We’re seeing ever increasing crowds at prog- and tech-metal gigs these days. It’s not even just the sheer numbers, but the diversity in the crowds that is both exciting and encouraging. Tonight is another example of the clear growth of these sub-genres with Australian maestros Caligula’s Horse bringing along the phenomenal The Hirsch Effekt and the fascinating Four Stroke Baron.
Read MoreAfter triumphant sets at Damnation Festival last year, both Bossk and Maybeshewill are riding a large wave of momentum at the minute. The two post rock titans are back with new releases, and a new Co Headline tour that is set to be one of the standout tours of the year.
Read MoreGorilla’s stage is packed. Not the venue - although there is a healthy crowd assembling to catch The Dusk Brothers set – but the stage itself. Sandwiched between When Rivers Meets drums and back line is what looks at first glance like a veritable junkyard but on closer inspection is actually the self-assembled and DIY instruments that are the band’s trademark. There are drum kits made out of repurposed oil drums, sheets of metal hanging from a frame as another percussive element, a bright red megaphone, even a theremin.
Read MoreAre you part of the Beavis & Butthead generation? Way back in 1992, the bumbling cartoon twosome took the world by storm. Wikipedia describes them as ”a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, lack of intelligence, lowbrow humour and love for hard rock and heavy metal”. At the same time, there were several bands around who played to the same schtick – schoolboy humour, teenage angst, love of a party and most of all a fresh, upbeat approach to rock music.
Read MoreTonight’s headliners Filter have very rarely made it across to these shores, but have a loyal and passionate fanbase. Led by one-time Nine Inch Nails guitarist Richard Patrick, Filter mix elements of many different genres, but if you like early noughties industrial rock, with both light and dark aspects, then you’ll find something to enjoy in their vast collection I promise.
Read MoreTo release an album of the year contender just mere weeks into the new year is one feat, but to follow it up with one of my most anticipated shows just a few weeks after that is quite the achievement. This seems like just another day at the office however for French 3 piece, Slift. Manchester Gorilla was rife with anticipation and despite Tesseract and Thrice occupying other venues across Manchester, the amount of punters who have turned out for the French 3 piece, is incredibly admirable.
Read MoreOne of the many interesting aspects about tonight’s show is the fact that the audience is, in the main, considerably older than the band. There is a latent desire within a true metalhead's DNA to continually search out the next exciting emerging talent. It is like a form of attention deficit disorder. As soon as an act has penetrated the mainstream, we need to discover whatever is going to succeed.
Read MoreI'm not sure whether it's the weather, this being the first weekend of the Christmas markets or the draw of the undercard; but Gorilla is absolutely heaving from the get-go. Reopen after a nine-month hiatus for urgent renovation work, there are people spilling out all every orifices of the venue from the moment the doors swing open. There is certainly anticipation in the air and it becomes very clear that this is not just for the headline act.
Read MoreOne of Metal's many beauties is its blurred edges. Yes, at its heart there is a core that is all metal and nought else. However, as you travel to its furthest borders there are territories that seem to simultaneously exist within numerous other genres. Both of tonight’s acts blatantly use metal as a tool in their artistic endeavours, but would not fit its more conservative definitions or templates. Let’s just say Five Finger Death Punch, this isn’t.
Read More“David Comes to Life” is the greatest album that you have never heard of. It is an art punk masterpiece. It takes the most maligned of musical forms, namely the rock opera, and reclaims it. Gone is the bloated pretention and instead we are presented with an intricate and fascinating narrative stretched across eighteen stunningly minimal and melodic punk rock songs. It is punk in its primal three chords beauty. Stripped of all its nihilism and vulgarity, this is punk as a beautiful minimalistic art form. Short, evocative tracks that capture the power and magnitude of rock ‘n roll.
Read MoreThe reason I gig as consistently and as vociferously as I do is in the vain hope that once in a while, I will experience nights like I did tonight. This evening is one of those instances where the stars align, and everything clicks into place. Cutting to the chase, tonight Orange Goblin were utterly phenomenal and by a country mile the best live act I have seen this year, if not this decade. Everything was right and everything worked. The band were hyped, the crowd were pumped and the bond between the two felt unbreakable. But I am getting ahead of myself as initially the omens weren’t great (cue flashback music).
