Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
This article originally appeared in today’s Daily Record (22/1/2014) however was slightly cut so I figured I’d post the whole thing up here for anyone who was interested. Enjoy!
The Breadalbane Arms in Aberfeldy has probably not played home to too many great musical moments. However, for Edinburgh based ska band Victorian Trout Conspiracy it will live in their memories as the place they were joined on stage by Brit award winning singer songwriter Ed Sheeran.
Bruce Springsteen is a man who should need no introduction, back with his eighteenth studio album High Hopes The Boss has taken the unusual decision of forgoing the normal writing process and instead releasing a selection of reworked tracks and some covers. He’s joined, as usual, by The E Street Band but also be a few new additions including one Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) who has been playing with the great man live.
So as we enter Oscar season it becomes clear that a certain kind of film begins to dominate our cinema screens. Movies that are aiming for one of those nice shiny statues are out in force in the UK and one of the pack leaders stands in the form of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. It’s a movie that tells the remarkable true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the early 1800’s. It was nominated for 9 awards by the Academy and has so far appeared to receive universal acclaim.
If you call your band Skull Fist you should really have a certain obligation towards your audience. That band needs to play music as ridiculously brutal as the name, but with just that touch of cheese. It’s a name that shouldn’t take itself too seriously, sadly Chasing The Dream fails to hit those goals.
British hardcore gang Bastions are two albums into their career and appear to provide something different from the gang of Gallows inspired bands currently on the market. Rather than being obsessed with being fast and brutal, this is a group that infuse their hardcore with emotion, in a style that is very similar to the likes of Touche Amore (although featuring less melody) and Converge. Their latest release is an EP by the name of Bedfellows: The Bastard Son.
As I’m an equal opportunities festival man, I shall be continuing to talk about the Download line-up. It’s currently much more fleshed out than the Soni line-up and yesterday we got a nice bumper batch of bands to add to an already very strong group, even if I still think the headliners are pretty weak. So here’s my round up of what I think.
Continue reading “Download Announcement… I’ve lost count on how many it is.”
Opening by roaring “come on you cunts” is a great way to get anyone’s attention, following that up with a collection of six angry angry songs is a good way to make sure people stick around . That’s exactly what Dripback do on their EP, Inhaling the Ashes.
The revolving door that is Iced Earth has been doing it’s thing once again and Plagues of Babylon, which was only released around a week ago, already features an ex member, drummer Raphael Saini, who admittedly was only working on a short term basis until they found a full time replacement for Brent Smedley. It’s also the first album for bassist Luke Appleton and the eleventh that Jon Schaffer’s heavy metal baby have released, on which he is the only permanent fixture.
So the holidays are well and truly over and we are now entering 2014, where we have a whole host of excitement ahead of us. With the dawn of the new year I am now determined that I will actually post a playlist every week, so here is the first, where I am focusing on bands we can expect new material from in the coming year. My first review of the year should also be up later today.
So Sonisphere have begun the process of fleshing out their undercard, which let’s face it, is really the best part of any festival. As anyone who reads regularly (do those people exist? I have no idea) will know, I have a ticket to this festival already so I have a slight (or possibly large) personal investment in it being good. So let’s see what they’ve given me.
Ramblings About Wrestling 