want to fucking
Speaker 1: read through what you've put and make sure that you
Speaker 1: are really trying right, just like trying to genuinely be
Speaker 1: considerate of what it is that you're actually you know,
Speaker 1: taking accountability for and the fact that it does just
Speaker 1: come across, like as said, kids essentially who have not
Speaker 1: consulted with a mature adult about how to express this.
Speaker 1: It just like that's what stoked even more of the
Speaker 1: backlash against their apology, you know what I mean. And obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, if the primary you know, initia allegations are true,
Speaker 1: then it is a fucking shitty, horrible thing and that
Speaker 1: guy should not be in the band going forward. But
Speaker 1: the entire band seems to have combusted now over their
Speaker 1: collective inability to handle what you know, kind of came
Speaker 1: out of it in this way, which is people should
Speaker 1: take that as a lesson right in how to again
Speaker 1: how to handle yourselves in such situations. But this particular
Speaker 1: one scenario is stupid and disappointing on like, you know,
Speaker 1: several different levels in several ways. So there you go.
Speaker 1: As we said, the Balmore album came out last week
Speaker 1: and people got a you know, a day's worth of
Speaker 1: maybe discussing what they thought about it before this fucking
Speaker 1: fell apart. We were obviously going to review it, probably
Speaker 1: not surprise say, we're not going to do it now.
Speaker 1: But there you go. That is the the end of
Speaker 1: currently the bal Morra saga. Slightly better news, not loose.
Speaker 1: Are continuing on with the metallicatur that's to be clear.
Speaker 1: That is the good part of the news. They are
Speaker 1: continuing on with their Metallicator. They're supporting even though Isaac
Speaker 1: Hale just got hit by a car and he posted
Speaker 1: a little video of him with like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a cast or a sling or something on his arm,
Speaker 1: which I did see and think, fucking o, that's you know,
Speaker 1: heavy going. Just from a guitarist point of view, right,
Speaker 1: obviously you want to be able to coherently play guitar
Speaker 1: when you're fucking supporting Metallica, And I don't know, clearly
Speaker 1: it can't have been you know, it hasn't stopped him
Speaker 1: doing that, So that is again very good news. Fair
Speaker 1: play the puns obviously, the jokes about the scenario here
Speaker 1: and the name of their band and all of that
Speaker 1: do very much right themselves. But glad that Isaac is
Speaker 1: okay and moving on with this lamp of murmur. This week,
Speaker 1: speaking of statements, they have put out a statement unfortunately
Speaker 1: saying that they are going to be canceling the majority
Speaker 1: of there are a handful in Europe that are still
Speaker 1: on that they are canceling the majority of their live
Speaker 1: shows this year for our most immediate purposes. That does
Speaker 1: include Damnation, the UK date they had unfortunately, the reason
Speaker 1: being is that m of the primary guy in Lamber
Speaker 1: Murma has relocated. He has moved from the US into
Speaker 1: Europe and that he has like residential work permit stuff
Speaker 1: basically that is stopping him from traveling around and going around.
Speaker 1: So hopefully once that is all settled and sorted, we
Speaker 1: will see Lamp of Murma back in the UK hopefully
Speaker 1: maybe next years Damnation and something like that soon. This
Speaker 1: statement included a lot of you know, world building language speak.
Speaker 1: I will say, as someone who I know, that I
Speaker 1: ever built up tolerance for this because I read a
Speaker 1: lot of these type statements from artists in my world.
Speaker 1: But it was still fairly clear statement, still genuinely much
Speaker 1: more comprehensible than the Balmorra statements, So there you go.
Speaker 1: The Linder Escape Plan have said that their upcoming Calculating
Speaker 1: Infinity dates for the summer they are playing the London
Speaker 1: Brickson Academy for example, later this month. These are going
Speaker 1: to be the last dates of what they've been currently
Speaker 1: doing of the like revived Calculating Infinity line up, you
Speaker 1: know early years type sets they have been playing for
Speaker 1: quite a couple of years now, they've been doing that AVNA.
Speaker 1: But these upcoming ones are to be the last ones.
Speaker 1: I am going to guess after that that that just
Speaker 1: means that the Escape Plan will revert to a state
Speaker 1: of inactivity and will revert to being a essentially you know,
Speaker 1: not functioning active active band. So if you have still
Speaker 1: not seen the villind escape Plan, then you really really
Speaker 1: want to make sure you see them. Then I would
Speaker 1: definitely say that this is the time to do it.
Speaker 1: Never saw this calculating finish I would have been cool.
Speaker 1: But there you go. Ending that particular run this this month.
Speaker 1: It looks like but live announcements that are going ahead.
Speaker 1: We have a static Dress have announced a UK and
Speaker 1: European tour in support of their new album that also
Speaker 1: came up last Friday. I've heard a lot of praise
Speaker 1: around that particular album. They are going to be headlining
Speaker 1: on that record in October going into November, as said,
Speaker 1: across Europe and the UK, bringing a bill of Soul,
Speaker 1: Blind Holder and Love rarely, so if you're in on
Speaker 1: that record, then that's the thing to do. I am
Speaker 1: bloody ampt that Electric Wizard have announced a UK tour
Speaker 1: right now. It's been kind of you know, mysterious to
Speaker 1: find these dates somehow, like they've linked out all over,
Speaker 1: but it looks like there is a tour happening of
Speaker 1: three dates Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow. No London, ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: But the last time Electric Wizard like did a tour
Speaker 1: like rather than a festival date here or they're a
Speaker 1: damnation an arctangent, et cetera. I think we're coming up
Speaker 1: to something like a decade something like that. Like the
Speaker 1: Electric Wizard, you know, you see every few years pop
Speaker 1: up and play a show, but they very rarely tour, right,
Speaker 1: So the fact that there is you know, Electric was like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen Electricizard at their own show, and I've
Speaker 1: seen them several times, but it's always been like headlining
Speaker 1: a festival, like they just don't actually do their own
Speaker 1: headline dedicated shows very often. So I'm really excited and
Speaker 1: definitely gonna make sure I get to one of these.
Speaker 1: Bristol September the sixteenth, Manchester September the seventeenth and Glasgow
Speaker 1: September the eighteenth. Fucking great. When the Wizard returns to
Speaker 1: live activity, you make sure that you go out and
Speaker 1: catch it while you can. Cancer Bats are doing an
Speaker 1: incredibly long UK tour. Still no Liverpool, the lazy bastards.
Speaker 3: How dare they?
Speaker 1: They're slacking, They're absolutely resting on their laurels. They're not
Speaker 1: playing the Highlands either, Mark, how dare they this bullshit? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But in all seriousness they are doing what is like
Speaker 1: too many for me to count. I think it's more
Speaker 1: than fifteen, perhaps less than twenty, but they're doing loads
Speaker 1: of you shows Dover, Brighton, Exeter, Falmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Bristol, Cardiff, Milton, Keynes, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leeds,
Speaker 1: Nottingham and London through October and bringing Ignite and Knives
Speaker 1: as the support bills there. So I imagine there's a good
Speaker 1: chance that they will be in your area, a good
Speaker 1: chance that they'll be playing a show that's within an
Speaker 1: hour's distance or so from you. So good on the
Speaker 1: Cats Bats for continuing to talk properly and show them
Speaker 1: how it's done. Speaking of slightly mysterious dates, this like
Speaker 1: emerged over the weekend and then they like deleted the posters,
Speaker 1: so I was confused, but it does seem to have
Speaker 1: been reconfirmed again. Funa Breum, who I'm gonna mention again
Speaker 1: a little bit later because they put out a release
Speaker 1: in the in the round up, but a fantastic death
Speaker 1: not a band at Funa brem They have announced a
Speaker 1: really like quite extended by their standards, also European and
Speaker 1: UK tour. In the UK they are playing London, Bristol, Manchester,
Speaker 1: Glasgow and Newcastle with more Bithick from Finland as a
Speaker 1: support band, and Fundi Burrum are one of those bands
Speaker 1: where when they have played Europe before, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're playing one dedicated underground death metal festival in Denmark
Speaker 1: and good luck if you want to see them anywhere else, right,
Speaker 1: So I was like genuinely stunned when I saw not
Speaker 1: just one like London date which I could imagine happening,
Speaker 1: but a full fucking like actual five date UK tour
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing. And Funa Breum, as we may say
Speaker 1: going forward considering the record, Dator Power are such a
Speaker 1: sick death metal band. So if you do not know
Speaker 1: Ifni Breum you should definitely check them out, and if
Speaker 1: you are into death metal, then this is going to
Speaker 1: be one of the cool, musty tours of the year.
Speaker 1: I reckon they're coming through those dates in September, so
Speaker 1: get on that. Over on the other side of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: Castle Rats have announced their largest US headline tour to date,
Speaker 1: and the main support app for that is unto Others,
Speaker 1: which is a really good time. Unto Others. Fit a
Speaker 1: little bit more there maybe than they do on the
Speaker 1: Amorphous bill where they're opening up over here. Happy to
Speaker 1: see them either way, but for the Americans out there,
Speaker 1: Castle Rat and unto Others is a very sore hailing time,
Speaker 1: So good stuff there. And Maryland Deathfest have announced their
Speaker 1: first run of names for next years twenty twenty seven festival,
Speaker 1: which includes Candle Mass. It includes Enslaved doing a Viking
Speaker 1: ear VELDI fucking I can ever say that fucking album
Speaker 1: the first Enslaved album which they put it Downation in
Speaker 1: a few years ago. They're doing that set. AKA Cocca
Speaker 1: are doing a Koran's on set. Over there. Voivod are
Speaker 1: doing an old school deep cut set, so that sounds
Speaker 1: fucking cool. Sabat Demolition hammer loads of good stuff. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna talk a lot about this because
Speaker 1: I saw corns On being played by Acacocka this week
Speaker 1: and Aca Coccer a band I've seen many, many times.
Speaker 1: But there are those bands where and this goes like
Speaker 1: both ways, we both look across the Atlantic with different
Speaker 1: levels of jealousy. There are bands that you see often
Speaker 1: just because of your geographical position that other people out
Speaker 1: there can't believe that you've seen that many times, right,
Speaker 1: And I know that for American extreme metal fans. Akacca
Speaker 1: are one of those bands where I've seen them like
Speaker 1: fucking eight times or something. I've seen them doing Coornson twice,
Speaker 1: but it's been like a decade since the last time
Speaker 1: they were over in the US, and so I've seen
Speaker 1: this announcement and the most regular thing I've seen in
Speaker 1: the comment is, you know, American fans being like Agagoka
Speaker 1: finally brilliant. So I'm very pleased for you all that
Speaker 1: that is going to be happening over there. So there
Speaker 1: you go on Patreon this week. For us, we are
Speaker 1: currently involved in the midst of doing our corn special.
Speaker 1: We most recently a week or so ago, we put
Speaker 1: out the parts two where we spoke about the peak
Speaker 1: New Metal years, and pretty shortly we should get around
Speaker 1: two putting together and working on the third part when
Speaker 1: we go into some slightly more mysterious years. So I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. If you want to hear all
Speaker 1: of the T and M specials, from band specials to
Speaker 1: fun silly things like the trial special we did last year,
Speaker 1: to you know lists, all our album clubs are up
Speaker 1: there as well. Then Patroon of the Corms Last Lights
Speaker 1: on Metal is how to do it, and by doing
Speaker 1: that you will also be supporting this podcast and funding
Speaker 1: us to move forward, So thank you everybody too. Does that?
Speaker 1: Let us do the release roundup for this edition of
Speaker 1: Hyperblasts because we had our reviews last week, we have
Speaker 1: got two weeks worth to go and bloody cracking weeks
Speaker 1: as well, like seriously, like last week alone was seriously busy,
Speaker 1: before we get onto what's coming out to date as well.
Speaker 1: So firstly, last time we had Devin Townsend's The Moth,
Speaker 1: his absolutely enormous like seventy minute and that's only including
Speaker 1: the one disc I think edition essentially like symphonic album,
Speaker 1: like there is metal in there. But it's absolutely arranged
Speaker 1: and kind of you know, conveyed as like one large
Speaker 1: orchestral symphonic style piece. It is a lot to take in.
Speaker 1: I personally, I don't think it's really the Devin record
Speaker 1: that I will be most connecting with, but it's undeniably
Speaker 1: you know, it's a huge passion project authaars that he's
Speaker 1: been working on for over a decade or something like that,
Speaker 1: so it's worth going in on if you want to
Speaker 1: see what all of that time has produced from Devin.
Speaker 1: Then we had the return of Turnover with Down on Earth,
Speaker 1: which we spoke about the singles from that recently and
Speaker 1: how it does seem to be moving back to a
Speaker 1: more kind of classic era of Turnover perhaps to some
Speaker 1: degree or another so exciting release there. There is the
Speaker 1: aforementioned Static Dress album Injury Episode, which if you are
Speaker 1: a fan of early to mid noughti's post hardcore from
Speaker 1: the likes of Glassjaw to under Oath or whatever, then
Speaker 1: they are absolutely one of the you know, the leading
Speaker 1: bands in the current wave of that style of material.
Speaker 1: And as I've said, I've seen a lot of positive
Speaker 1: feelings about that Statud Dress album floating around Sparta featuring,
Speaker 1: as I said, Jim Martin, Jim Martins from Faith in
Speaker 1: the gm Ward. Yes, he formerly like the Driving Sparta,
Speaker 1: his post hardcore band. They put out a record called
Speaker 1: cut a Silover Wet. There was also I think this
Speaker 1: was announced if we remember correctly, as the final album
Speaker 1: from sixty eight, which is Scosh Ducking. I was about
Speaker 1: to fucking say that Josh Scoggin, formerly of The Chariot
Speaker 1: and Normal Gene and so on. But here's like, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of garage rocky band that he's been doing for
Speaker 1: how over the last several years, their final album. Who
Speaker 1: knows what he'll do next, but I guess we'll see
Speaker 1: in the hardcore world as well. For a slightly more
Speaker 1: underground release, you can go to a Healing Wound, quite
Speaker 1: violent band with a record called Bodies of Heavenly Violence,
Speaker 1: more experimental kind of punk end. There's Death Kids with
Speaker 1: a record called Seeker Trees is the Future Row. There's
Speaker 1: all them Witches, who are a strange sort of like
Speaker 1: stoner adjacent band. They us support Ghostuck a number of
Speaker 1: years ago House and Mirrors. They had turned out to
Speaker 1: be a really big week for the worlds of you know,
Speaker 1: doom and riffy substances because we also had Elder of course,
Speaker 1: the you know kind of progressive stoner doom type band.
