Music / Previews
Metal & Prog Picks: July 2018
This month we’ve got sludge metal, industrial metal, progressive doom metal and transatlantic hard rock to blast away the summer torpor. The Cube is also hosting the local premiere of The Doom Doc on July 8, with a celebratory evening show featuring five bands. Go here for full details.
Meanwhile, the autumn/winter gig schedule is filling up nicely, with recently announced gigs including Myrkur, Lazuli, The Vintage Caravan and Enslaved. Oh, and the mighty Saxon are playing in Bath. Check out the coming soons for the full list.
is needed now More than ever
Fleece, July 1
“This is the 47th time we’ve played the Fleece,” lied Eyehategod vocalist Mike Williams at the New Orleans sludgers’ previous show here. They’re certainly a hard-livin’ bunch of veteran road warriors, as evidenced by the title of their 2001 compilation: 10 Years of Abuse (and Still Broke). Drummer Joey LaCaze succumbed to respiratory failure back in 2014 and crazed vocalist Williams underwent (thankfully successful) liver transplant surgery back in 2016 as a result of what he described as “the ravages of a hard life lived”. (His chum Randy Blythe of Lamb of God deputised for him during that year’s tour.) They haven’t put out an album since 2014’s self-titled release and there’s no reason to suppose they’ll be deviating from their usual blend of punk, metal and southern rock atop a bedrock of blues. As usual, Eyehategod are bringing a whole bunch of support acts to make this a big-value show, including DVNE, Made of Teeth and the splendidly named BongCauldron
Exchange, July 10
Busy Bristolian bassist Becky Baldwin (how’s that for alliteration?) is one-fifth of this all-female, self-styled “transatlantic hard rock sensation” whose members hail from as far afield as Belgium and Kazakhstan. Their crowd-funded, classic rock-influenced debut album, Gemini, is out now and this show is part of a lengthy European summer tour to promote it.
Fleece, July 19
Alongside Elder, who make a welcome return to the Fleece in October, Pallbearer are the market leaders in modern progressive doom. Yep, there’s still the obvious tip of the hat to Sabbath in those mournful doomy chords, but their major-ish label debut, the superb Heartless on Nuclear Blast, is packed with lengthy songs openly informed as much by Floyd and Camel (check that guitar solo in Dancing in Madness) as it is by the cool names to drop in doomland. Hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas (that’s right – Clinton territory), they were one of the unexpected highlights of the 2015 Temples festival, playing to a rapt, packed audience at Motion. They then returned for an absolutely corking show at the Thekla last year and now step up to the Fleece. Highly recommended.
Thekla, July 15
If it seems like just a couple of months ago when Ginger was leading the original Wildhearts through a riff-packed, show-stealing performance on the sold-out Bristol leg of the Britrock Must Be Destroyed tour at Motion, that’s, er, because it was. Since then, he’s been out and about doing the festival circuit and supporting the Levellers. Now he’s slotted in a solo show aboard the Thekla in support of his new crowd-funded, countryfied album Ghosts in the Tanglewood (Why a roots album from Ginger? Because he can), whose songs tackle taboo issues of mental illness.
SWX, July 25
Al Jourgensen has as strong a claim as anyone on having invented industrial metal. He evolved from cruddy ’80s synth-pop to hit a creative and commercial peak with Ministry’s platinum-selling 1992 album Psalm 69, whose opening double-whammy of N.W.O. and Just One Fix has arguably never been bettered in the genre. There have been plenty of Ministry albums, of decidedly varying quality, since then. But living in Trumpland seems to have inspired Angry Al to get more-than-usually ranty on the band’s Nuclear Blast debut, AmeriKKKant. Ministry’s first album in five years, and their first since the death of guitarist Mike Scaccia, it takes aim at fake news, internet trolls, the alt-right and general modern American idiocy – plus, of course, The Donald himself, whose inuguaration speech is sampled extensively. It’s fish-in-a-barrel stuff, but the furious bombast seems appropriate. Support comes from singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, who, being a woman inspired in part by black metal, has inevitably been lumped in with Anna von Hausswolff and Myrkur (on whose outstanding Mareridt album she collaborated). Eclecticism is her watchword, but latest album Hiss Spun goes full doom metal.
COMING SOON
Here’s our essential diary of upcoming gigs that should be of interest to anyone of a rockin’ disposition.
Soulfly, Fleece, Aug 13
Skid Row, Academy, Aug 20
Full of Hell, Rough Trade, Aug 22
Camel, The Forum, Bath, Sept 11
Bad Flowers/Federal Charm, Thekla, Sept 19
Halestorm, O2 Academy, Sept 29
Sons of Apollo, SWX, Sept 29
The Osiris Club/Kavus Torabi, Cube, Sept 29
Glenn Hughes, O2 Academy, Oct 2
Elder, Fleece, Oct 4
Yob/Wiegedood, Fleece, Oct 7
Evil Scarecrow, Marble Factory, Oct 11
Enslaved, SWX, Oct 14
Sheepdogs, Fleece, Oct 31
Caligula’s Horse, The Lanes, Nov 6
Saxon/Doro/Wayward Sons, The Forum, Bath, Nov 8
MC50, O2 Academy, Nov 9
Blackberry Smoke, O2 Academy, Nov 11
The Vintage Caravan, Exchange, Nov 14
Dan Reed Network, Fleece, Nov 18
Hawkwind, The Forum, Bath, Nov 24
The New Roses, Louisiana, Nov 27
TesseracT, SWX, Nov 27
Lazuli, Exchange, Nov 28
Zeal & Ardour, Fleece, Nov 30
Graveyard, Thekla, Dec 12
Rick Wakeman, St. George’s, Dec 16
Clutch, O2 Academy, Dec 18
Myrkur, Fleece, Dec 19
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