Kvelertak and Baroness Live in London 2012

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.

Black Breath and Victims: Live in London, UK

Black Breath in the process of staving in my skull. I’m clearly no photographer but hey, it’s an original pic so cut me some slack bitch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He stumbled from the shadows, blinking, rubbing his eyes. They were red-rimmed with black hammocks slung beneath them like scars of lost time.

Shambling into the light, the hunched figure muttered and twitched as he repeatedly jamming his fingers in his ears. This involuntary rummaging dislodged flakes of dried blood that fell like rusty snowflakes only to catch in his stubble.

The freshly-showered and laundered commuter crowd parted easily around him as if subconsciously aware of the foreign body in its midst, slipping him through with nothing but a few sideways glances to hinder him. 

Those close enough to hear the murmuring from his cracked lips could make out the simple mantra, “Black Breath, fucking hell”, repeated again and again.

New Band: YOUWRETCH

Wordsearch! I got orc, crow and hero.

Galumphing about bandcamp like a drunken aardvark, I stumbled over this little beauty, the puzzlingly-titled YOUWRETCH.

They call themselves doom punk and while that sounds pretty cool, it’s not particularly apt.

I’m also not too sure why their bandcamp tags include “gloom”, “dark” and “grime”.

The lady doth protest too much.

YOUWRETCH may bellow and roar but ultimately the riffs, propelled by solid punky drumming, reach skyward .

EP pick Exhumed may kick off by getting its head down for a good, crusty thrash around on the floor. Yet once it’s got that out of its system, the riffs peal out, spiralling upwards for a uplifting and cathartic climax.

There’s as much chug as chime with a great mix of brute hardcore force and atmospherics and melody in a too-short four songs over eight minutes.

Check their bandcamp for a name your price download.

New Band: Fire in the Cave

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.

Balaclava – Crimes of Faith

What next, death metal bands called "Bobble Hat"?!

Happy new year gentle men and women, lovers of the heavy.

Gotta love serendipity.

Picked almost at random from the Southern Lord website in a bid to sate my hunger for crusty metal, Balaclava has barrelled into my life without warning and wrenched me from my festive meat coma with an almighty slap around the chops.

Crimes of Faith may be billed as “hardcore punk [played] with severe intensity” but that is selling this cracking little gem far short.