Speaker 1: They put a record through Zero. We have Monolord, who
Speaker 1: are a just proper like fuzzed up ride on a
Speaker 1: riff that ages riff worship type band. They put out
Speaker 1: an album called Never End. Into more of the gothic,
Speaker 1: miserablest doom world. There is the band Godthrim, which is
Speaker 1: driven by a former guitarist from my Dyan Bride. The
Speaker 1: record also features a guest appearance from Aaron formerly now
Speaker 1: with my Dyan Bride. He's not on that record as
Speaker 1: well their record called Projections. In the death metal world,
Speaker 1: the one release you should absolutely be hearing from last
Speaker 1: week is the formation Fuena Breum with their record Beckoning
Speaker 1: the Void of Eternal Silence, which is just like brilliantly
Speaker 1: kind of the midpoint between absolutely knuckleheaded, smash your head
Speaker 1: in but also really atmospheric and evil. It's just a
Speaker 1: horrid but seriously well written, well performed, excellently done death
Speaker 1: metal record that you should be hearing. In the heavy
Speaker 1: metal world, there's Tyran with tran Forever, which is like
Speaker 1: the just total seventies eighties trad metal revival band that
Speaker 1: features three of the four members of Tribulation. They're always
Speaker 1: good fun in the black metal world. There's Gal formerly
Speaker 1: of you know, Gorgroth, obviously currently of his his solo
Speaker 1: band as well, but his old band Treldom, who revived
Speaker 1: a few years ago. This is the second album they
Speaker 1: put it in recent years, and they're both like leaning
Speaker 1: into some very strange, psychedelic, kind of progressive adjacent worlds
Speaker 1: of black metal. So if you like your black metal
Speaker 1: little unconventional, then you should check out then. And there
Speaker 1: was Hakat Hroned, who are one of the ogs of
Speaker 1: like nineties UK black metal, very much into the you know,
Speaker 1: grand keyboard heavy side of that sphere and what was
Speaker 1: producing the nineties. They put out a very fine record
Speaker 1: as well, called The Corpse of a Titan, a lament
Speaker 1: long buried. Today, the first release week of June, we
Speaker 1: are leading off with Converge's second album of the year,
Speaker 1: The hum of Hurt. Very excited to get into that one,
Speaker 1: Very excited to reconvene again with the guys who dissected
Speaker 1: that one as we did their first album of the
Speaker 1: year like four months ago or whatever. It was but
Speaker 1: second converged record of the year. Aren't we lucky? There
Speaker 1: you go. We also have Evanescence returning with their first
Speaker 1: album in like five years, their album Sanctuary. In the
Speaker 1: emo world, the very legendary band Death Cab for Quti
Speaker 1: are back with a record caord I've built you a Tower.
Speaker 1: In the hardcore world, another very legendary band, One hundred
Speaker 1: Demons are back with a comeback album. They haven't released
Speaker 1: a record in like twenty years or something, and they're
Speaker 1: a very beloved band amongst the moshus. So Embraced the
Speaker 1: black Light is their record. A newer hardcore name, but
Speaker 1: one has very much been building steam. Guilt Trip UK
Speaker 1: band who have become very actually, you know, quite popular
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years or so their record
Speaker 1: Armor of Angels. Over into the metalcore world, there's August
Speaker 1: Burns Red who will always be here with an album
Speaker 1: every couple of years. They've got Season of Surrender, Blood Incantation,
Speaker 1: have Got All Gates Open, which is the original motion
Speaker 1: picture soundtrack. This is the strange thing they've done where
Speaker 1: they made a bunch of music to soundtrack the documentary
Speaker 1: they made about the making of Absolute elsewhere, But this
Speaker 1: is I would imagine on the more new agey kind
Speaker 1: of instrumental vibe side of what Blow Incantation do. But
Speaker 1: always interesting to see what they've got going on. That
Speaker 1: record has now been released, you know, individually, outside of
Speaker 1: the confines of just the documentary they made about the
Speaker 1: last record. Love those guys. What wonderful mavericks they are.
Speaker 1: Aa Williams the singer songwriter in the kind of folky
Speaker 1: doom world I suppose, but of post rock, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Her album Solstice is out in the world of kind
Speaker 1: of the proggier side of what I suppose you could
Speaker 1: call stoner doom or post metal or something. Slift have
Speaker 1: got fantasia at progressive like Symphonic, maybe a little leaning
Speaker 1: heavy metal band. Ever Gray have got Architects of a
Speaker 1: new weave. The Dwarves, the punk band from the nineties.
Speaker 1: They have got an out called Jenkam. Then we have
Speaker 1: Voivod are putting out a live album where they have
Speaker 1: performed with a symphony orchestra amazingly with their album Symphonique.
Speaker 1: And then finally there's an EP from the UK band
Speaker 1: Gert which is called Survival of the shittiest And you
Speaker 1: might know this EP because it's the one where they
Speaker 1: put out the of No Limit by two Unlimited featuring
Speaker 1: the Hell a couple of weeks ago. This is the
Speaker 1: EP that that track is from, and that is out there,
Speaker 1: so loads of stuff to seek your teeth into there
Speaker 1: across those two weeks of my goodness, So please go
Speaker 1: forth and do that. But like I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show, if you are interested in black metal,
Speaker 1: then I have a lot more to talk to you
Speaker 1: about because I at this weekend was at Fortress Festival.
Speaker 1: Fortress is I would say at this stage it's probably
Speaker 1: right to call it the biggest purely dedicated black metal
Speaker 1: festival in the UK because you have you know, Incineration,
Speaker 1: but that's always been a mix of kind of black
Speaker 1: and death metal. You've got Damnation, which is obviously just
Speaker 1: sort of everything extreme underground all pulled together in one lovely,
Speaker 1: beautiful pot. But Fortress is absolutely four people who are
Speaker 1: specifically super super into black metal, and if you are
Speaker 1: in that niche, I cannot say how wonderful that has
Speaker 1: been the last three or four years, having a festival
Speaker 1: in such a great location as well, really doing that
Speaker 1: because Fortress. I've said it for a couple of years now.
Speaker 1: I love seeing black metal represented at all of these
Speaker 1: other festivals up to your bloodstocks even download sometimes like
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, But there is nothing like a
Speaker 1: immersing yourself into a world so fully where I believe
Speaker 1: that Fortress is one of the only like genuine destination
Speaker 1: festivals in the UK that's beyond just you know, a warehouse,
Speaker 1: a handful of venues in a similar corner, you know,
Speaker 1: put together whatever Fortress you genuinely you dedicate yourself to something,
Speaker 1: you go through into another area where everything has just
Speaker 1: become immersed in that culture. But also with that, they
Speaker 1: go beyond the top line of the band who you're
Speaker 1: going to get represented these of the festivals, and they
Speaker 1: get the genuine like underground exclusive that you, as someone
Speaker 1: very much into and immersed in that niche might never
Speaker 1: dream of seeing anywhere else in this country. And that
Speaker 1: is a really wonderful thing. Is as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: it's on the North Yorkshire coastline in the seaside town
Speaker 1: of Scarborough, which traditionally is just like a seaside result
Speaker 1: and it is wonderful going there once a year and
Speaker 1: seeing all the residents confused as to why suddenly a
Speaker 1: couple thousand people in like T shirts that says like,
Speaker 1: you know, Christ sucks or whatever your equivalent might be
Speaker 1: wandering around the place and be like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: But the niche bookings as well, because like this year
Speaker 1: in particular, they had like cult headliners, Like the headliners
Speaker 1: of this year's festival were Old Man Child and gallow Braid,
Speaker 1: And those are both names that might mean a lot
Speaker 1: to you if you are, again so immersed in this
Speaker 1: particular niche, But if you are a more casual black
Speaker 1: metal observer, certainly someone who you know doesn't know anything
Speaker 1: about that genre, really, you would go, who the fuck
Speaker 1: are they and how are they headlining a festival? And
Speaker 1: certainly one of those headliners will talk about how kind
Speaker 1: of absurd it was that they were head like a
Speaker 1: festival in the fird place in a good way, to
Speaker 1: be clear, But they're bookings that are so kind of
Speaker 1: out there that you would go, surely that's not a
Speaker 1: safe thing to like hang a you know, successful festival on,
Speaker 1: and yet they've managed to do it because it is
Speaker 1: so niche that it attracts people from all over who
Speaker 1: are in that niche to the point that, like, I
Speaker 1: think I'm probably right in saying that of the festivals
Speaker 1: that I most regularly go to in the UK, when
Speaker 1: I go to Fortress, I hear the most like international
Speaker 1: accents and language's being spoken on site just by people
Speaker 1: who go to it or any of those festivals, because
Speaker 1: people actually fly in, Like you speak to people who
Speaker 1: have come from America to Scarborough to see where like
Speaker 1: you know, god Heimskar playing Black Medium Current or whatever,
Speaker 1: you hear people come from the other direction from you know,
Speaker 1: areas of Eastern Europe, right because people they've got a
Speaker 1: couple thousand tickets to sell and they will sell them
Speaker 1: to people from literally all over the world who come
Speaker 1: to it. And there's something again really special about the
Speaker 1: melting pop that that creates. And because people are so
Speaker 1: immersed in that world, people are loving the vibe of
Speaker 1: being an old Victorian theater directly overlooking the beach basically
Speaker 1: and you've got the sea right out literally right outside
Speaker 1: the festival doors. People are happy to be there, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that it does it creates a genuine
Speaker 1: vibe of, as I say, a location festival where people
Speaker 1: have done the work to travel somewhere and they feel
Speaker 1: good about being there more tangibly than any festival that
Speaker 1: I've gone to in this country. That's always lovely to
Speaker 1: immerse myself in. And this year, even though they did have,
Speaker 1: like I said, smaller headliners, and even the last couple
Speaker 1: of years like Tryptocon in twenty four and Wolves and
Speaker 1: the Throne in that year as well, both bigger names
Speaker 1: for that world, Agalock last year was a huge event.
Speaker 1: This time they went kind of small with it, and
Speaker 1: yet that vibe was still so apparent. The festival still
Speaker 1: sold out, Everyone was still totally engaged and brilliant, and
Speaker 1: there was lots of stuff in the bill that I
Speaker 1: was looking forward to it and looking forward to, you know,
Speaker 1: getting my teeth stuck into. There was a pre show
Speaker 1: on the Friday nights with like Woed headlined it and
Speaker 1: like a couple of other UK black metal bands. But
Speaker 1: it was in like the basement of a pub in
Speaker 1: the Scarborough area, and I think it was like one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty cap but it was It wasn't ticketed.
Speaker 1: It was free entry for anyone with a festival ticket,
Speaker 1: and they clearly underestimated how many people would actually be
Speaker 1: on site because actually it's like one hundred and fifty gap,
Speaker 1: something like a thousand people turned up like literally like
Speaker 1: five six times over what that room could have held.
Speaker 1: And again it you know, like Woe and a couple
Speaker 1: of the UK Batmanman's like I love Woe. They're a
Speaker 1: brilliant band. That's why I want to go and see them.
Speaker 1: But you know, not the hugest names of the genre,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are kind of more local
Speaker 1: bands who certainly people from the North of England would
Speaker 1: probably see quite regularly. But like a thousand people converged
Speaker 1: to I can get into that pub for the Friday night.
Speaker 1: So I did not get in there for that, but
Speaker 1: I trust that the one hundred and fifty people who
Speaker 1: did get in there had a good time with that.
Speaker 1: The festival proper Saturday and Sunday. The first band I
Speaker 1: saw was a band called Groza, who are German and
Speaker 1: they are the kind of band that I was speaking
Speaker 1: about that a month or so ago, when I was
Speaker 1: talking about the post Maguire wave of like the hooded
Speaker 1: you know, kind of veiled, melodic European sounding black metal
Speaker 1: bands that have become like the visible sort of the
Speaker 1: visible wave of trend and popularity since like twenty fifteenish
Speaker 1: or so. Grows are very much one of those, to
Speaker 1: the point that they share their name with an early
Speaker 1: Mguarre album, Like it's very much not subtle about that.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're more a little similar to like Geria pre
Speaker 1: metal core, you know, because they have like the kind
Speaker 1: of stirring emotional side of it. They had like pictures
Speaker 1: of waves behind them on the you know, video screens,
Speaker 1: that kind of vibe. But I enjoyed them, you know,
Speaker 1: they were they were pretty decent. I think they even
Speaker 1: at one point got the crowds to clap along, which
Speaker 1: is genuinely rare black metal shows doesn't have to do often,
Speaker 1: but but they got to be able to do it
Speaker 1: and it worked. So there you go. Decent European you know,
Speaker 1: contemporary are good. Essentially, if you were to look at
Speaker 1: like throw a throw a dart at the modern day
Speaker 1: European black metal see scene. Growser are like a perfectly rounded,
Speaker 1: you know, example of what you would hit and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what the what the average band is like.
Speaker 1: But they're they're they're decent. After that, I saw Black Salice,
Speaker 1: who are playing in the kind of second stage. So
Speaker 1: there's a couple of stages that fortress I explain now
Speaker 1: as they work, as I get a little bit more
Speaker 1: into this when it's more relevant. But there's the main
Speaker 1: stage and then there's a second stage called the Ocean Room,
Speaker 1: and they just flip flop back and forth, so you
Speaker 1: can basically see everything if you want to go between
Speaker 1: those two stages. Black salicse ware in the second stage,
Speaker 1: and they are one of those bands who exceptionally raw
Speaker 1: on record, like proper it's a fuzz, you know, like
Speaker 1: they are. You're not really making out many particular components.
Speaker 1: It's just about the overall sort of like ambience and
Speaker 1: fog that you know, settles over to you. You know.
Speaker 1: They sound like reverberating through an underground cave system. And
Speaker 1: because of that, they're the kind of band who often
Speaker 1: those bands might not even play live, you know, And
Speaker 1: so I was intrigued to say what it would be
Speaker 1: like live, and definitely they brought the fog with them,
Speaker 1: so that like I saw Black Salice, I don't think
Speaker 1: I really saw Black Slice, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I heard them play, I saw some faint silhouettes
Speaker 1: of hooded figures behind a deep red fog. But even
Speaker 1: if you were close, you weren't seeing these deal I
Speaker 1: don't think, And I wasn't that impressed with them, to
Speaker 1: be honest, because I think you take you take away
Speaker 1: them sounding like they're reverberating through an underground cave system
Speaker 1: and they're just an okay black metal band, and it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is The riffs are okay. It's not sooner dynamic,
Speaker 1: there's not like an exceptional amount of energy. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a perfectly all right. Example that was probably
Speaker 1: amongst the less exciting bands I saw the weekend when
Speaker 1: you again you strip back the particular ambience that their
Speaker 1: records bring, but you know they were okay. But after that,
Speaker 1: I saw a band called Mazarthin who Mazarrethim. I saw
Speaker 1: their live debut at Cosmic Void Festival a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago there from Australia, I believe. Again, so I
Speaker 1: think they're probably surely their second time in the UK.
Speaker 1: I imagine they probably not played that many shows across the
Speaker 1: world because they're kind of band who would turn up
Speaker 1: for again the sort of exclusive bookings and stuff, and
Speaker 1: this is the kind of stuff you get to see
Speaker 1: at Fortress, right, It's like, how many times do these
Speaker 1: bands come through? The answer is definitely not regularly. And
Speaker 1: Mazartham are a kind of like they're very space themed.