Read MoreKælan Mikla are an interesting proposition. This Icelandic trio come across as a mismatch of Fever Ray, Bjork and the Perturbator. Its all dark, synthy and haunting. Like the soundtrack of some forgotten eighties Vampire movie. The rapidly filling Gorilla take to them instantly and the audience reaction grows as the sold out crowd file in from the cold Mancunian night.
Read MoreMy sister has followed Massive Wagons for years. I've listened to the CD's she's bought and seen numerous Facebook posts showing she was at another Massive Wagons gig having a great time, and she's constantly telling me how good they are live, about how their brilliant party atmosphere is always delivered and how it’s like one massive (see what I did there) night out for everyyone. Can they be really that good live?
Read MoreEarth are the thinking person’s Doom act. There is not the scuzzy riffs of sludge or the deep depressing tones of trad doom. They produce a wonderfully thoughtful, partially optimistic and slow variant on the whole thing. This is the blues but at half or even quarter speed, in fact the whole pace is measured, drawn out and unhurried. But before I pontificate further on the utter under-rated genius of Dylan Carlson, I need to first deal with opener Helen Money.
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I feel like I need to apologise for this review before I have got started. It's probably going to be a bit vague in places...
Things have been a little bit hideous of late, and I needed to let my pink hair down. And let it down I did! My life was ruined for a full 24 hours after the gig finished, but I needed it and the spectacular Mushroomhead delivered me an escape from the stresses of my life at present. Also, they had water drums which has to count for something.
I like Gorilla for gigs, there's something cosy about it, so I'm intrigued as to how all 8 of Mushroomhead will fit on that small stage later on.
Read MoreA reverent ‘you can hear a pin drop’ reception is a rare thing for a main support act, never mind one that is third on the bill, but Jo Quail is no ordinary artist. She is a solo cellist and whilst that may sound as far from metal as you can possibly get, the sound she creates is simply astonishing. What Jo does is taps out a sound on her futuristic looking cello and then she loops that sound back so that it becomes part of the backing track, then she does it again and again and again and so on until she has a rich tapestry of textured noise that surrounds her still audible mournfully beautiful cello.
Read MoreMy best mate is as musically obsessive as I am, but his aural drugs of choice are opera, folk and classical. Over the last ten years we have entered into a Faustian pact and have taken each other to shows. He has taken me to the Opera house at Covent Garden to see an astonishing production of Salome, to the Royal Festival Hall to see experimental symphonies and to a tiny folk club hidden in the back streets of London to witness an eighty year old man recite centuries old revolutionary ditties. On the other hand I have taken him to see Dying Foetus, Alestorm and the mighty Slayer.
Read MoreThe question of where Metal goes next is something, we fans debate frequently as there are very few genre's left that Metal hasn't sidled up to and fluttered it's eyelashes at. Zeal & Ardor have taken a very unique direction by looking for inspiration from the musical cornerstones that shaped the Blues, namely Gospel and Afro-spiritual. By combing the raw power of Black Metal with these two equally earthy and guttural influences they have managed to create something that sounds completely and utterly unique.
Read MoreAfter my Liverpudlian midweek logistical nightmare of shooting 2 gigs in the same venue at the same time, it becomes increasingly evident that tonight may also be one of those night. As I reach the door of Gorilla in Manchester for Northern Irish band Therapy?, my name is nowhere to be found on the list of approved photographers. After some lengthy conversation outside on the pavement (backed up by the hard evidence of email conversations) my name miraculously reappears on the guest list and I’m in.
Read MoreDue to children and trains I miss the first ten minutes of openers Inter Arma, given that they manage to traverse a good twenty-odd genres and musical touchstones in the four tracks I do see (it could have been six, they did rather blur into each other), I could have easily missed their takes on Nu-country, Bolivian folk and Hi-NRG dance. What I do see is a collusion of Doom, Black, Post and Prog metals with a splash of Faith No More and generous glug of Pantera. It's not bad at all and the introspective Prog breakdowns (which see vocalist Mike Paparo reverentially kneel in front of the drum kit) makes it stand out from other identikit Blackened Doom acts I could mention.
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