Tim Hecker-Ravedeath, 1972 (9.5)
A preconceived idea is a dangerous thing. To formulate barriers, to decide a deriding opinion before the fact, it is pure idiocy, tantamount to cultural lobotomy. It’s something that as a human race, we should strive to eradicate…but to pronounce judgement as judge and juror without first hearing the case is an all too human error.
It’s an inherent problem within music that an aficionado attached to a particular clique, a scene queen if you will, is set to pre-emptively strike down the notion that there is quality outside of their precious favoured genre. They must remain seen to be scene, to be seen as right. These people are dullards, vacuous slugs feasting on mediocrity and banality.
To purge yourself of this affliction, of which you will be blissfully unaware, is not a difficult process. Firstly, ask yourself truthfully if you have ever rejected a piece of music before hearing it, based on a pre-conceived idea that it is without merit. If so, then you must stop. You’re cutting yourself off from a wealth of music based on a preconceived notion that is devoid of fact. Renege this and embrace music for music’s sake. Begin here, with Tim Hecker. Begin with Ravedeath, 1972.
Using sound artefacts simply sourced from a pipe organ, situated within a haunting reverberant church space in Reykjavik, Hecker uses his tools to sculpt and layer these auditory moments to revelatory effect. Bass veritably groans from the titan’s mouth, sparkling shards ring through the air, offering something close to synaesthesia. Sounds are as snowflakes, no two the same. What you previously thought sonically possible is shattered. You realise your previous folly and step through the looking glass. You will follow this into the maelstrom and to perditions end.
Ravedeath, 1972 is out now on Kranky
Reviewed by Sam Thor Rhodes
Mogwai-Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
When trying to illustrate the notion of the cult band, it’s not a ridiculous leap of intelligence to use Mogwai as an example. The Scottish outfit have operated mainly undetected from the radar of the mainstream, sporadically garnering praise, never having enough to bathe in the spotlight. They continually deliver albums without fanfare or proffering garish marketing trickery. Even without the need to use and abuse the media to promote their albums, their output is still seized upon by fans like ravenous canines. Small press, big impact - its cult defined - ‘Facta, non verba.’
Over their noted career, they’ve worked hard to push their collective nous into creating a landscape of sound, a terra firma representation of day to day life, its peaks and troughs, the swallowing holes of sadness, the mountainous elation of being truly happy. It may seem that a review of their music always relies on superlatives drawing on the epic, as if it’s something otherworldly. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This isn’t otherworldly; it’s wholly placed in the now, as blue collar as it comes. It’s just people forget to realise that their days are filled with something epic, the body regenerates, the sun rises and falls, the long odds of life just existing continue for another day.
Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, a title that captures the album in perfection. The album is a juxtaposition, something eternal against something temporary, an eternal force bolstering a dissipating force…this is your world at its most dynamic and vibrant. It’s Mogwai’s year, but when isn’t it?
9/10. You’ll like this if you miss Slint, got excited over My Bloody Valentine reforming and basically have ears.
Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is out now on Rock Action Records.
Reviewed by Sam Rhodes.
Tuesday 15 March 2011
Tuesday 8 March 2011
I was with the band
Excellent blog started up by the name of "I was with the band" with a few interesting insights and thoughts on dealing with the old music biz!! Check it out. http://iwaswiththeband.blogspot.com/
Thursday 3 March 2011
My retort to dom lawsons post
What a poorly constructed argument, avoiding the true gripe people are taking with Download. People are upset because they want to go to Download. The place has heritage and the festival has time and time again proved to be a great weekend, something that Sonisphere will develop for themselves in time. But the fact remains people are so mad because the lineup is bad. There's no two ways about it. It has a chance to reprieve itself, every year there's probably only ten bands I really would tear my tongue off to see, the rest my tongue gets used to hurl abuse about the crap band playing at whoever is too drunk to walk away from me to avoid. People who have been faithful to download for many years feel cheated, feel that the premier rock festival is sliding down a slippery slope toward base and banal acts, novelty metal, idiotic beer metal without reproof or reputation. Sonisphere is the choice of two lesser evils. There's crap at S'phere too, but it comes with less of a feeling that the lineup is ignoring music from all corners. Download only recently redressed the balance by additions such as Down, Suicide Silence and so on. The initial announcements were wholly poor. Crap like Alter Bridge, Pendulum, Bullet for my Valentine and Disturbed only serve to hint at where Download is heading if it's not careful. For years it's taken a few chances, given headline spots to great original acts like Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan, who are daring, push what is possible within metal and provide metal with the rare moments where metal can stand tall and proud and say "this is what can be achieved" but sadly, this year, it's merely bands who further promote metal in a bad light, as uninspired, worthless tripe that doesn't deserve a wider audience. That's not even to mention the fact that the lineup even pretends to have any balance. There's usually something for everyone, interspersed with crap. This year, there's everything for nobody. It's all filler bands. They're everywhere. Where's the black metal, the prog metal, the post-metal, the death metal, the epic metal, the metal that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It's nowhere. If the lineup can be classified in any context, it's that this is the year of the safe choice. Nobody is going to be disappointed watching a repeat headliner, that's not the issue. It's that there's so much music out there and yet again, it's being ignored. Lamb of God gave Download one if the best festival performances ever in '07, but they're not headlining. But I guarantee if they were, the complaints would be wiped out. If Machine Head were headlining, the complaints would be wiped out. You see the difference. Download has moved from being a festival with teeth to a festival that gums you more pathetically than a toddler. Sonisphere isn't an amazing lineup, it's just better than Downloads. Simple as that. This writer cannot sit there and rant about the moaners. This moaning is their right and I for one am glad to see it. Metal is much maligned and it's down to the fans to vote with their feet and demand with their mouths what they want and they sure know what they want. It's not to be found at Download this year and it's upset people, so by Christ they should complain, because it's uually the highlight of the musical year (after ATP) but they've been denied the obligatory visit by a wall of crap.