Speaker 1: They're on the more kind of atmospheric end of black metal,
Speaker 1: but with you know, a very cosmic approach. Famously, if
Speaker 1: you have seen them live, like when I saw them
Speaker 1: cous Avoid a couple of years ago, the frontman he
Speaker 1: almost could be again the kind of post Maguire hooded
Speaker 1: esque figure, except in his facial area where normally there's
Speaker 1: just a black hood. He has like some kind of
Speaker 1: weird l D plate that creates a swirling galaxy, so
Speaker 1: he's Milky Way face basically, and he has like this
Speaker 1: animated moving galaxy face, which is pretty good. It's a unique,
Speaker 1: you know, visual gimmick for the band. But primarily sonically,
Speaker 1: I say they have those bits of like you know,
Speaker 1: atmospheric black metal or whatever, but rather than being super ambient,
Speaker 1: they have like synths and I'm talking since right, like
Speaker 1: there's genuine, palpable heavy influence from trance music in what
Speaker 1: they do. There was one song they played where it's
Speaker 1: literally like a genuine trance beat songs and the more
Speaker 1: straight haired black metal songs they do often have these
Speaker 1: full synth lead melodies that are like one of them,
Speaker 1: amind me a cross faith. That's the kind of synth
Speaker 1: that we're talking And when you're fully imercer a black
Speaker 1: beetle environment, it does stand out right, It's like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is not a synth I would expect to be
Speaker 1: here in here, but for how like seemingly out of
Speaker 1: character you would imagine that to be. People loved them,
Speaker 1: like it went down really really well, and I think
Speaker 1: it ended up being a cool case of like this
Speaker 1: is a in the scheme of like all music that exists, right,
Speaker 1: this is such a tiny niche thing. Like they've got
Speaker 1: like five thousand monthly listeners on Spotify something like that,
Speaker 1: and that probably puts them in the upper half of
Speaker 1: the band who are playing Fortress Festival overall. But if
Speaker 1: you can afford a band like this the capabilities to
Speaker 1: put on a big show right where there again in
Speaker 1: a big grand main Sage Victorian theater, they had like
Speaker 1: colored smoke coming up and stuf. Obviously they've got the
Speaker 1: spacey visuals with the guy with his you know galaxy
Speaker 1: face and screen behind him and all that. It was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: a band who have probably played fucking twenty shows top
Speaker 1: around the world in I haven't looked at how many
Speaker 1: they've done since I saw them for the first time
Speaker 1: two years ago. But like, in the right environment, you
Speaker 1: formed the capability they can actually put on like USh
Speaker 1: show and people will come away. But going like that
Speaker 1: was awesome. So that was a really nice affirming thing
Speaker 1: that happened, you know, witnessing that kind of thing at
Speaker 1: a place like Fortress. So mazarthin very cool if you
Speaker 1: get a chance to see them live after that. On
Speaker 1: the main stave is a band called oss Out. Another
Speaker 1: thing with Fortress is you are going to struggle to
Speaker 1: pronounce most of the names. I'm not definitely not saying
Speaker 1: that correctly. It's a O double S A E R T.
Speaker 1: I believe they're a Dutch band. One of them plays
Speaker 1: in Dodds Reat because also in the Underwear Black that
Speaker 1: I was seen, every person will play in at least
Speaker 1: three bands, but this is like someone who plays in
Speaker 1: Dodds Rey and it has kind of some of the
Speaker 1: punk in it that you associate with that. But while
Speaker 1: Dodds Rey is very like powerful and surging and melodic.
Speaker 1: You know, this is like the very dark sort of
Speaker 1: flip side of it, like very you know, dank atmosphere,
Speaker 1: some like organ melodies stuff like that, like pretty you know,
Speaker 1: Dodds Rey is mighty, whereas this is evil. You know,
Speaker 1: they will kind of hit a sort of repetitive blast,
Speaker 1: you know, underpinning, and then it will become quite hypnotic
Speaker 1: through that, and I did find myself like drifting away
Speaker 1: several times through it. People mention them quite a lot.
Speaker 1: When it came to like the highlights of the festival
Speaker 1: and what bads people enjoyed the most, A lot of
Speaker 1: people said them, I didn't really feel that way that
Speaker 1: strongly about it, but you know, they went down really well.
Speaker 1: I was intrigued too. After that. Go back to the
Speaker 1: Ocean Room to see a band called Midnight Odyssey, who
Speaker 1: I don't know if they have ever played the UK,
Speaker 1: but they are abound who I first heard of several
Speaker 1: years ago because the main guy who like arranges their
Speaker 1: music helped arrange some of the like extra layer stuff
Speaker 1: on the Cata Decapitation records. So I'm talking like the
Speaker 1: like the more epic tracks from like their later records
Speaker 1: when they start introducing like the bits of you know,
Speaker 1: synth and symphonic touches and stuff like that. The guy
Speaker 1: from Midi Odyssey is someone who has like you know,
Speaker 1: been involved with that, so that's how I heard of them.
Speaker 1: And as you would imagine, like his black metal band
Speaker 1: is like, you know, that kind of vibe, big grand
Speaker 1: you know, basic melodies brought into a black metal contact,
Speaker 1: which is obviously very very natural, and they had you know,
Speaker 1: like decent guitar melodies and stuff coming through. The thing
Speaker 1: we've been obviously live is the rhythm section is entirely programmed,
Speaker 1: like they've got three members on stage, but they're all
Speaker 1: playing guitars. The drums and the bass are like you know,
Speaker 1: coming through their programs like kind of industrial leaning parts
Speaker 1: and like whatever it was like the bass I think
Speaker 1: was like so overpowering like the rest of what they
Speaker 1: were doing. It's just had this like enormous fucking program
Speaker 1: like rhythm section part kind of overbearing it. And then
Speaker 1: sometimes you could hear through the mix someone who made
Speaker 1: a mistake and the click track that they were clearly
Speaker 1: playing to was coming through in the sound, and so
Speaker 1: you'd have this big swamped out basically mix, but you
Speaker 1: would just here occasionally like going through the mixes of
Speaker 1: people like is that the fucking is that the metronome
Speaker 1: they're playing to it that I could hear in the mix.
Speaker 1: And it got to the point where, like the band
Speaker 1: themselves on social media after was after set, they were
Speaker 1: like thanks to everyone who you know came out to
Speaker 1: our set. And then they were just like posting like
Speaker 1: little sheepish memes and little call it's about to be
Speaker 1: like sorry about the click track. Someone fucked up, you know.
Speaker 1: So Midnight Odose's metronome was I think the main character
Speaker 1: of the set, but there you go. After that was
Speaker 1: for me, the first big band of the weekend, which
Speaker 1: is Aca Cocker, who were billed as playing a Kornson
Speaker 1: set at this festival. And Aca Cocker are a band
Speaker 1: who I think at the moment have kind of turned
Speaker 1: into a like they've reverted reverted to a more nostalgic
Speaker 1: period at the moment in that they made a big
Speaker 1: return in the mid twenty tens and they came back
Speaker 1: off like a decade of inactivity and they released a
Speaker 1: new record called Renaissance in Extremists, which was really fucking
Speaker 1: cool and added something new and distinct onto the Aca
Speaker 1: Cocker catalog. And it was great having Aca cocka backer round.
Speaker 1: I got to see them for the first time, you know,
Speaker 1: during that period because they had been inactive, and to
Speaker 1: me they're one of the great extreme metal bands ever,
Speaker 1: but certainly that this country is they're produced. It was
Speaker 1: such a joy you see them so many times, as
Speaker 1: it still is such a joy seeing them so many times.
Speaker 1: But in the last like you know, in the twenties,
Speaker 1: they have kind of they've slowed on any sign of
Speaker 1: continuing to release more music, and generally when they've played
Speaker 1: it has been more backwards leaning. So they've done sets,
Speaker 1: you know, performing the go A Mendez album in full
Speaker 1: I've seen them do, and then they moved on to
Speaker 1: doing korans On, which is like their big classic. And
Speaker 1: this is now the second time I've seen them do
Speaker 1: wo korans Are because they did it on its actual
Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary at Damnation in twenty twenty three, and then
Speaker 1: here we are three later years later and they just
Speaker 1: got bill to do it again at Fortress. And I
Speaker 1: would love to see Aca Cocker, particularly as voices who
Speaker 1: were the sort of the sister band, but Voices seem
Speaker 1: to have like, you know, taken a step back and
Speaker 1: disappeared and no longer seemed to be around. So I
Speaker 1: would love to see Aca Cocker, you know, return to
Speaker 1: being a creative band right and putting out new music,
Speaker 1: because they've still got it as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: But I'm not mad about seeing Kornson again because it
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest records ever and you know,
Speaker 1: at odd festival appearances because they're not regularly touring, it's
Speaker 1: just they'll pop up here and there, so to you
Speaker 1: take the chance that you get to see it. They
Speaker 1: were the one forum talk I went to this year.
Speaker 1: They have another there's another stage where they put on
Speaker 1: on the one day like sort of interview panel type
Speaker 1: talks like in the past. I've been to ones with
Speaker 1: tom Ju Warrior Uh and you know, Fenn and several bands.
Speaker 1: And the one that went to this year was the
Speaker 1: Akakoka one because they were talking all about you know,
Speaker 1: the Koranson period and making that record, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, a record that I absolutely adore. If
Speaker 1: you've heard our album club that we did when they
Speaker 1: played it the last time three years ago, and they have,
Speaker 1: you know, some great stories about that time period. I
Speaker 1: asked them a question about the liner notes, the photos
Speaker 1: of them inside the Cornson album, which if you own
Speaker 1: that album, are infamous because they are incredible photos. I've
Speaker 1: spoken about before. It's them all in the suits but
Speaker 1: in like old country houses surrounded by latex models and
Speaker 1: it's nuts and it's a it's a wild phot and
Speaker 1: I asked them about that. So that was fun. But
Speaker 1: the environment of again an old Victorian theater basically like
Speaker 1: the Scarborough Spa is where Fortune Festival takes place, and
Speaker 1: it's it's a grand location, you know, like it's a
Speaker 1: really beautiful place. And there's something particularly delicious about saying
Speaker 1: about like Aca Coca there, who famously with the you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of the presentation of particularly that during the
Speaker 1: era that they're kind of throwing back to with the
Speaker 1: sets like the corns Onzet. They have this you know,
Speaker 1: Victorian gentleman suited sort of appearance but doing this like
Speaker 1: satanic cult you know, like the occult societies that exist
Speaker 1: behind closed doors in you know, English high society. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the vibe of Aca Cocker and so seeing
Speaker 1: it presented in this way where you know they're in
Speaker 1: the suits. But they also had the the album Coronzon
Speaker 1: and it starts with a track Praise the Name of Satan,
Speaker 1: and it has like a two or three minute long
Speaker 1: sample at the beginning from a Hammer House of Horror
Speaker 1: episode and it's all about like a just what I've
Speaker 1: described right, like a sort of a old you know,
Speaker 1: satanic cult coming together and doing their ceremonies and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it builds in this insane way. But they had
Speaker 1: like they played that entire clip behind them to then
Speaker 1: lead them into the beginning of the set, which on record,
Speaker 1: when it goes to the Praise Name of Satan fucking
Speaker 1: nutty sounding. This was slightly jarring because when they started,
Speaker 1: no one could hear the guitars. That they had this
Speaker 1: like full again intro lead in and then this crazy
Speaker 1: drum fill building, but the only thing anyone could hear
Speaker 1: was the drums. It was like guitars were just sort
Speaker 1: of missing for a moment, and there were a few
Speaker 1: comments that floated around, like, oh, Acoca sounded really bad.
Speaker 1: It was only the like literally the beginning, I think,
Speaker 1: like they came in and it wasn't that audible, and
Speaker 1: then they fixed it by the next song, and it
Speaker 1: sounded brilliant from there, so I don't think it should
Speaker 1: be inflated too much, but just so brutal from there
Speaker 1: with the parts that in a black metal environment getting
Speaker 1: about ACA cocka who do have those like brutal death
Speaker 1: metal kind of suffocation, you know, Morman angel esque death
Speaker 1: metal riffs really hits a particular spot coming through. You've
Speaker 1: got Jason Krab walking everywhere. You've got that mix of
Speaker 1: you know, dramatic proclamation vocals and the death metal vocals
Speaker 1: some of the closest things to like big vocal chiming
Speaker 1: hook moments with you know, if you've heard the song Leviathan,
Speaker 1: things like that, I wish to be alone with my God.
Speaker 1: All of this stuff. It was fucking awesome from there.
Speaker 1: David Gray, ridiculous, fucking battery, blasts of drumming, just pommeling
Speaker 1: you so insistently. Sam who in his secondary role as
Speaker 1: AKA cocka keyboardist, his primary role as ACA cocka hype man,
Speaker 1: just he throws himself into with such a band and
Speaker 1: brilliant and we did on the show like a week
Speaker 1: or ago, reported that one of their most recent bass players,
Speaker 1: Feder Rico Bellini really just unfortunately passed away, also based
Speaker 1: player in Malthusian and a whole number of other, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this corner of our world death metal bands,
Speaker 1: and so they dedicated the set to him, and that
Speaker 1: was obviously a really nice moment as well. So despite
Speaker 1: minor hiccups, the pure animated energy that they came at
Speaker 1: it with and the genius of that record as well,
Speaker 1: Like what a special band. If you are you know
Speaker 1: someone who's in the US waiting to see this at
Speaker 1: Maryland death Fest, I trust that it will fucking rip
Speaker 1: because just one of the greats, like absolutely one of
Speaker 1: the greats, really really special band, really special record. And
Speaker 1: as much as I would like them to put out
Speaker 1: some more new material at some point, it's a pleasure
Speaker 1: still on a privilege still to have them around so
Speaker 1: regularly over here and doing wicked things like these. And
Speaker 1: speaking of wicked things, after this, the second from the
Speaker 1: top band on the first day of the festival proper
Speaker 1: was Don Hims Guard and DoD Heims Guard were perform
Speaker 1: forming a set of Black Medium Current, their latest album
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three. If you're a long time listeners
Speaker 1: of ours, I'm sure that you've heard our various discussions
Speaker 1: around that record when it came out. It was a
Speaker 1: delicious thing to get our teeth into back when that
Speaker 1: record was coming out. And I think that this speaks
Speaker 1: to the kind of thing that you can look to
Speaker 1: events like Fortress to showcase essentially because by Meiding Current
Speaker 1: is a three year old record. But one of the
Speaker 1: cool things I think about being really involved in, you know,
Speaker 1: a subculture is kind of off the beaten path, as
Speaker 1: black metal for example, is you can still see and
Speaker 1: feel in real time when classics are canonized, you know,
Speaker 1: and when a record comes out and people within that
Speaker 1: world and that niche speak on mass about like that's
Speaker 1: a really special record, and then three years later it
Speaker 1: hasn't been consumed by the content cycle. You know, people
Speaker 1: still talk about it that way, and like I said,
Speaker 1: people from across the will go they're playing that record
Speaker 1: at that festival. I have to buy a plane ticket
Speaker 1: and go. And that was the vibe that you got
Speaker 1: with this, where it is a niche underground recent but
Speaker 1: solidified in that classic record and people wanted to fucking
Speaker 1: see it, you know, people wanted to be there to
Speaker 1: witness that. That's what's happened with with Black Medium Current.
