Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
So Download added another group of bands this week and I figured I might as well keep up my evaluation of the line-up as a whole. It’s also become clear that Sonisphere will be returning with an announcement due on Monday! So look forward to hearing me complaining/celebrating that line up as well. Right now however, we’re heading onto Download street where we now have a couple of second stage headliners as well as some bands fleshing out the lower stages.
This is going to be a rant. Everything I get taught about journalism etc. teaches me not to rant, but I’m still going too because this is a rant about certain types of behaviour at live shows. Said behaviour is the art of hardcore dancing, an example of which can be seen above. Now, hardcore dancing has been going on for a long time but recently it seems to have been making a bit of a comeback with twats in baseball caps or hoodies going into the middle of the pit and fighting thin air like a wally. Now I love a good mosh, I really want to make that clear. If you take moshing out of metal you take out one of the things that makes it so brilliant. However, this practice is the practice of cunts. It’s as simple as that. Even then though, I can accept it if they do it by themselves away from people who don’t wish to be punched in the face. Let the mentally deficient hardcore dance together in a corner and the rest of us can enjoy the show. Recently however, I saw some stuff that was very different and really annoyed me.
I’ve been forgetting to do this recently, something I’m going to put down to being very busy. So here’s an extra long playlist to make up for it.
letlive. are one of those rare bands who appear to be the whole package. Whether they are writing songs that blend melody and insanity together in a concoction that is sweet yet sour, heavy yet gentle and all in all just simply intoxicating or taking the time smashing the shit out of things, in a very literal sense sometimes, in live shows which in my own experience bring audiences together in a way that few can do, they seem to do it perfectly. So quite frankly it’s a disgrace that I’ve taken this long to write up a review of The Blackest Beautiful. Particularly as it is without a doubt one of the albums of the year.
I can’t remember the point when bands on stage started getting younger than me but it does always kind of depress me. From Sorrow to Serenity are the latest example of that as they are handed the chance to open up the show Monday night at the Classic Grand. They are very young, or at least look very young and like many bands that are that young are also kind of generic as they put on a set of heavy djent inspired metal. They are also very reliant on their backing track, so much so that they suffer some technical problems when the drummer doesn’t have one of their songs on his Ipod. Saying that there is certainly nothing horribly wrong with this performance and if these guys go in the right direction they’re worth keeping an eye on.
Defenders of the Faith is becoming a yearly event that those into heavy metal do not want to miss and once again Metal Hammer magazine have outdone themselves by putting together a bill that is sure to appeal to the masses. All this meant that when it rolled into Glasgow last Friday night it was always bound to be an occasion.
Continue reading “Defenders of the Faith 4, Glasgow Barrowlands 15/11/2013”
Blind to Faith apparently don’t play live shows very often. So to have them on tonight’s bill alongside Nails, who are hitting up the UK for the first time in three years and admit it will probably be another three before they can make it back, just adds to the sense of occasion as the Classic Grand gears itself up for some very very angry men.
Continue reading “Nails w/ Blind To Faith at Classic Grand 13/11/2013”
Maybeshewill are probably not the bad you’d expect to open up this bill, as you walk into a room filled with the sound of their instrumental post-rock. It’s not always quite that ambient though and these guys do have the ability to get heavy. It’s hard to review this kind of music in the live environment because you either get it or you don’t. What is clear is when around half way through this set you could turn your head to the left or right and nearly every single person who was paying attention was standing nodding their head in time with the music, without seemingly being aware of doing it. Definitely one that might be worth checking out.
I did one of these on my last blog but as time has passed and I have a new audience I thought it was about time to redo it. Here is my top 50 albums of all time/how I feel today. This could change in ten minutes so I’m just posting it now to stop me fiddling. Continue reading “Top 50 albums”
The words Phil Anselmo and extreme metal are probably enough to have any right minded metal fan excited. Well that’s exactly what Walk Through Exits Only is and it’s full of a apparently very pissed off Philip H. Anselmo (as he is now apparently known) teaming up with his band The Illegal’s to release an album chock full of heavy as fuck metal.
Continue reading “Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegal’s – Walk Through Exits Only”
Ramblings About Wrestling 