Music / Previews
Metal & Prog Picks: April 2022
As we were compiling this section, news came through that the prog gig of the month – Rosalie Cunningham at Bath’s Chapel Arts Centre – has been postponed. Rosie’s been suffering from a covid-esque lurgy that has resulted in much of her self-financed tour being postponed. This must be quite a blow, so the least you can do is buy a copy of her excellent new album, Two Piece Puzzle, and grab tickets for the rescheduled date (Oct 8) if you haven’t already done so.
If March was 1973 revisited, April’s theme is very heavy metal indeed. Take you pick from the technical death metal of Decapitated, the out-there experimentalism of Igorrr, the primal sludge of Primitive Man, the stoner metal of Bongzilla and the prog-metal of Monuments.
is needed now More than ever
Thekla, April 3
Because everyone needs some top-notch Polish technical death metal in their lives, veterans Decapitated are finally returning to Bristol to demonstrate that they’re still ferocious after all these years. What’s more, they’ve got around to recording a follow-up to 2017’s Anticult album. Topically, Cancer Culture features a guest appearance by everyone’s favourite Ukrainian prog-metal band Jinjer, who themselves played a memorable show at the Thekla back in 2019.
O2 Academy, April 12
Yet another sold-out Skunk Anansie show at the Academy. We last saw ’em here back in 2019, since when Skin has written (with Lucy O’Brien) her entertaining and eye-opening autobiography, It Takes Blood and Guts, which charts her unlikely journey from Brixton girl to hard-rockin’ LGBT icon. If she occasionally seems aggrieved at the band’s lack of recognition by the nation’s cultural gatekeepers, that’s understandable. When it was claimed that Stormzy was the first black artist to headline the pyramid stage at Glastonbury and Beyonce was the first female black artist to do so, Skin made headlines by politely reminding the press that actually Skunk Anansie had been there and done that 20 years earlier in 1999. They’ll be back there again this summer too. But that’s what you get when you choose to play hard rock rather than whatever’s deemed fashionable this week. The upside is that if you’re any good you’re rewarded with a massively loyal audience who still pack out your gigs nearly 30 years on.
Fleece, April 14
Better known to his mum and the taxman as Gautier Serre, French musician Igorrr is one of those crossover artists whose ouevre incorporates everything from black metal to trip-hop, baroque classical music and, probably, the kitchen sink. His eponymous band – famously named after his pet gerbil – plays mostly to adventurous metal audiences and released their fourth album, Spirituality and Distortion, on Metal Blade just after lockdown 1. As Dom Lawson noted in his Blabbermouth review, this “contains liberal quantities of harpsichords, demented breakbeats, über-gothic funeral marches, Olympic-standard operatic bellowing, and numerous orchestral and cinematic interjections that should make absolutely no sense but, thanks to sheer force of personality and heroic levels of exuberance, actually do.”
Fleece, April 18
Back to rock it old-skool, the band mentored by UK rock svengali Laurie Mansworth now seem to have finally settled on a line-up and sound, which was first unveiled locally with their support slot on the 2018 Dead Daisies tour. Waiting For Good Luck, their second album with Tom Rampton on vocals, is out now on Frontiers. They’re headlining a big-value package that includes fellow Britrockers Piston and South of Salem.
O2 Academy, April 18
The only pop-punk band anybody really needs in their life play their, erm, umpteenth show at the Academy. The Soup have a tendency to dick around rather too much on stage, but when they do shut the fuck up and play they’ve got a catalogue of great songs to draw on. Refuse to leave until they do 1985. And if you can’t get enough of them, Jaret and Rob are back to play an acoustic singalong show at the Thekla next month.
Fleece, April 19
A treat for those who prefer their doom metal bleak, punishing and properly primal, Denver’s Primitive Man recently released their third album, Immersion, on Relapse. If that’s not enough relentless sludge for you, get there early for support acts Slabdragger and Brighton’s delightfully named Sea Bastard.
Exchange, April 24
Philipp Mirtschink and Fynn Claus Grabke are a pair of hairy Germans who make an awfully big noise for a duo. They’ve been winning over audiences during their support slots with the likes of Clutch and Monster Truck. Now they’re back on the road again for yet another lengthy European tour titled, erm, the On the Road Again Tour.
Thekla, April 27
Using your skill and judgment, see if you can guess the type of music played by Bongzilla. Pleasingly resembling a bunch of backwoods dope farmers from Central Casting, these pot-fixated Wisconsin veterans generally waste no time in hitting their self-medicated groove and are a pure stoner delight. We can only speculate about the reasons for their poor productivity, but Bongzilla recently got around to releasing their first album in 16 years. Should you fear this marks a radical change in musical direction, worry not. It’s called Weedsconsin. Of course it’s quite possible that they recorded this in two days and then spent the next 16 years sniggering about the wordplay of the title before deciding to put it out. Given that weed is the official aroma of inner city Bristol, they’ll certainly feel quite at home here.
Fleece, April 28
If you enjoy the modern prog-metal of TesseracT, you can’t really go wrong with the complex polyrhythms of Monuments, who arose from the same roots. Their fourth album, In Stasis, is out this month on Century Media. As the title suggests, it’s inspired by the frustrations of lockdown
COMING SOON
Here’s our essential diary of upcoming gigs that should be of interest to anyone of a rockin’ disposition.
Stoner, Thekla, May 4
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, The Forum, Bath, May 7
Von Hertzen Brothers, Thekla, May 11
Karnivool, O2 Academy, May 19
Bowling for Soup acoustic singlong, Thekla, May 22
Meshuggah/Zeal & Ardor, O2 Academy, May 29
Steve Vai, O2 Academy, June 9
The Quireboys, Thekla, June 17
Rammstein, Principality Stadium, Cardiff, June 22
High On Fire, Fleece, June 26
Tremonti, O2 Academy, June 27
Mushroomhead, Thekla, June 27
Love with Johnny Echols, Fleece, July 3
Steelhouse Festival: Michael Schenker Group, Ace Frehley, Orange Goblin, Diamond Head. H.E.A.T., Green Lung, etc., Hafod-y-Dafal Farm, Ebbw Vale, July 29-31
GWAR, Fleece, August 10
ArcTanGent: Opeth, Cult of Luna, Tesserat, Enslaved, Pallbearer, Amenra, Zeal and Ardor, etc., Fernhill Farm, August 17-20
Evergrey, Thekla, Sept 19
Magnum, Fleece, Sept 19
Vola, Fleece, Sept 27
Cheap Trick, O2 Academy, Oct 4
Steve Hackett, Bath Forum, Oct 5
Anthrax/Municipal Waste, O2 Academy, Oct 6
Rosalie Cunningham, Chapel Arts Centre Bath, Oct 8
Dare, Fleece, Oct 23
Skid Row/Winger/Phil X and the Drills, O2 Academy, Oct 23
Pallbearer/Elder, Fleece, Nov 3
Saxon, Bath Forum, Nov 15
Frost*, Komedia, Bath, Nov 30
Tony MacAlpine, Exchange, Dec 2
Clutch, O2 Academy, Dec 13
Lamb of God/Kreator, O2 Academy, Dec 16
Epica/Apocalyptica, O2 Academy, Jan 30 2023
Katatonia/Solstafir, Marble Factory, Feb 12 2023
Avatar, SWX, Feb 23 2023
Napalm Death, O2 Academy, March 7 2023
WASP, O2 Academy, March 23 2023
Bloodywood, Fleece, March 29 2023
The Zombies, Fleece, April 13 2023
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