Speaker 1: It was massively acclaimed when it came out, but here
Speaker 1: we are and it's become the draw that people wanted
Speaker 1: to be there and be part of it. It's one
Speaker 1: of I would say, two bookings at Fortress this year
Speaker 1: that felt like the really special, like this is a
Speaker 1: privilege to be here seeing this bookings the kind that
Speaker 1: people are you know, upending their lives and flying across
Speaker 1: oceans to do. And this one is for an album
Speaker 1: that's just three years old. You know, it's not something
Speaker 1: that people have a long standing you know, relationship from
Speaker 1: their childhoods from or fucking whatever. It's something this essensibly new,
Speaker 1: but people really wanted to see it. And I saw
Speaker 1: DoD Heims Guard a couple of years ago doing a
Speaker 1: all nineties set. Is what that turned out to be.
Speaker 1: Like they only played up to they stopped at sixty
Speaker 1: six to six International, and that was chaos, like that
Speaker 1: fucking Vicotnick cracking mic stands around and just being like
Speaker 1: a crazy goblin. It was a really like violent, you know,
Speaker 1: erratic kind of set. In a great way. This was
Speaker 1: the other side of the spectrum. You know, this is
Speaker 1: the grand DoD Heims Guard that the Majestic DoD Heims
Speaker 1: Guard still weird in the they turn up and you go, well,
Speaker 1: the guitarists painted green. They've got a guy who's just
Speaker 1: wearing a white rotten Christ t shirt and a balaklava
Speaker 1: on the keyboards just in the corner set up there,
Speaker 1: and then Vicotnick at the center who is also painted
Speaker 1: green like underneath, but he has like a red wedding
Speaker 1: veil over his head when he first comes out. He's
Speaker 1: also got like a massive like gold hanging really low
Speaker 1: necklace like and he's still doing the thing that he
Speaker 1: was doing when I saw him laugh, which is like
Speaker 1: literally chucking like spreading incense and stuff and smoke around everywhere.
Speaker 1: They've got three backing singers on stage for this set,
Speaker 1: so they have about nine people total on stage, like
Speaker 1: a real you know, like it's the don Heims Guard
Speaker 1: fucking orchestra that's coming out to put on this record.
Speaker 1: They had some wild visuals where it was like nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties meets the Future basically, where they had like twenties
Speaker 1: flapper dancers and they had like if you know the
Speaker 1: film the man who laughs with with Conrad right, like
Speaker 1: his character like appearing on screen, but like all superimposed
Speaker 1: over like space, you know, like a weird kind of
Speaker 1: a weird meeting of those two things going all around them,
Speaker 1: like kind of psychedelic fashion. And the wild turns of
Speaker 1: that record, like the ending of the first song when
Speaker 1: you've had this you know, slow build, but then it
Speaker 1: suddenly turns into a nineteen eighties like yacht rock prog
Speaker 1: part brilliant and the parts where I now was just
Speaker 1: descend into like a really oppressive drum and bass bit
Speaker 1: for a little while and stuff like that. The song
Speaker 1: it does not follow with like the jazz swing sections
Speaker 1: at the start, like all those weird turns of the
Speaker 1: like really vibrant imagination of that record, which I think
Speaker 1: is what it fundamentally captures. All sounding great in the
Speaker 1: live environment, like we're actually kind of dancing during parts
Speaker 1: of it, but I kind of for that's sort of
Speaker 1: hite expected. I kind of forgot, and this is the
Speaker 1: primary part that came across live, how graceful that album is,
Speaker 1: and parts like the big choir parts with the end
Speaker 1: they've got the three backing vocals behind them with you know,
Speaker 1: for Cottonick at the front leading it. The big like
Speaker 1: choir vocal, the almost wordless like the oh all that
Speaker 1: stuff that's happening in that record. And I'm looking around
Speaker 1: and people are like singing, and this little band of
Speaker 1: freaks from across the world. I suppose for whom this
Speaker 1: record means something. You know, they've convened here for this,
Speaker 1: and it was a real like, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: spiritual just sort of letting out of the all the
Speaker 1: strangeness and the again the complicated contradictions of a record
Speaker 1: like that, but really been translated in such an incredibly
Speaker 1: graceful way. It was a real moment of like like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have all come together to celebrate this only a
Speaker 1: couple of year old record, and it's being put on
Speaker 1: with such a level of both professionalism and just like
Speaker 1: genuine artistic majesty. It's mad as well that Dodheim's Guard
Speaker 1: have had such long periods of their career where vi
Speaker 1: Kopnik wasn't actually the front man, you know, and he's
Speaker 1: like the musical genius arranger guy, but him being at
Speaker 1: the front is the most natural thing in the world. Like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen them live without him, so I can't
Speaker 1: speak to you know, when they had a Oldron in
Speaker 1: the band for example, or you know Matt from Grove
Speaker 1: Pleasures That Excess, et cetera, when they had him as
Speaker 1: the front man. I can't speak to what those were,
Speaker 1: but I can't imagine in the live environment them not
Speaker 1: being fronted by him, because he is just the most
Speaker 1: like your eyes are glued to him, Like he is
Speaker 1: such an absolute magnet, like the most animated performer in
Speaker 1: this sort of realm of music that you can imagine
Speaker 1: in him conducting. Everything that was going on with this
Speaker 1: was fucking wonderful. Like again, it was a real privilege
Speaker 1: to see everyone came out of it being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was so I know you're shaking your head, Mark,
Speaker 1: you love that record. It was really cool.
Speaker 2: I'm furious. I'm so jealous. I should have just gone
Speaker 2: like that. Black Medium current Top five albums of the
Speaker 2: twenty twenties so far.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean it was my number two.
Speaker 1: Big, it's a big claim, but I don't think it's
Speaker 1: out of the out of contention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was my number two.
Speaker 2: The Europe came out, it'd be number one, though, Like
Speaker 2: like you say, it's such a stagger majestic, horrifying and
Speaker 2: beautiful record all in one.
Speaker 3: I love it. I wish I was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, like I said, they're pulling out the stops
Speaker 1: to showcase it the way that I think. The thing
Speaker 1: with things events like this is obviously they are underground
Speaker 1: bands who aren't normally afforded a huge deal of budget, right,
Speaker 1: And like yeah, like it wasn't It's not a Ramstein show.
Speaker 1: That's not what I'm talking about, but just getting to
Speaker 1: see bands who make music that, like I said, fucking
Speaker 1: means a lot to people, but who aren't normally afforded
Speaker 1: the spaces I suppose to, you know, put it on
Speaker 1: the way that you could in your wildest dreams dream
Speaker 1: of is the kind of stuff that you can see
Speaker 1: with things like Dodheim's guy doing this black Medium Current
Speaker 1: set in an old Victorian theater with these incredible visuals
Speaker 1: behind them and all this stuff and you know, three
Speaker 1: backing singers on stage, and it was just it was
Speaker 1: really fucking beautiful. It was lovely. And from there I
Speaker 1: saw a band called Howedham Rife We're Just Not, which
Speaker 1: is not so beautiful, but they are. I mentioned again
Speaker 1: the sort of the more recent wave of that, you know,
Speaker 1: the hooded or you can't see their faces at all.
Speaker 1: Veiled black metal bands Hordede and Rife are one of
Speaker 1: a couple of bands who you look at and they
Speaker 1: are like black bands of a more traditional era in
Speaker 1: that these are like long haired, corpse painted guys right
Speaker 1: like these are like the layman's understanding of what a
Speaker 1: black metal band is. These are the traditions that about
Speaker 1: at Horde and Rife are dealing with. I think the
Speaker 1: Norwegian and it is like, you know, second wave style,
Speaker 1: fucking evil, spiky, icy, corpse painted, et cetera. Like they
Speaker 1: they could have been part of waves with Gorga Roth
Speaker 1: or then you know the whole wave with Shooder and
Speaker 1: these type bands coming forward like and they are decent
Speaker 1: band and they are pretty straightforward, and certainly in the
Speaker 1: live environment they're kind of one dimensional and that it is,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of just blasty, not the most
Speaker 1: dynamic thing in the world black metal. But and it
Speaker 1: was very warm in that room as well. That's the
Speaker 1: thing with the Ocean room is it was it was
Speaker 1: cooking in there, like it was it was very insulated
Speaker 1: in there, which certainly for some bands might add a
Speaker 1: level of a pressure, pressive hellishness but there you go.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and wife were decent in supplying that really
Speaker 1: like necro fix, you know what I mean. The headliner
Speaker 1: of the first day of Fortress was Old Man's Child,
Speaker 1: which is the band that recently has been reactivated, the
Speaker 1: band of Golder who for a long time was in
Speaker 1: Dimu BORGI. If you are even kind of casually familiar
Speaker 1: with Dimu I guess you might recognize Golder. He's he
Speaker 1: was the bald guitar arrested, the one you could always
Speaker 1: put him out there because he you know, he looked
Speaker 1: different to the rest.
Speaker 2: Of his tongue alicking a.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All My Child was the band that he had
Speaker 1: before Demu Borgil like he joined in I think maybe
Speaker 1: the turn of the two thousand somewhere around there. This
Speaker 1: is Nighties, similar style of symphonic you know, keyboard lad
Speaker 1: in black metal, obviously differences. Dimu went so fucking enormous
Speaker 1: with it, with like we're gonna work with the Prague
Speaker 1: Philharmonic and we're gonna soundra liket hell Boy trailers and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. All My's Child is a
Speaker 1: little more, you know, for the devotees of that that
Speaker 1: that style more, you know, fundamentally with the the keyboards
Speaker 1: and that kind of approach to that style. But if
Speaker 1: you love that shit, which I do, all my child are,
Speaker 1: I would say an essential name like to hear if
Speaker 1: you love that shit like they're Runner records from the
Speaker 1: late nineties going into kind of the early to mid
Speaker 1: two thousands when they were at their peak of activity,
Speaker 1: really fucking great in that world. And Golder recently left
Speaker 1: Demi Borgear and just out of the blue revived or
Speaker 1: Man's Child. I think he said he's working on new material,
Speaker 1: but certainly the last year or sorry, they've been playing shows,
Speaker 1: and for a start, I respect that in terms of
Speaker 1: you have a tasty gig in Demie Borgia right, like
Speaker 1: you are in one of the three biggest black metal
Speaker 1: bands in the entire world, who can play enormous you know,
Speaker 1: slots at a vacan or something like that, and leaving
Speaker 1: that behind to play with your smaller band, but the
Speaker 1: one that's your your baby and your passion project. I
Speaker 1: think that's cool and I think there's something there's a
Speaker 1: nice element to seeing Orban's Child come back through that.
Speaker 1: The Golder demeanor that you described from Demu right, the
Speaker 1: sort of goblin walk. He does that will head tilt
Speaker 1: to the side with the tongue out, which obviously he
Speaker 1: now has years of experience playing these big shows with Demu,
Speaker 1: like he has played larger slots and larger shows than
Speaker 1: I would imagine basically anyone else on the Fortress bill.
Speaker 1: He brings that into old Man's Child. Now they're playing
Speaker 1: these slots and it's like, yeah, you are you are
Speaker 1: a great musician, but you're also one of the I
Speaker 1: would say, the few people on this bill who is
Speaker 1: like an entertainer, you know, and he can bring that
Speaker 1: side to it. And that was all there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's present. He can entertain and he can do this stuff,
Speaker 1: and him as the the you know, the front man
Speaker 1: as well, because he does the vocals a you know,
Speaker 1: an engaging focal point. And they sounded great, like the
Speaker 1: band were really tight and propulsive. The piano lines I mentioned,
Speaker 1: like the big symphonic keyboard lines they have, they were
Speaker 1: on track. They did not have like a live keyboardist
Speaker 1: there with him. It was a four piece, you know,
Speaker 1: metal band, and so the lead melodies of the songs
Speaker 1: often being these you know, keyboard parts. You could sort
Speaker 1: of tell that like, yeah, that's a track while the
Speaker 1: band are live playing the you know, metal underpinning to it.
Speaker 1: But like I said, the band were really really tight,
Speaker 1: and they do have some songs that are they lean
Speaker 1: more on the lead guitar melodies as well, like doom
Speaker 1: Maker for example, and those sounded absolutely fantastic, and it
Speaker 1: was a recent, you know, a good reminder of just
Speaker 1: what a great catalog they have, where they covered a
Speaker 1: lot of basses that the of you know, their their discography.
Speaker 1: They opened with the song Towards Eternity, which is from
Speaker 1: Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion, and that has such a mischievous
Speaker 1: nineties keyboard start, like I Am ascending like a wizard spire,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that's exactly what you
Speaker 1: want to hear when you're entering this set. Lots of
Speaker 1: songs off of the Pagan Prosperity, a couple songs from
Speaker 1: Revelation six sixty six. They played the Sole Receiver from
Speaker 1: In Defiance of Existence, which I would have liked a
Speaker 1: little bit more of that record. I would have particularly
Speaker 1: liked Felonies of the Christian Art, the opening track on
Speaker 1: that record, which I was quite surprised they didn't play.
Speaker 1: But you know, still good stuff. And then the latest
Speaker 1: representative was from the album Vermin, which is like from
Speaker 1: two thousand and five ish, I think a track called
Speaker 1: Twilight Damnation, so a good like you know, decade span
Speaker 1: of old bands child material. It's fun to go like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is our new song from tonight. It's from twenty
Speaker 1: one years ago, but there you go. And I just
Speaker 1: thought it was cool that we're at a moment right
Speaker 1: now at the last kind of two three years. This
Speaker 1: sort of style of like late nineties you know, orchestral
Speaker 1: symphonic black metal before it got fully you know, dem
Speaker 1: U Cradle style, like massive and overblown, but like the
Speaker 1: more underground variant of it, I suppose has become a
Speaker 1: like a bit of a trend for bands to revive
Speaker 1: a little bit. So most obviously we have like the
Speaker 1: new Worm album, for example, from the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: which is like one of the most raved about underground
Speaker 1: records of this year. The upcoming storm Keep album also
Speaker 1: it looks like it's going to be very much in
Speaker 1: that kind of like late nineties style, you know, cheesy
Speaker 1: but in a great way that lots of us love,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of symphonic black metal. That stuff is,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of it in again at the moment,
Speaker 1: and so it's cool to have one of the ogs
Speaker 1: of this style essentially coming back and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how the ship was back then. This is
Speaker 1: why it's still great, you know, and really great to
Speaker 1: see that, and also a booking as the headline act
Speaker 1: that no one else would have gotten that. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no other festival apart from the London based ones
Speaker 1: like your Cosmic Voids, et cetera, who do get some
Speaker 1: of these things, but like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where for a headline booking, lots of other festivals would
Speaker 1: look from the outside and be like Old Man's Child,
Speaker 1: Who the fuck is that? Who cares? Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But Fortress can go, yeah, we're going
Speaker 1: to book that to headline because we know that there
Speaker 1: are enough people who will converge for whom this means something,
Speaker 1: you know, and lots of people, I presume seeing Old
Speaker 1: Man's Child for the first time because they've been in
Speaker 1: active for fifteen twenty years something like that was a
Speaker 1: celebration of a great little a great band and a
Speaker 1: great little corner of you know, the black metal universe
Speaker 1: that we all enjoy. So that was a nice, just
Speaker 1: good vibes's way essentially with a great entertainment, like I said,
Speaker 1: like golda to send us home on the first day.