You cannot sit there as one man and a pen and write off the opinions of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands by saying "shut up"...they call that facism and if taken to it's logical conclusion, the writer setting out his stall as he has only serves to single himself out as a mouthpiece for the Free State of Downloadians. People are generally idiots, singuarly, almost invariably so. But hundreds of thousands, all speaking as one, smacks of revolution. That many people cannot be wrong. Not in this context. The arguments may be ill formed, the prose vitriolic, but its sentiments true. Download, at this exact moment, really does suck.
There's what, sixty slots yet left to fill? Each of these choices could be inspired. Certainly, the last few additions have been a step in the right direction and if the remaining bands selected are perfissimo, then the abuse will be reined in and accusations retracted.
As to the people who agreed with the MH writer and stated "now look at the whingers proving him right"...just take a moment and think, because you sound like a cunt saying that (note how I don't have to resort to crass pejorative every sentence to illustrate my point, just selecting a choice cut when necessary) and nobody likes that sort of attitude. It's schoolyard, akin to sibling rivalrylike behaviour and beneath you, unless you're ten. Or have a similar mental age. When was the last time you watched someone get told off and you retort "told you you shouldn't have done that" or someone gets caught misbehaving and you add to their misery by letting loose something else they've done wrong. You understand now.
I know why you've referenced this post Download-when you've made so many enemies, you need all the friends you can get. When you resort to calling on such a weak excuse of a rant to try and muster support, you really are struggling. Don't try and defend yourselves, you must know you're in the wrong, surely? Make it right. Please. Because I like Download as a festival. But the rot started creeping in several years ago-tread carefully, you may have to be cropped at the base.
And my follow on to this
I wrote a delightfully raucous follow on to my earlier post, but unfortunately, my giant Yorkshire mittens brushed over the mouse-pad and took it from the page...darn and pifflesticks.
I do actually write for a music site and it grates me that i spend my time attempting to produce intelligent, balanced and astute reviews and features and considered opinions and that offerings such as this from Metal Hammer are splashed around and given premier exposure is a point of contention-not something I can rationalise or accept without a distasteful lump rising in my throat. Lawson is not a poor writer, he's just used his pen to give this issue an unpalatable veneer.
In a nutshell, here is what I can extrapolate from all the negativity about Download this year, or to be more precise, its line-up.
Download and Donington have a very enviable mythos, a seasoned heritage carefully developed over the years. If there's any place in the world that can truly claim to be the 'home' of , it's Donington and in furtherance of this fact, Download took this nut and for many years spent quality time nurturing and encouraging this idea of Donington and it grew into a multi-faced monolith.
The excitement and anticipation of Download begins the moment you leave it. You walk out after several days of brilliance, irrespective of the line-up or weather or any other element you care to name and you immediately begin to think, "Will next year be this good?"
Download isn't just the music, its the occasion, the banter, the camaraderie. People buy into this just as much as the music and as such, many purchase tickets pre-announcements because they can rely on sound judgement in selecting artists, knowing the 'festival vibe' is perennially there. You cant just say that if you don't like it, go elsewhere. people don't want elsewhere. they want Donington and they want Download, because it's proved to be the best thing to them so often. A line-up cant please everyone, it just cant. This said, it can please a lot of people and this year that fact is not in the ascendency. People are upset because they're not just faced with a poor line-up, but their premier musical event has been stolen from them. The music of the festival and the enjoyment of the festival is a symbiotic process. You need one for the other.
