Kvelertak is Norwegian for FUN
Just four short months ago, I had seen a grand total of zero metal bands in the previous 20 years.
Now, I’m still nursing creaking bones and a sore neck from a fourth amazing show in as many months.
Stumbling out of Kvelertak at The Borderline on Thursday night, drenched in sweat, ears ringing and grinning to myself like a lunatic at what I’ve just experienced, I’m on a high.
I’m hooked.
Will bits of me get caught in JBD’s beard? One hopes not…
Long time readers of Monkey Defies Gravity will know how much of a collective man-crush I have on Baroness. I have long thought that I might explode with excitement should I ever get to see them.
Well, I shall be able to test my hypothesis on July 12 at tiny London club, Barfly – that’s just five days before the UK release of Yellow & Green. Let’s hope the staff don’t have to scrape me off the walls and ceiling. It could be messy.
I can’t believe a band of this stature is playing a 200-capacity venue in the UK capital in 2012. I also can’t believe I managed to snag a ticket. Thank you Songkick.
She didn't look quite as good the next morning...
There be metals both black and sludgy here.
So, the temptation is to describe Fire in the Cave as blackened sludge and be done with it.
But it’s just nowhere near nasty enough.
Imagine the burly euphoria, ringing riffs and atmospherics of early Baroness laced with blackened vocals and tremolo-picked passages rather than the claustrophobia and bilious ear-rape of, say, Wolvhammer.
The Floridians have a two-track self-titled EP on Bandcamp that is a real grower, especially if you happen to like the idea of a slightly more unhinged Baroness.
As much as I have banged on about a certain Savannah, Georgia band, there’s a lot going on in this 16 minutes that marks Fire in the Cave as one to watch.
And while black is perhaps among my least favourite metals at the moment (it’s edged out for the wooden spoon by power metal, oh and tech-death), the blackened aspects do give an intriguing flavour. Like charcoal on a steak, if you will.
London winters are shitty
Amid the murky gloom of the grisly London winter, I warm myself by raking through the dying embers of the musical year just gone.
I love pecking like a vulture on the carcass of year-end lists, yanking out the gems I missed like so many scraps of bloody intestine .
Of course that’s in the very limited time I have left after doing my best to suck every last drop of pleasure from Trap Them’s Darker Handcraft and the Balaclava record.
I am seriously addicted. Darker Handcraft is utterly narcotic in its intensity: blissed out on buzzsaw guitar.
Anyway. On my (metaphorical) turntable this week are Vreid, The KLF, Snares, YOB and Tombs.
Monkey Defies Gravity 