Speaker 1: The second day started off with this is a fucking
Speaker 1: grand heavy way to start the day, started off twelve
Speaker 1: pm with a Forest of Stars who this was this
Speaker 1: is their first show back after so we reviewed the
Speaker 1: new record last week and I think that's my second
Speaker 1: favorite album of the year right now, Like I absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in awe of it. It's brilliant and talking
Speaker 1: to people what because I didn't know if that was
Speaker 1: Dutch just me or whatever. I know. Obviously Elliot liked
Speaker 1: have and reviewed it, but talking to people around sits,
Speaker 1: I got the vibe what I was saying about Black
Speaker 1: Median Current and the way people were like, this is
Speaker 1: a fucking classic, right this has been candonized. Obviously we're
Speaker 1: very very early with the Forestars record, but people love it.
Speaker 1: In a similar way, I'm kind of gathering like everyone
Speaker 1: who I spoke everyone who I spoke to, was like
Speaker 1: that a Forest of Stars record is fucking unbelievable, and
Speaker 1: I think that again it's a niche thing, but seeing
Speaker 1: you know, being around people who are all, like, we
Speaker 1: need to see this band. They're very first band on,
Speaker 1: but we need to see them because their new record
Speaker 1: is so spectacular, similar vibes, right, and really wonderful to
Speaker 1: see that building up for them, particularly because, as I
Speaker 1: was just saying, this is their first show back after
Speaker 1: their like long gap between records. Basically this was then,
Speaker 1: you know, they put out the record and this and
Speaker 1: then returned to the stage after a few years, uh
Speaker 1: and showcasing it. And it's one of those where like
Speaker 1: this was booked I don't know, a year ago, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know when the exactly they booked this. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they were to book this again, knowing how
Speaker 1: well the album has been received, whether they'd give them
Speaker 1: the Dodheims Guard treatment of like here's a seventy minute slot, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to fucking play the whole thing, because they were opening,
Speaker 1: they had forty minutes, that's you know, I think it
Speaker 1: was forty five minutes. Actually, I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have seen them. Genuinely. I understand why it wasn't booked
Speaker 1: that way, because, like I said, it was booked long
Speaker 1: before the record came out, and you've got to move
Speaker 1: things around and all of that, but it would have
Speaker 1: been amazing to see, Like if they'd done that, I
Speaker 1: think this could have rivaled the Dodheims Guard set because
Speaker 1: just the forty five minutes they played was really something.
Speaker 1: They played Ascension of the Clowns, which is the opening
Speaker 1: track from the new record. They played Root Circle Usurper
Speaker 1: from the new record. They then they played Drawing Down
Speaker 1: the Moon from the Way the Sword you Cannot See record,
Speaker 1: which is also like a masterpiece of a song. And
Speaker 1: then they ended on the closing track on the new record,
Speaker 1: not Drinking Water, and just for those film and it's
Speaker 1: those four songs. It was really I've seen the Forestars before,
Speaker 1: but this was, like I said, seeing them in the
Speaker 1: kind of environment where they're really made for it, where
Speaker 1: similar to dott Heheims Guard, they're an impressive bunch of
Speaker 1: people on stage right where you've got keyboardists, you've got
Speaker 1: two guitarists, you've got a violinist who's also you know,
Speaker 1: singing the female vocal parts. You've got mister Curse himself
Speaker 1: stood center stage like a lot you know to take in.
Speaker 1: And that's before as well that the visuals that they
Speaker 1: had behind them really like if you look at like
Speaker 1: the art style of the new record and these psychedelic
Speaker 1: paintings and stuff, which I think might be done by
Speaker 1: mister Curse himself, the vocalist. They had, like so they
Speaker 1: had the new record on vinyl with them, but they
Speaker 1: had I think limited to four copies. They were like,
Speaker 1: we've got copies of the record, but these four copies
Speaker 1: we've got like we've encased it in like each one
Speaker 1: individually hand painted like wooden artwork stuff. And it was
Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty quid or something. But like,
Speaker 1: if you are real, you know, forrest of stars head,
Speaker 1: do you want like the most crazy bespoke four of
Speaker 1: them that exist in the world with these like you know,
Speaker 1: I said, each one different painted, you know, visual They
Speaker 1: had those there, but those psychedelic visual kind of paintings
Speaker 1: and stuff all around again like on the behind them,
Speaker 1: on the stage and around them. Like it was a
Speaker 1: trippy vibe and that like real psych rock, prog rock
Speaker 1: kind of edge that they're coming at that new record with,
Speaker 1: but mixed in with like those wonderful violin melodies that
Speaker 1: she plays against these really great you know, black metal
Speaker 1: guitar lines and of course really like emotionally engaged vocal
Speaker 1: performance like that. I can't imagine that you could ever
Speaker 1: half ass performing that way, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He obviously did hit the poop Poop the chew choo
Speaker 1: from the the album and I enjoyed that. But the
Speaker 1: vigor of which he was coming out that with and
Speaker 1: then particularly into the closing track not Drinking Water, which
Speaker 1: I mentioned on the review last week, is it feels
Speaker 1: like the uh, the emotional kind of center point of
Speaker 1: the new record. You could hear like a pin drop
Speaker 1: during the quiet passages of it, Like the Fortress audience
Speaker 1: is genuinely really respectful to the band when they have
Speaker 1: these like you know, quiet passages and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But it was like everyone's really life just enraptured in
Speaker 1: that moment. And then the climax from when that song
Speaker 1: built up again just like it did bring a bit
Speaker 1: of a tear to the eye, like they were really
Speaker 1: wonderful and they are doing a this is just a
Speaker 1: public service and that might I suppose for anyone who
Speaker 1: has just got into this band with the new record.
Speaker 1: They are doing a UK headline tour in November in
Speaker 1: some small venues and a handful of cities in the UK,
Speaker 1: So please pick up a ticket if if you love
Speaker 1: that record and you want to go out and check
Speaker 1: them out, because it was I definitely would be going
Speaker 1: because I want more, you know, I've been on a
Speaker 1: real kick with this band lately, and yeah, seeing them
Speaker 1: open the day with forty five minutes of just Absolute
Speaker 1: Wonder was really really great. From there, I'm going to
Speaker 1: detour into something else that was going on, So I
Speaker 1: mentioned that there is the third stage at Fortress where
Speaker 1: they tend to alternate between doing the I say this
Speaker 1: kind of forum talks the panels on the one day
Speaker 1: and then the other day. They've taken to kind of
Speaker 1: like booking something that's not metal but fits into the
Speaker 1: you know, is culturally connected to black metal. So last
Speaker 1: year they had a bunch of neofolk acts playing and
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of those last year and that
Speaker 1: was really nice. You know, it was cool to see
Speaker 1: again in a smaller, more intimate setting. So there's like
Speaker 1: acoustic music and stuff like that, but that fits in
Speaker 1: the you know, folky black metal kind of framework. This year,
Speaker 1: they didn't do the Neophix bands. They booked a bunch
Speaker 1: of Dungeons In Acts headlined by the literal god of
Speaker 1: the genre, Mortis, the absolute goblin himself. Who I did
Speaker 1: not see Mortis sadly because I it was my only
Speaker 1: actual like clash of the festival, really is. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see the band who were on during Mortis. I
Speaker 1: have seen Mortis doing like an Era one set before
Speaker 1: a few years ago when he supported in Mayhem, so
Speaker 1: that's why I went elsewhere. But Mortis was headlining it. Who,
Speaker 1: like I said, the pioneer, the god of the genre.
Speaker 1: So if you like dungeon synth, that is you're scene,
Speaker 1: then you can't get you know, more legitimate than that. Basically,
Speaker 1: I did get a photo with Mortis because I saw
Speaker 1: him hanging out and I very very rarely like ask
Speaker 1: for photos with band members, but I saw a couple
Speaker 1: of people do it before me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I've got to get a photo with Mortis. Come on,
Speaker 1: is fucking more. It's fucking Mortois.
Speaker 3: It's like of James Headfield.
Speaker 1: Was there exactly for Dungeons In's heads That's literally true,
Speaker 1: that's exactly. But I did. I was curious to check
Speaker 1: out earlier in the day. You know, some of the
Speaker 1: other Dungeon says acts because I appreciate the sound of
Speaker 1: dungeon sin like I know it kind of is a
Speaker 1: punchline to a degree from the outside because of how
Speaker 1: just like cartoonishly dork it is. And I understand that,
Speaker 1: and I say that with absolute love. I do generally
Speaker 1: I appreciate the sound of dungeon synth. I particularly love
Speaker 1: when it is a component in black metal, right, so
Speaker 1: obviously it the genre originally kind of spilled out of
Speaker 1: basically like intro and interlude tracks on black metal records,
Speaker 1: and then people just went, I'm just gonna play those
Speaker 1: by myself, and then you have bands like Summoning and
Speaker 1: Kaladan Brewed and stuff like that, who kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: mix it into the actual melodies and components of their
Speaker 1: black metal records. But there is such a huge, like
Speaker 1: actual Dungeon scene of like people putting on live events
Speaker 1: and like there are genuine there are live, dedicated dungeons
Speaker 1: and festivals in the UK, you know, And I've never
Speaker 1: been to anything like that because I'm not quite that
Speaker 1: in deep enough. And to me, Dungeons tenth is is
Speaker 1: strange music live because it's kind of like sit at
Speaker 1: home and drift away music like it's not to me
Speaker 1: so active participation, you know, live music, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But I thought, as it's here in the
Speaker 1: theater stage at Fortress, it's a good way for me to,
Speaker 1: you know, while I'm literally on site, I've got the
Speaker 1: opportunity to dip my toe in to seeing some of
Speaker 1: these acts and what it's like, but also the environment,
Speaker 1: Like I imagine it's much nicer sitting in a lovely Victorian
Speaker 1: theater in a nice seat on a balcony enjoying these
Speaker 1: acts then being in a fucking pub watching a guy
Speaker 1: go do do do? You know what I mean? So
Speaker 1: I thought, this is about as good as time as
Speaker 1: any for me to like go and watch them dungeons
Speaker 1: and stuff and check out where they got going on here.
Speaker 1: So I saw two acts on that stage. The first
Speaker 1: one was a guy called pork Cullis, which is a
Speaker 1: brilliant name for a Dungeons of actor. I think, just
Speaker 1: a bit of a castle, you know, let's move around
Speaker 1: get different areas of castle locations. I saw a port
Speaker 1: Cullis who was very much into the presentation of it,
Speaker 1: like he had like a monk robe on, you know.
Speaker 1: I think he had like a gold leaf crown around
Speaker 1: his head. And he also he went the kind of
Speaker 1: the extra mile and that not only did he just
Speaker 1: have the keyboard, he also had an electric loot that
Speaker 1: he would like sometimes play them on. And he had
Speaker 1: like a drum that he would do like you know,
Speaker 1: the big pounding dungeons in percussion parts with so he
Speaker 1: was like fully into the presentation of it. And then
Speaker 1: the other guy I saw was a guy called fIF
Speaker 1: spelled f I E F fIF. And this was a
Speaker 1: great even though I only saw two acts in the stage.
Speaker 1: It was a great contrast because compared to what I've
Speaker 1: just described, a Port Colors thief turns up and it's
Speaker 1: just a guy with sunglasses on, just just no president
Speaker 1: at all, just dudes rock. I'm a man, I've got
Speaker 1: long hair, I've got sunglasses on, and he only had
Speaker 1: his keyboard, like no other instrumentation, just a dude with
Speaker 1: shades on indoors doing his little melodies. And sonically the
Speaker 1: two differed as well, because the two types of dungeons
Speaker 1: in in my experience, are you've got like the basier
Speaker 1: I am looking at the grand ruins of a castle
Speaker 1: dungeons sin which is like that, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you've got I'm frolicking through the forest, I'm
Speaker 1: having a drink with the hobbits in the tavern. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the two two types of Dungeon synth, and
Speaker 1: those are the two types that these acts played. Where
Speaker 1: Port Carlos was more like the bar and Feet more
Speaker 1: so I got both flavors with different visual presentations as well.
Speaker 1: Sat in a nice you know seat, so hooray fun
Speaker 1: and I will say it was packed in there, like
Speaker 1: it was booming like one of those two acts. They
Speaker 1: had to move people up to the balcony because the
Speaker 1: floor was so full, and like I said, it's it's
Speaker 1: like it's niche subculture than black metal is, which is
Speaker 1: already a niche subculture, but the people who are into
Speaker 1: dungeon synth support it so hard. Like they had you know,
Speaker 1: these acts had much like the blackma bands did, and
Speaker 1: they were fucking selling loads of shit, like every item
Speaker 1: that you can imagine, like hats, cassette tapes, fucking you know,
Speaker 1: like patches, everything that you can imagine a dungeon at selling.
Speaker 1: They had it there and they were selling it and
Speaker 1: it was really nice to see again like a congregation,
Speaker 1: a gathering of people who are come in here to
Speaker 1: really immerse themselves into something that is like off the
Speaker 1: beaten track, off the beaten path and fucking packing it out,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm sure that the people who, like
Speaker 1: you know, were really dedicated into the Dungeon thing scene
Speaker 1: really appreciated having this stage here and getting to see
Speaker 1: something the acts because it was booming all weekend. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine how you know, popular Mortis might have
Speaker 1: been later on in the day, and just the general
Speaker 1: vibe of, you know, again, having this stage where they're
Speaker 1: booking something that isn't actually black metal, so it is
Speaker 1: your sort of palette cleanser, but it still feels like
Speaker 1: you're in the world of black metal is a really
Speaker 1: nice thing that fortunately started to do. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they do going forward in terms of like, do
Speaker 1: they book more of than NEATHOK bands because that was
Speaker 1: nice last year as well. Do they keep the Dungeon
Speaker 1: in stage. Can they do a mix of the two
Speaker 1: or is that too difficult logistically. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: I whatever they pack that stage with, I always like
Speaker 1: to go there at least a couple times because you
Speaker 1: see something a bit different that does fit in. And yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're a Dungeonsent' head and you know those two
Speaker 1: acts that I've mentioned both pretty fun times, right and
Speaker 1: Feef there will actually be more about him later. He
Speaker 1: will come up again. But I saw those two acts.