However, this year, the line-up stinks. It cant be all things to all men and the line-up never has been, but this year, it feels like something has been stolen from you. People want to come to Download because they feel that Download is their event, their festival and when you're there, its there just for you. This year, it feels its there just for one person. The line-up stinks. It does, its entirely unavoidable. the fact is the response has been overwhelmingly negative and its peoples right to complain as loudly as possible, so that lessons are learnt, people feel placated on a personal level and thus problem is not repeated. One needs to feel they have vented their fury because they feel personally slighted.
A line-up cant please everyone, it just cant. This said, it can please a lot of people and this year that fact is not in the ascendency. People are upset because they're not just faced with a poor line-up, but their premier musical event has been stolen from them and with it, their regular musical event isn't happening.
This line-up is evolving and ever is ever so slightly improved upon with each announcement, but the damage is done. Headliners don't really matter, it's the time between eleven and seven that people care about. The headliners, whoever they are, are by the time they come on stage playing to the drunkest group of people in the country who will shout and holler if there was a gaggle of geese playing the drums on-stage. No, the problem lies not with the headliners, but rather with the filler bands. Where's the sense of adventure,. where's the chances that you'll stumble across a stage and see a band who will redefine your outlook on music, where is the band that makes it all worth it.
No, make no bones about it, people are upset but they'll get over it. They'll pick another festival and have a great time. People who are saying "the people who moan will be the ones missing out" are sorely mistaken. They wont be missing out, they'll find a replacement and have a great time.
What is wrong with this picture? They shouldn't have to.
You cannot sit there as one man and a pen and write off the opinions of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands by saying "shut up"...they call that facism and if taken to it's logical conclusion, the writer setting out his stall as he has only serves to single himself out as a mouthpiece for the Free State of Downloadians. People are generally idiots, singuarly, almost invariably so. But hundreds of thousands, all speaking as one, smacks of revolution. That many people cannot be wrong. Not in this context. The arguments may be ill formed, the prose vitriolic, but its sentiments true. Download, at this exact moment, really does suck.
There's what, sixty slots yet left to fill? Each of these choices could be inspired. Certainly, the last few additions have been a step in the right direction and if the remaining bands selected are perfissimo, then the abuse will be reined in and accusations retracted.
As to the people who agreed with the MH writer and stated "now look at the whingers proving him right"...just take a moment and think, because you sound like a cunt saying that (note how I don't have to resort to crass pejorative every sentence to illustrate my point, just selecting a choice cut when necessary) and nobody likes that sort of attitude. It's schoolyard, akin to sibling rivalrylike behaviour and beneath you, unless you're ten. Or have a similar mental age. When was the last time you watched someone get told off and you retort "told you you shouldn't have done that" or someone gets caught misbehaving and you add to their misery by letting loose something else they've done wrong. You understand now.
I know why you've referenced this post Download-when you've made so many enemies, you need all the friends you can get. When you resort to calling on such a weak excuse of a rant to try and muster support, you really are struggling. Don't try and defend yourselves, you must know you're in the wrong, surely? Make it right. Please. Because I like Download as a festival. But the rot started creeping in several years ago-tread carefully, you may have to be cropped at the base.
And my follow on to this
I wrote a delightfully raucous follow on to my earlier post, but unfortunately, my giant Yorkshire mittens brushed over the mouse-pad and took it from the page...darn and pifflesticks.
I do actually write for a music site and it grates me that i spend my time attempting to produce intelligent, balanced and astute reviews and features and considered opinions and that offerings such as this from Metal Hammer are splashed around and given premier exposure is a point of contention-not something I can rationalise or accept without a distasteful lump rising in my throat. Lawson is not a poor writer, he's just used his pen to give this issue an unpalatable veneer.
In a nutshell, here is what I can extrapolate from all the negativity about Download this year, or to be more precise, its line-up.
Download and Donington have a very enviable mythos, a seasoned heritage carefully developed over the years. If there's any place in the world that can truly claim to be the 'home' of , it's Donington and in furtherance of this fact, Download took this nut and for many years spent quality time nurturing and encouraging this idea of Donington and it grew into a multi-faced monolith.
The excitement and anticipation of Download begins the moment you leave it. You walk out after several days of brilliance, irrespective of the line-up or weather or any other element you care to name and you immediately begin to think, "Will next year be this good?"