Speaker 1: Back to the black metal the main stage, I saw
Speaker 1: Abigail Williams, who are a very long running at this stage,
Speaker 1: like comparatively they've been going for twenty years. Something like
Speaker 1: that black metal band from the US who well a
Speaker 1: kind of odd fit on the Fortress bill, even though
Speaker 1: they theoretically shouldn't have been because they are a black
Speaker 1: metal band and their last couple of albums certainly they
Speaker 1: lean to the more you know, at times atmospheric, but
Speaker 1: often you know, riffy, hard hitting black metal that you
Speaker 1: could absolutely imagine being a Fortress. And that's why they
Speaker 1: were booked, right. But Abigail Williams, their sort of story
Speaker 1: as a band is an odd one to keep track of,
Speaker 1: in that they have sort of shifted what they do
Speaker 1: and you know, reinvented their identity several times over to
Speaker 1: a degree that like I am a fan, like quite
Speaker 1: a big fan actually, particularly there's one record they made
Speaker 1: called Becunning in twenty twelve, which was a huge record,
Speaker 1: Like genuinely I adored that record so much at the time,
Speaker 1: and that's when they kind of went into a period
Speaker 1: of like the more sort of Cascadian like if I
Speaker 1: were to pitch that record to people, I would say,
Speaker 1: it's like sort of alien, slightly symphonic leaning Wolves in
Speaker 1: the Throne Room is what that record sort of sounds like.
Speaker 1: And that record I love so much. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: the first Abigail Williams you know sound, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: the last either, because they have been through several things.
Speaker 1: I would certainly imagine they are the only band who
Speaker 1: have played Fortress who have played with Bringing the Horizon
Speaker 1: early on, because they on their first like EP, were
Speaker 1: essentially like a blackened metal call kind of band, like
Speaker 1: influenced from Cradler Filth and Bleeding Through and those type
Speaker 1: of things. And like I said, they were if you
Speaker 1: look at gig posters from two thousand and six and
Speaker 1: Bring Me the Horizon shows and stuff like that, Abigai
Speaker 1: Williams are the kind of band who would pop up
Speaker 1: and you'd see them there. Their first studio album, Proper
Speaker 1: is like Demu Worship, like they shifted from there into
Speaker 1: full on like orchestral bombasta, over the top black metal,
Speaker 1: but then like I said, they moved into this more
Speaker 1: sort of atmospheric wolve and the thronemish kind of guys,
Speaker 1: and then from there they moved into a more sort
Speaker 1: of dissonant guys and then the more kind of riffy,
Speaker 1: slightly more accessible leading stuff that I've described them doing now.
Speaker 1: So they've shifted several times over and I don't know
Speaker 1: how particularly here in the UK. I actually they probably
Speaker 1: do have more in the US where they're from, but
Speaker 1: particularly here in the UK, I don't know how much
Speaker 1: of a following that has actually lent them. I think
Speaker 1: there might be people who have the odd record that
Speaker 1: they really enjoy from them, but they are they haven't
Speaker 1: gone with them all the time entirely as a band.
Speaker 1: And I did see a couple of comments like before
Speaker 1: the festival of people like Abigail Williams, aren't they like
Speaker 1: that death core band? You know, like what are they
Speaker 1: doing here? And it's like that because they have this
Speaker 1: sort of they're the rare band where I genuinely kind
Speaker 1: of feel that they should have changed the name and
Speaker 1: started again and not in a like, I, how dare
Speaker 1: you make more music under this name? Because I normally
Speaker 1: find that to be an incredibly entitled attitude, but just
Speaker 1: for their own good, like to kind of just put
Speaker 1: a bit of a marker and like their earlier periods,
Speaker 1: and because if they come back and had a more
Speaker 1: fucking like even their logo on the screen is of
Speaker 1: quite a like mid two thousands like metal chorus adjacent
Speaker 1: kind of logo, And you can't imagine the people who
Speaker 1: are walking around wherein you know, the merch of these
Speaker 1: other bands who are playing wearing that same thing. So
Speaker 1: just just for their own good to like develop more
Speaker 1: of a fan base here, I suppose, and more of
Speaker 1: a consistent identity, because that's what I think they struggle
Speaker 1: with because Abiga Williams, Like I said, I I am
Speaker 1: a fan of all of their records, Like, I think
Speaker 1: they're a very good band. Whatever they have tried their
Speaker 1: hand out, I think they've done pretty well at it.
Speaker 1: I like their most recent material. The album of theirs
Speaker 1: that I absolutely love and have the strong connection with
Speaker 1: is that one I mentioned Becoming, But it was I
Speaker 1: would say the least populated mainstage set that I saw,
Speaker 1: even though they are weirdly one of the most like
Speaker 1: one of the bands that people outside of this niche
Speaker 1: might recognize the name of, you know, they're like the
Speaker 1: most one of the more mainstream adjacent But conversely that
Speaker 1: meant that they were less popular here and inside that niche,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, I'm not gonna say it
Speaker 1: was like completely fucking you know, sparse, because you know,
Speaker 1: people had come to see them, but it wasn't a
Speaker 1: full room in the way that lots of these other bands,
Speaker 1: including these opening bands, you know, Forest the Stars example,
Speaker 1: had a fucking full room, and it was a strange
Speaker 1: sort of vibe being like, yeah, this is like a
Speaker 1: long running veteran band, but the atmosphere of like people
Speaker 1: are really here for this wasn't there for them in
Speaker 1: the way that it was for objectively smaller bands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're odd because their albums will come out and
Speaker 2: sort of make no impact because I feel like every
Speaker 2: album sounds different. They sound like a slightly different band
Speaker 2: every single time, so they're hard to pin.
Speaker 1: Down very much so, and that's me as a fan
Speaker 1: right struggling to do that a little bit. And this
Speaker 1: was my first time ever seeing Abigam Williams even though
Speaker 1: it was so like fifteen years ago. I can't stress
Speaker 1: they were a genuinely huge band for me, Like I
Speaker 1: loved them and I still do like them very much.
Speaker 1: But it's my first time ever seeing them because while
Speaker 1: they played the UK a lot in the mid two
Speaker 1: thousand and they haven't really in the last like ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen years. And they did say with this book
Speaker 1: and they were like, we don't know if we'll come
Speaker 1: back to the UK. You know, I think they might
Speaker 1: be at the sort of I can understand considering, you know,
Speaker 1: a small underground band having to fucking you know, tour
Speaker 1: is harder than ever. Crossing you know, international boundaries is
Speaker 1: harder than ever. I don't know, like we're gonna come
Speaker 1: to the We're gonna play Fortress, like no promises. We
Speaker 1: might be back, but we also might not, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I was like really key to
Speaker 1: see them for that. They played almost all I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say their last two albums. There's actually a lot from
Speaker 1: not the most recent album that came out last year,
Speaker 1: but the one before that, the twenty nineteen one, which
Speaker 1: has the wonderful I think as Marius Lewandowski cover, that one,
Speaker 1: which is really a really fine record, like a really
Speaker 1: good album.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've played a lot of songs from that record
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it. And those riffs they are, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're quite clean by black metal standard. They're like
Speaker 1: technically proficient, you know what I mean, Like you can
Speaker 1: watch them and you can tell that they have musical
Speaker 1: links to bounds like the Faceless and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because they have they can like they are really proficient
Speaker 1: instrumental players clearly so, and you know, the front man
Speaker 1: Ken is like again, he's a veteran, he's a pro.
Speaker 1: He did this for a long time. He's an authoritative
Speaker 1: kind of figure. They did not play anything, sadly from
Speaker 1: that one record that I mentioned being such a fan of.
Speaker 1: And this was a case for me of like I have,
Speaker 1: which I kind of on santy degree because I said,
Speaker 1: that's the record where you're gonna to do it properly.
Speaker 1: You're gonna need string sections and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: also they're quite long songs a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: But it was like, yeah, I'm for the first time,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a band that were huge for me fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago. But it's it's not quite the version of
Speaker 1: the band that I maybe had the strongest attachment to,
Speaker 1: and also the atmosphere and the vibe just isn't quite
Speaker 1: here with this in the way it has been for
Speaker 1: some of the the other acts, which is maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit of shame, because they still put on a
Speaker 1: good set. Again, they were pros. They came out, they
Speaker 1: did their thing, they did it well. It was just
Speaker 1: weird thing. Like I said, one of the most name
Speaker 1: recognition bands on the bill, but conversely means within the niche,
Speaker 1: they haven't actually really built up the following that some
Speaker 1: of these more dedicated underground bands have been. But there
Speaker 1: that was Abagail Williams and after that, I guess this
Speaker 1: proves my point. After this is a band who I
Speaker 1: can never fucking pronounce their name. They're a Dutch band.
Speaker 1: They're called Flea Starrs Flu Starars something like that, and
Speaker 1: they are from the Dutch black metal scene and they
Speaker 1: are like absolutely beloved at Fortress. They're kind of sort
Speaker 1: of post black metally, but not in a like they're
Speaker 1: not a black gaze band, for example. They're just kind
Speaker 1: of like slightly weird, like they play like these long,
Speaker 1: very hypnotic, like very like I am going into a
Speaker 1: trance type songs, and they have like these core progressions
Speaker 1: that go in these like slightly almost like bad trip,
Speaker 1: like I'm really in the moment, but then something going
Speaker 1: a little bit of a rye and like, oh God,
Speaker 1: where am I'm a little bit scared? Like that's kind
Speaker 1: of the vibe of their music and very intense performers,
Speaker 1: particularly that the front man, he doesn't really look like
Speaker 1: a black metal singer. He's got this sort of like
Speaker 1: slightly seventies hippie thing going on, or maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of like a nineties slacker vibe, Like he has
Speaker 1: this big, like curly head of hair. He doesn't really
Speaker 1: look like a black metal singer, and he brings us
Speaker 1: like weird like, as I say, almost like seventies hippie
Speaker 1: or like a Jim Morrison character or something like that,
Speaker 1: but while screeching his head off, almost like they don't
Speaker 1: sound at all like this band, but in the way
Speaker 1: when you watch something like a Rancy Pazuzu and it's
Speaker 1: like you don't quite feel like a black metal band.
Speaker 1: You were like a bunch of just sort of strange,
Speaker 1: strange maverick freaks basically who are regurging it as horrible music.
Speaker 1: It's a slightly similar flavor there with Floysters and they
Speaker 1: are I saw them at Fortress two years ago playing
Speaker 1: the second stage, and here they were bumped up to
Speaker 1: the mainstage and they had a fucking huge crowd and
Speaker 1: everyone loved it and people like really, you know, reverential
Speaker 1: about it. And that's what I mean, like within the niche,
Speaker 1: bands fucking pop off and they're a very popular band
Speaker 1: within that. After that was get into the slightly higher
Speaker 1: reaches of the Sunday bill. Now. I saw amat called
Speaker 1: vinter Land, which, speaking of the kind of things that
Speaker 1: you will only see at Fortress, Vinterland was a mad
Speaker 1: booking because they are one of those bands that seems
Speaker 1: to happen quite regularly in black metal, but anyone from
Speaker 1: outside of other niches goes, what do you mean, maybe
Speaker 1: hardcore sometimes get this. Basically, they're a band who released
Speaker 1: one album thirty years ago and now have just randomly
Speaker 1: come back to play it live like like that's that's it.
Speaker 1: They So they're one album nineteen ninety six. It's called
Speaker 1: Welcome to My Last Chapter and it is from Sweden
Speaker 1: and it's that Mires nineties Swedish melodic style of black metal,
Speaker 1: and that record is like a minor classic within that
Speaker 1: kind of realm. I wouldn't stay there for me one
Speaker 1: of my very favorites. I like that record a great
Speaker 1: deal because that particular niche of black metal is, you know,
Speaker 1: something I have a love for. I wouldn't say like
Speaker 1: I don't like them as much as like Dawn or Sacramentum,
Speaker 1: who in turn are not as good as the giant
Speaker 1: of that scene, which is Dissection. But you know, any again,
Speaker 1: kind of the BT classics of that scene. Vinta Land
Speaker 1: put that one record and of just for the thirtieth
Speaker 1: anniversary come out, but yeah, we're gonna play it live
Speaker 1: at strang of festival appearances around the world, and why
Speaker 1: the fuck not right if you're a nineties black metal
Speaker 1: hair do you love that record, then yeah, go and
Speaker 1: see it. And yeah, in kind vein of what I
Speaker 1: was saying, it's very melodic. I mean it didn't feel
Speaker 1: like a Vinterland, I'll tell you that much. It was
Speaker 1: too fucking warm in there to be particularly wintry, but
Speaker 1: there is that you know, snowy outside kind of tragedy
Speaker 1: in the guitar melodies, Like I think of those Swedish bands,
Speaker 1: they have a little bit closer melodically to things like
Speaker 1: early Catatonia and stuff like that, and they're going to
Speaker 1: a slightly you know that real saj despondent kind of
Speaker 1: edge to the melodic guitars, which I like a lot,
Speaker 1: but at the same time it does blast and it
Speaker 1: does you know, rift pretty hard and all of that.
Speaker 1: And they played that record and it was a yeah,
Speaker 1: a nice quite you know, pretty but still pretty intense
Speaker 1: Swedish black metalley time after that. Oh, it's the band
Speaker 1: who I would say the band who I most like
Speaker 1: have gotten into through this Fortress festival is a band
Speaker 1: called Vesperal, So that's v E s p E r
Speaker 1: a L. And they are a Canadian band. They're from Quebec,
Speaker 1: and like the Quebec black metal scene is one of
Speaker 1: those that you know, people are really dedicated particularly into,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, if you are into, for example, the Polish scene,
Speaker 1: or you know, if the Norwegian scene, whatever, there are
Speaker 1: people who like really like dead into the Quebec black
Speaker 1: metal scene and they've had like like for arrests, like
Speaker 1: one of the big bands of that scene. And they
Speaker 1: played Fortress last year, Vesperol one of those who have
Speaker 1: kind of merged through that scene, and I really they
Speaker 1: put out a split EP earlier this year. That was
Speaker 1: the first time I heard of them, but they put
Speaker 1: an album larger as well. I've since gone back and
Speaker 1: heard and I really enjoyed these guys because I would
Speaker 1: stay for a start that the singer had the best
Speaker 1: cape of the festival. It was like a kind of
Speaker 1: shirtless guy but with a cape like tied around his neck.
Speaker 1: Really great, but like really you know, riffy quite you know,
Speaker 1: certainly I would say bits of like the punk edge
Speaker 1: of Lamp of Murmur and stuff like that in there,
Speaker 1: rather than when they start hitting the disco beats and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, rather than like the two grand end,
Speaker 1: you know, like the more punky end of a band
Speaker 1: like that, and like Departure Chandelier as well, I would
Speaker 1: say is a big reference for how they're again that
Speaker 1: kind of com nation of you know, organs and quite
Speaker 1: primal black metal riffs, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: they played it with a lot of energy, like a
Speaker 1: lot of like really throw themselves into it, and the
Speaker 1: riffs they have a great you know, and particularly those
Speaker 1: keyboard lines like the track that they put out on
Speaker 1: the split earlier this year has a really really catchy
Speaker 1: like keyboard melody that was like one of the things
Speaker 1: that were stuck in my head after the festival. Really
Speaker 1: really enjoyed Vesperal Again, band I probably would not have
Speaker 1: seen if I wasn't at this particular festival, because I
Speaker 1: have to imagine this is one of the first times
Speaker 1: they've played the UK. But I'm really glad I caught
Speaker 1: them because they put on a really good show, a
Speaker 1: lot of energy. Definitely, I would give them a recommend.
Speaker 1: One of the bands who I was most keen to see,
Speaker 1: even though I've seen them a couple times before, but
Speaker 1: I will always be keen to see them. Subbing the
Speaker 1: Sundate main stage. Mis Theming maybe the biggest band to
Speaker 1: come out of the Icelandic black metal scene. That was
Speaker 1: one of those that, like I said about Quebec scene,
Speaker 1: sort of about ten years ago in the mid twenty tens,
Speaker 1: Iceland was producing a whole load of bands where I
Speaker 1: was like, this is a new wave of really exciting,
Speaker 1: fucking you know, killer black metal bands, and mis Theming
Speaker 1: are one of the ones who have like lasted the
Speaker 1: longest and are still fucking great and a really like
Speaker 1: carved out particular niche for themselves and I fucking love
Speaker 1: them like they are everything that I look for in
Speaker 1: a black metal band. I see in this theomy they're
Speaker 1: just like that's on record and live they're just so brilliant,
Speaker 1: And I would say, and I've it's been my experience
Speaker 1: before with them. When it comes to black metal live bands,
Speaker 1: mis Theming are in the like elite tier. When WATA
Speaker 1: and disband in a couple of years time, they might
Speaker 1: end up being the number one because they have that
Speaker 1: same thing of you can just feel the fucking like
Speaker 1: almost arrogant violent passion spilling out of their bodies when
Speaker 1: they are cracking into this shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And the ability to play this kind of you know,
Speaker 1: often quite esoteric music, but make you feel like this
Speaker 1: is real, you know, like this is a genuine force
Speaker 1: of energy that's coming out and it's being fed to
Speaker 1: us is something that I would look to the best
Speaker 1: black metal bands as being able to sell. And mis
Speaker 1: Theming of the you know, the newer crop of the
Speaker 1: last like ten fifteen years are the one to me
Speaker 1: who whenever I watch them, I just I get that
Speaker 1: in fucking spades, and I've had a moment of you know,
Speaker 1: like I've seen them. This is my third time seeing them,
Speaker 1: I think, and various sized venues. Last time I saw
Speaker 1: them they played Fortress two years ago and they were
Speaker 1: in the Ocean Room, the second stage. And this time
Speaker 1: again watching them like you are, you know, the second
Speaker 1: name from the top on the main stage in this
Speaker 1: grand Victorian theater, and you are still a quite a
Speaker 1: cult dedicated for black metal heads. Icelamed it black metal band.
Speaker 1: But look at this setting we're in and look at
Speaker 1: the people who are like visibly here passionate for you,
Speaker 1: and they fucking killed it, just absolutely like violent, like
Speaker 1: I said, pompous, fucking moving with just an arrogance and
Speaker 1: a fuck you about them. Which like black metal bands,
Speaker 1: there are various descriptions you can describe for how they
Speaker 1: are a live. Lots of them are obviously evil, you know,
Speaker 1: and I love that. I love that necrotic, dissonant edge whatever.
Speaker 1: Lots of them might be more atmospheric and more beautiful
Speaker 1: and moving. There aren't many black metal bands who live
Speaker 1: you would describe as hard, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like that I want to kick your head in type
Speaker 1: fucking hard where you can just feel it going. Ah.
Speaker 1: Misfeaming are fucking hard live and they have that. They
Speaker 1: brought that more than any other band I saw at Fortress.
Speaker 1: Whether they are doing the more pounding fucking heavy metal like,
Speaker 1: that's another thing that they really have. I think is
Speaker 1: this like genuine almost like rock star like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: fist pumping. This is a heavy metal song, just throw
Speaker 1: an extreme metal kind of lens I suppose energy or
Speaker 1: when they are like blasting and ripping your fucking head
Speaker 1: off and they're all covered in blood, like blood and
Speaker 1: ash and they are just these like violent figures just
Speaker 1: devastating the place, like black metal crowds for example. And
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those things that because
Speaker 1: it's an extreme metal subgenre outside people who come from
Speaker 1: the outside don't quite expect this in the same way.
Speaker 1: But black metal crowds don't really pit like mosh pits
Speaker 1: aren't such a thing in black metal as they are
Speaker 1: in for example, death metal or any other kind of
Speaker 1: you know, really fast brutal music. And it's because black
Speaker 1: metal has this kind of air to it that is
Speaker 1: a little bit more as I say, immersive, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's more you'd stand and you will
Speaker 1: feel it absolutely, but you're not throwing hands to black
Speaker 1: metal quite so much. But this feeling like opened up
Speaker 1: a pit because people are like, Okay, we just need
Speaker 1: to fucking get this out. We are just going to go.
Speaker 1: And I may have found myself somewhat lured into that
Speaker 1: slightly from the edges and they just yet really brilliant.
Speaker 1: I really hope we have new music from them soon
Speaker 1: because they have three LPs. The last of them came
Speaker 1: out in December of twenty twenty two, so we're coming
Speaker 1: up to four years since it and that album is
Speaker 1: fucking brilliant. The album before it is fucking brilliant. Their
Speaker 1: next album will be one of my most anticipated extreme
Speaker 1: metal records when it comes out. I really hope it's soon.
Speaker 1: I would love one this year. If not, then, you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully next year. But whenever I see this Theamy on
Speaker 1: a bill, I'm gonna catch them. And they did not disappoint,
Speaker 1: just absolutely fucking brilliant. And from there it turned into
Speaker 1: the most intense brutal double of the festival, I suppose
Speaker 1: because the band headlining the Ocean Room on the second
Speaker 1: day as a band called Darkened Nocturn Slaughter Cult, which
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest band names. I'm sure I'll
Speaker 1: agree you can feasibly have like, yeah, this other Nocturn
Speaker 1: Slaughter Cult wasn't Darkened enough. Fucking brilliant, absolutely top tier.
Speaker 1: That's what you want on a shirt, that's what you
Speaker 1: want on a logo beaming across a stage. Killer.
Speaker 3: They are a.
Speaker 1: Think I think German. They're from that kind of corner
Speaker 1: of Europe. I think German black metal band obviously, and
Speaker 1: they'd be going for a long time, like since the
Speaker 1: early two thousands. This is the first opportunity I've had
Speaker 1: to see them live. I got into them several years
Speaker 1: ago when like during the last few years of Bethlehem,
Speaker 1: like their couple of albums, their front woman was the
Speaker 1: the singer for the last couple records of Bethlehem. And
Speaker 1: I love Bethlehem. I'm a huge fan. And if you
Speaker 1: know Bethlehem, you know that getting the gig in Bethlehem
Speaker 1: is not just you can be a normal black metal singer,
Speaker 1: you know, like any old croaker is not getting to
Speaker 1: be the thing in Bethlehem. To be the singer in Bethlehem,
Speaker 1: you have to be fucking unhinged, and you have to
Speaker 1: wail like a motherfucker, and you have to take your
Speaker 1: voice places where people are not going to expect you
Speaker 1: to place it. And Dark Knoton Slaughter Cult musically are
Speaker 1: a like very fast, blasty, quite brutal black metal band,
Speaker 1: Like I would compare them to bands like Marduke for example,
Speaker 1: Like it's just like, ah, you know, really intense fucking
Speaker 1: ripping all violence, like not a lot of slow passages.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, you've got the singer who
Speaker 1: like is doing like more so in you know, Dark
Speaker 1: Knockton and Slaughter Colt than she did in Bethlehem. She
Speaker 1: does do more conventional black metal vocals, but every now
Speaker 1: and then, like they'll hit like a blast passage and
Speaker 1: take off and she would just go like oh, just
Speaker 1: like whale and like whoop every time it happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: the audience like visibly and audibly responded to it, like
Speaker 1: she'd hit like a fucking whoop and everyone would go
Speaker 1: like ah, Like it's just like it was a like
Speaker 1: a shot of adrenaline being pounded into her heart every
Speaker 1: time she just did something fucked and crazy. But on
Speaker 1: top of like this really like a blasting, violent, runaway
Speaker 1: train wall of riffy black metal. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: visually they are so awesome, like they are one of
Speaker 1: the most evil looking black metal bands I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: And this is part of why I wanted to see them,
Speaker 1: because I've seen pictures of them down the ears and
Speaker 1: be like, that looks fucking awesome. You've got like, you know,
Speaker 1: corpse painted like you know, spiked bracer type vibe from
Speaker 1: like the guitarist and stuff like that. But that front
Speaker 1: woman I mentioned, she is wearing like an all white robe,
Speaker 1: and the color of that will become very important. She's
Speaker 1: wearing an all white robe and she has this crazy
Speaker 1: fucking like almost crown of thorns situation going on, but
Speaker 1: it's like winding down her whole back and her body
Speaker 1: like she looks like she's had a fight with a tree. Basically,
Speaker 1: feel like she'st this same fucking like headgear on and
Speaker 1: then all down her like chin and all down her throat,
Speaker 1: just bright red blood just like absolutely and obviously against
Speaker 1: the white rode like I mentioned, it just pops so
Speaker 1: hard and like if black metal, particularly in the live environment,
Speaker 1: is a genre with a strong visual component, I just
Speaker 1: think she has one of the best, like one of
Speaker 1: the coolest looks, like go and look up if you're
Speaker 1: listening right now, go and look up the front woman
Speaker 1: from Dark Knot turned Stockholms and pictures of Worker that
Speaker 1: just looks fucking awesome. And when you've got that on,
Speaker 1: like I said, he's like twisting, turning, unpredictable bouts of
Speaker 1: violence in the riffing and just this wailing madness in
Speaker 1: the vocal. Just beat the shit out of you for
Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes or so. Kill her. And then after
Speaker 1: that the headline of the final band of Fortress twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, the headliner that, by all rights should not
Speaker 1: be a headliner, but they managed it. They booked Gallow
Speaker 1: Braid to headline this festival, which if you don't know
Speaker 1: that name, because you're not in this niche, I wouldn't blame.
Speaker 1: It's not like they've been playing lots because Galla Braid
Speaker 1: is a band driven by Jake Rogers, who for the
Speaker 1: last ten years plus has been the front man in Visigoth.
Speaker 1: Before that, he was the front man in the band
Speaker 1: Kaladan Brood. And if you have been the listener of
Speaker 1: Arge recently, you will know. We did an album club
Speaker 1: where I spoke about Kaldan Brude and why it is,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, one of the best records ever, and
Speaker 1: anyone who disagrees is a fucking coward. Absolutely. But Galli
Speaker 1: Braid was his other black metal band that he did
Speaker 1: like just before Kaladan Brude, and they put out one
Speaker 1: record in twenty ten that's like forty five minutes long,
Speaker 1: and that was it and they never played live. It's
Speaker 1: because it's just a side studio project, but one record
Speaker 1: never ever played live. And then he went on to
Speaker 1: again do these other bands. So Galli Braid, by all rights,
Speaker 1: should be dead. That's a dead band right there. So
Speaker 1: when Fortress randomly went, yeah, the headliner for a festival
Speaker 1: is Gallo Braid, a sixteen year old band who has
Speaker 1: never played a sh show before that also only obviously
Speaker 1: you know, has a following in this particular underwearn Niche
Speaker 1: was one of the most what the fuck do you
Speaker 1: mean scenarios I could imagine happening like by or right,
Speaker 1: like imagine the trust, amongst anything else, to intrust the
Speaker 1: headlining of your festival to a band's first gig, like
Speaker 1: from a from a promoting standpoint. That is such a
Speaker 1: move of trust, and I can imagine so many promoters
Speaker 1: being scared off by that and be like, no, I
Speaker 1: want a band who are a little bit more seasoned
Speaker 1: and at bit more of a proven draw, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. But they pulled it off, and I can
Speaker 1: only imagine that, you know, the Fortress promoters are just
Speaker 1: like fans who are like, we want to see this happen.
Speaker 1: We think it will have enough appeal cross you know,
Speaker 1: cross nations to get people to it, and we trust
Speaker 1: the banding question to do it properly that they manage
Speaker 1: to get it. And it's like an if you ask,
Speaker 1: don't ask, you don't get thing. But it's fucking like
Speaker 1: a wild thing. And this was the other thing where
Speaker 1: I mentioned like the things that people will wanting and
Speaker 1: being like this has an air of the surreal to
Speaker 1: it that this has never happened. We are witnessing something
Speaker 1: that's never ever happened before, and it's kind of odd
Speaker 1: and gallibraid that record is absolutely incredible, like so wonderful.
Speaker 1: If again you've heard our discussion on Caldan Brood, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like exactly Calalan Brud. It is clearly
Speaker 1: of the same mind of Caldan Brued. They share some
Speaker 1: things like the vocal melodies and stuff like that. It's
Speaker 1: not like, for one thing, I imagine Sam would probably
Speaker 1: like Galibrayed more Brood, but it's of again the same mind.
Speaker 1: Jake Rogers is probably like his catalog across the like
Speaker 1: certainly the three major bands that I've mentioned. There a
Speaker 1: limited catalog, but I can honestly say one of my
Speaker 1: favorites like a catalog that really resonates with me and
Speaker 1: like really means something to me. And the Gallibrayed record
Speaker 1: is no exception in that it's clearly very much inspired
Speaker 1: by the likes of Agaloque and that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like Pacific Northwest more epic. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: folky but atmospheric leaning black metal like big Agalot vibes
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But in the same way Abauma
Speaker 1: Kaladan Brewed to take like, Okay, we're gonna take Summoning,
Speaker 1: but then we're gonna put a little sprinkle of like
Speaker 1: epic heavy metal melody onto this. It just gives it
Speaker 1: that extra like mumph. That's kind of what Galabray have
Speaker 1: done as well, but with like we take an agaloc
Speaker 1: and then we've put some you know, epic sword waving
Speaker 1: heavy metal into the mix and given it a bit
Speaker 1: of extra umph. And in a similar way, that is
Speaker 1: a real cult classic record where there are people who
Speaker 1: love that record who would never have dreamed of ever
Speaker 1: seeing it live and then suddenly there it is in
Speaker 1: front of you. And that was I can't speak to
Speaker 1: that just overstate how much how weird that one was
Speaker 1: in so many ways where for a start we were like,
Speaker 1: who even is this band? Like Jake is the guy
Speaker 1: on record, who's he got with him? You know, like
Speaker 1: who's around him? It turned out Jake was playing guitar
Speaker 1: and also doing the clean singing vocal and amongst other things.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's the front man in Visigoth. But he was like,
Speaker 1: this is my first live show ever playing guitar, like
Speaker 1: in front of an audience because he's just the front
Speaker 1: man in Visigoth, and like the nerves you know, and
Speaker 1: I will say from him he was clearly so like
Speaker 1: the sort of surrealness of the occasion was shared on
Speaker 1: stage as much as it was in the audience. There
Speaker 1: were clearly like, you know, nerves, but in a good
Speaker 1: way of like letting them loose, of them having worked on,
Speaker 1: you know, putting this material together for a live band,
Speaker 1: and also so genuinely appreciative that sixteen years after he
Speaker 1: made this record people are so into seeing it live.
Speaker 1: You know, people care, you know, and that genuine, visible,
Speaker 1: you know, appreciation really fostered a really great vibe between
Speaker 1: you know, audience and band for this particular set. But
Speaker 1: he's doing the clean vocals like I said, and playing
Speaker 1: guitar center stage was fief the Dungeon synth man. I
Speaker 1: mentioned the twinkly running through the forest chirpy dungeonsnth guy.
Speaker 1: He he was actually the harsh vocalist right doing the
Speaker 1: screams for Gallabraid and also playing keyboard center stage, and
Speaker 1: it made us some really fun arrangements where if you
Speaker 1: know Gallibrade's music, for example, the song Stone of Remembrance,
Speaker 1: which they ended on, has this like this an incredible chorus,
Speaker 1: like a worldie of a chorus, but it has this
Speaker 1: like tin whistle melody, and I amage that fucking Jake
Speaker 1: Rodgers was also playing the flute occasionally, like when his
Speaker 1: hands were free from playing guitar, he would whip and
Speaker 1: do a bit of that, but the Stone of Remembrance
Speaker 1: like whistle melody under the chorus. They translated it to
Speaker 1: keyboard and the thief guy was playing it. But it
Speaker 1: meant is there of the whistle melody you had the
Speaker 1: most like the daftist fucking keyboard tone like doing that melody. Oh,
Speaker 1: I was watching it. I was like, there are people
Speaker 1: where this would repulse them, and those people are weak.
Speaker 1: I'm having such a good time. But yeah, that dynamic
Speaker 1: going on. I think like the other guitarists like the
Speaker 1: leaketizing a lot of the solos, and the bassist, I
Speaker 1: think we're both from Visigoth, so obviously just you know
Speaker 1: guys from that scene who we know. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: come along and I trust you to do this. And
Speaker 1: it was a really great uh you know a component
Speaker 1: you know, configuration. I suppose the word I'm looking for
Speaker 1: for this music. And they obviously played the entire ashen
Speaker 1: Iedl on record, the opening track on it. As soon
Speaker 1: as that really driving first riff hit, you could just
Speaker 1: feel people be like, oh my god, yes, this is great,
Speaker 1: this works. We're so into this. But then also going
Speaker 1: we are aware. He literally said, it's like we know
Speaker 1: that our set time here, our headline hour along set
Speaker 1: is longer than the music that this band has released,
Speaker 1: like we are aware of that. And this was subject
Speaker 1: of much, uh sort of what's the world I'm looking for?
Speaker 1: You know, debate and theorization ahead of time of people
Speaker 1: recognizing they have not got enough material to feel this
Speaker 1: hour long headlines a lot like what are they going
Speaker 1: to do? And people like will they play a you know,
Speaker 1: there's like whatther song from a compilation or something? Will
Speaker 1: they play a secret Kaladan Brood song which I never
Speaker 1: actually believe would happen but obviously would have been unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Or the third option, play new material, And that is
Speaker 1: what happened because Gallo Braid a record that only has
Speaker 1: one album twenty ten turn up and went, yeah, we
Speaker 1: know we've got longer than we actually have songs, So
Speaker 1: here are two new songs that we've got for you
Speaker 1: that we're working on for an album that is coming
Speaker 1: up at some point soon. And the vibes being already
Speaker 1: really good when they were playing the material that people knew,
Speaker 1: then the surprise of here are brand new songs for
Speaker 1: the first time. The vibe, the good spirits in this
Speaker 1: set hit another level. I was with my mate watching
Speaker 1: this and at one point when they were playing a song,
Speaker 1: he literally turned to me and was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to the bar to get booths, like just because the
Speaker 1: new galibraded song they were playing was of such quality
Speaker 1: that it required appropriate celebration. And genuinely, those two songs
Speaker 1: they played, one was a more like kind of windy, blasty,
Speaker 1: atmospheric black metal, not like a little colder maybe, but
Speaker 1: one of them had the biggest fuck off like folky
Speaker 1: epic metal melody and chorus and like basically a Visigoth chorus,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying, like Jake who sings all those
Speaker 1: amazing choruses, and literally I can sing it to you.
Speaker 1: How many times ever have you seen a band play new,
Speaker 1: unreleased songs and you have remembered it after You might
Speaker 1: have enjoyed it, but you haven't heard it enough times
Speaker 1: to like, you know, internalize it in your brain. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I was singing. I don't know
Speaker 1: the words to it, but the melody I have in
Speaker 1: my head like it entered it immediately because it was
Speaker 1: so good and so big and epic and inspiring and
Speaker 1: rousing and like I said, Jake is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite particularly like vocal melody arrangers probably ever and fuck me,
Speaker 1: I can't even go and listen to it. There's like
Speaker 1: a phone recording that someone's got of it, but I
Speaker 1: can't even go listen to the song with the record
Speaker 1: right now. I want it so bad now. I am
Speaker 1: so give forward to hearing the Finnish studio versions of
Speaker 1: these songs, because if you are a gallery fanily on
Speaker 1: you weren't here, but you're curious, like what could new
Speaker 1: record sound like? The new songs, particularly that one with
Speaker 1: this incredible fucking chorus immediately earwormed itself right into my consciousness,
Speaker 1: was just spectacular, and like I said, bringing that like
Speaker 1: the vibes being so triumphant, like an actual like Stone
Speaker 1: Remembrance I mentioned that song, like an actual, genuine sing
Speaker 1: along and when matey boy Fief is playing the fucking
Speaker 1: keyboard melody and people are singing it back, you know,
Speaker 1: like an Iron Maiden show like oh just it turned
Speaker 1: into a like a good vibes heavy metal show basically
Speaker 1: at the end of this weekend of you know, blasty
Speaker 1: black metal, and that was so sick. I can't again.
Speaker 1: People who who was who were there and were really
Speaker 1: like have waited however long for even the promise of
Speaker 1: Gallo Braid anything, you know, people who love that record.
Speaker 1: Basically it was such a celebration of, like I said,
Speaker 1: something that's so small and something that was so unproven,
Speaker 1: particularly in the live environment, and that you could easily
Speaker 1: imagine no one ever wanting to take the chance on
Speaker 1: it and put it on basically, but the vibes that
Speaker 1: it produced and the celebration of that was so good
Speaker 1: and such a brilliant way to end it that Gallibray
Speaker 1: not only is that record the first one like absolutely
Speaker 1: reaffirmed in my mind as like you know, a kind
Speaker 1: of an underground cult classic of the you know, twenty
Speaker 1: tens of black metal. It's fucking brilliant. If you've never
Speaker 1: heard it, you would actually check it out. But also
Speaker 1: like not out of the blue, you're here, your back
Speaker 1: and we've got new fucking material to look forward to,
Speaker 1: and its sounding shit hot was killer, Like for two
Speaker 1: cult headliners, you know, old Man's Child the more proven
Speaker 1: of the two, and then Gallo Bray just whipping it
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. People be like, who if they've never
Speaker 1: you know, if they didn't intersect with that particular phenomenon,
Speaker 1: but both headlining in the festival in it's such a
Speaker 1: great way. It kind of proved that you don't actually
Speaker 1: have to break the bank too crazy, like you don't
Speaker 1: maybe that's not time I'm looking for. You don't have
Speaker 1: to try and appeal beyond the niche, right, you don't
Speaker 1: have to book fucking you know that the bands who
Speaker 1: you don't have to try and aim to reach, the
Speaker 1: people who wouldn't normally go for a festival for this
Speaker 1: kind of music. You can put on something that is
Speaker 1: just purely for this audience and they will come and
Speaker 1: they will love it, and it will matter and it
Speaker 1: will be validated, you know what I mean. And then
Speaker 1: the last I say about Fortress kind of on that
Speaker 1: note is they are on site. It was after a
Speaker 1: Forester Stars on site, but then it came out, you
Speaker 1: know why the following day they've booked. Next year's headliner
Speaker 1: is Emperor for one of the days. Yeah, and obviously
Speaker 1: fortunes of the two day festival, they have made it
Speaker 1: a habit last few years of Likelin, of announcing you know,
Speaker 1: one headliner as soon as this one goes out, and
Speaker 1: then people fucking you know, rush and get the blind
Speaker 1: tickets and all that kind of thing. But yeah, next
Speaker 1: year is gonna be the fifth anniversary of Fortress, and
Speaker 1: they have booked Emperor to headline at least one of
Speaker 1: the days. And that is pretty fucking crazy considering this
Speaker 1: is a, like I said, a five year old festival
Speaker 1: that has primarily booked pretty small bands. Two get arguably
Speaker 1: the biggest certainly like again, one of the three biggest
Speaker 1: and one of, if not the most legendary and musically
Speaker 1: beloved and respective respected black metal bands of all time
Speaker 1: to headline the festival. It's a great validation of Fortress
Speaker 1: itself that it's kind of reached its reached a stage
Speaker 1: where it can do that and can book that. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: it is actually the rare black metal you know Fortress
Speaker 1: headliner who do kind of appeal beyond the people who
Speaker 1: are usually there, you know what I mean. Like Emperor
Speaker 1: is a big band, Emperor sell tickets, Emperor actually play
Speaker 1: big metal festivals. Like Emperor of headlined Bloodstock. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not of the size to headline Bloodstock as it
Speaker 1: is now, but they'll still sub headline it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And weirdly, like obviously I'm stoked. I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna turn down seeing Emperor. It's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest bands of all time, and I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be special because of the location vibe in the atmosphere
Speaker 1: of Fortress, because I can say that the almost the
Speaker 1: drawback of this is because there is a bigger than
Speaker 1: average Fortress headliner, is they're actually more available and accessible
Speaker 1: through conventional metal festival means. Like I've seen Emperor Bloodstock
Speaker 1: various times, you know what I mean, and that like
Speaker 1: I've seen them headline Incineration, Like they they're weirdly a
Speaker 1: more accessible band through being bigger, right, because they go
Speaker 1: out and do things and they were when Emperor announced,
Speaker 1: there were a few people who were like, oh yeah, Emperor,
Speaker 1: you know, great cool, obviously legendary band. No one's saying
Speaker 1: Emperor aren't brilliant, no one saying they aren't worthy to
Speaker 1: headline anything like that, but almost just like they are
Speaker 1: so big that it goes on what Fortress traditionally is
Speaker 1: because it becomes a band who you can see outdoors
Speaker 1: at Bloodstock. And I understand that, and I am I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about the second headline because to go from
Speaker 1: old Manstroud and Gaalobray to Emperor is a fucking unbelievable
Speaker 1: like without raising the cap of the venue or anything,
Speaker 1: is a crazy thing. I'm curious about the second headliner
Speaker 1: and whether they can go super cult again and get
Speaker 1: something like a Gallibraiy for example, offset by how fucking
Speaker 1: enormous Emperor, you know what I mean. But I will
Speaker 1: say about the Emperor booking is because of the low location,
Speaker 1: vibe of the festival and the atmosphere of it, I
Speaker 1: think it has potential to be one of the better
Speaker 1: Emperor sets played in certainly this country since they reunite it.
Speaker 1: Because again I've seen Emperor Bloodstock. Emperor outdoors at Bloodstock
Speaker 1: is not as good as seeing them headline inside in
Speaker 1: a Victorian theater on the Yorkshire coastline. With this incredible
Speaker 1: atmosphere that Fortress has developed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like atmosphere and time and place and everything is important
Speaker 1: for black metal. And I've never seen a bad Emperor show,
Speaker 1: and I've seen them be spectacular mainly indoors, right, But
Speaker 1: the entire everything that comes with Fortress I think has
Speaker 1: the potential to make that particular Emperor show more than
Speaker 1: just your average Emperor festival metal show. So that's my
Speaker 1: take on the Emperor bookie, and that makes it very exciting.
Speaker 1: I know that all of their early bird tickets have
Speaker 1: fucking flown at the door immediately. And again I'm curious
Speaker 1: maybe how many people, if people do decide to come
Speaker 1: to Fortress, who maybe wouldn't have come with Emperor went
Speaker 1: headline it, you know what I mean. I'm curious how
Speaker 1: sort of cross appeal it ends up being. I sort
Speaker 1: of hope, to be honest, it's just all the same
Speaker 1: normal Fortress people, but with a nice time seeing Emperor together.
Speaker 1: Basically I want to happen. But obviously if you've never
Speaker 1: have come to Fortress and it has pieter interest and
Speaker 1: that I do, of course I recommend the festival in
Speaker 1: gener It's such a wonderful place and hopefully if an
Speaker 1: Emperor draws you in then they'll book a bill of
Speaker 1: like fucking weird that I can't believe this is here,
Speaker 1: or at least underground, you know, UK debutes all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that you normally get from a fortress,
Speaker 1: and you get to see those bands and get introduced
Speaker 1: into that world through you know, coming in the door
Speaker 1: with an emperor for example. But that is for next
Speaker 1: year's Fortress, which I cannot wait for because it's always
Speaker 1: such a good good time. And that is my report
Speaker 1: from this year's Fortress Festival. Cheers to everybody who hung out.
Speaker 1: Hope that you enjoyed the weekend as much as I did.
Speaker 1: And like I said, all those bands I mentioned, there
Speaker 1: are no big cross you know, appealing massively outside of
Speaker 1: like you know, major metal press coverage, outside of the
Speaker 1: black metal world. Bands I mentioned there really like, it's
Speaker 1: all within the black metal world, and so if you
Speaker 1: are not so familiar with that world, then you have
Speaker 1: done the incredible deed of listening to this entire review.
Speaker 1: Check out those names, you know, Like that's why I
Speaker 1: here doing this. They were fucking sick loads of those bands,
Speaker 1: and such a healthy, healthy scene with loads of you know,
Speaker 1: new bands like That's like Vesperal and stuff like that
Speaker 1: who are just coming through and putting on great stuff
Speaker 1: and making great music. So check them out. Yeah, cheers
Speaker 1: everybody for listening here through first the hyper Blast portion
Speaker 1: of this show and then the Fortress review. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with a more regular Hyperblasts. We've got
Speaker 1: an outbreak late this month as well. Like festival season,
Speaker 1: you know, swing into a different corner of the musical
Speaker 1: TNM spectrum. But some is going to be hot and
Speaker 1: sweaty indeed in many many a good way. But we'll
Speaker 1: be back here next week with the Hyperblast. We'll be
Speaker 1: back soon with more of the long form content that
Speaker 1: we do over on the Patreon and we hope you
Speaker 1: see you there for all of it. Bye.