Download isn't just the music, its the occasion, the banter, the camaraderie. People buy into this just as much as the music and as such, many purchase tickets pre-announcements because they can rely on sound judgement in selecting artists, knowing the 'festival vibe' is perennially there. You cant just say that if you don't like it, go elsewhere. people don't want elsewhere. they want Donington and they want Download, because it's proved to be the best thing to them so often. A line-up cant please everyone, it just cant. This said, it can please a lot of people and this year that fact is not in the ascendency. People are upset because they're not just faced with a poor line-up, but their premier musical event has been stolen from them. The music of the festival and the enjoyment of the festival is a symbiotic process. You need one for the other.
However, this year, the line-up stinks. It cant be all things to all men and the line-up never has been, but this year, it feels like something has been stolen from you. People want to come to Download because they feel that Download is their event, their festival and when you're there, its there just for you. This year, it feels its there just for one person. The line-up stinks. It does, its entirely unavoidable. the fact is the response has been overwhelmingly negative and its peoples right to complain as loudly as possible, so that lessons are learnt, people feel placated on a personal level and thus problem is not repeated. One needs to feel they have vented their fury because they feel personally slighted.
A line-up cant please everyone, it just cant. This said, it can please a lot of people and this year that fact is not in the ascendency. People are upset because they're not just faced with a poor line-up, but their premier musical event has been stolen from them and with it, their regular musical event isn't happening.
This line-up is evolving and ever is ever so slightly improved upon with each announcement, but the damage is done. Headliners don't really matter, it's the time between eleven and seven that people care about. The headliners, whoever they are, are by the time they come on stage playing to the drunkest group of people in the country who will shout and holler if there was a gaggle of geese playing the drums on-stage. No, the problem lies not with the headliners, but rather with the filler bands. Where's the sense of adventure,. where's the chances that you'll stumble across a stage and see a band who will redefine your outlook on music, where is the band that makes it all worth it.
No, make no bones about it, people are upset but they'll get over it. They'll pick another festival and have a great time. People who are saying "the people who moan will be the ones missing out" are sorely mistaken. They wont be missing out, they'll find a replacement and have a great time.
What is wrong with this picture? They shouldn't have to.
Dom lawsons comments on Metal Hammers website on why people should stop having a pop at Downloads lineup 2011
Doms Post on Metal Hammer site
Oh, now look at what you’ve gone and done. All of the bitching and whining done about festivals this year has pushed our very own Dom Lawson over the edge. Read his rant inside!
If there’s one thing that life has taught me, it’s that the more things stay exactly the fucking same, the more ridiculously irritating they become. And the internet, for all its many wonderful features (none spring to mind, obviously, but I’m sure there must be some, considering that most of us seem to spend out ENTIRE FUCKING LIVES staring at the damn thing), seems to have mutated into a giant magnifying glass with the sole purpose of making all the really annoying aspects of people’s idiotic behaviour seem a million times bigger and more brain-shaggingly stupid and soul-destroying. Yeah, thanks a lot, the internet. You fatuous tosspiece.
Yes, it’s that time of year again. Despite trying to fool the handful of people that actually pay any attention to what I do on a daily basis that I’m a professional music journalist with some vaguely interesting opinions to impart, the reality of my day-to-day existence, as winter becomes spring, is that I am spending more and more time gawping at my monitor, reading the witless and enervating synapse-spittle of joyless arsetools who simply can’t get their tiny, pointed heads around the self-evident fact that rock festivals in the UK are not designed specifically with their own implausibly awful and/or splendid taste in music in mind.
Suddenly, I’m struck with an overwhelming sense of deja-vu, because yes, I did write a blog about this very fucking subject roughly 12 months ago, inspired by the mind-blowing phenomenon of supposedly sentient beings expressing distaste at the announcement that Download had booked AC/DC and Aerosmith – two of the BIGGEST FUCK OFF ROCK BANDS ON THE PLANET, lest we forget – as headliners for 2010’s jamboree of ear-damage and liver abuse. And here we are again, one year on, and the whole exhausting cavalcade of cuntish behaviour dribbles inexorably on. How fucking marvellous.
This year’s tard-fest is somewhat different, of course. In 2009 and 2010, most people seemed relatively satisfied with the fact that the UK had two major mainstream rock/metal festivals to enjoy during the summer months. The emergence of Sonisphere meant that people had a choice of large scale rock knees-ups for the first time in years and, thanks to line-ups that were necessarily distinct, the two festivals could only really be said to complement each other. Only people with fat wallets or ghastly freeloaders like myself could reasonably expect to attend both in one year, of course, but that’s beside the point.
A bit of choice, for once, seemed like a good thing and a decent number of people expressed their preference for one festival or the other with a modicum of grace and intelligence, give or take a few thousand utter twazzocks who would complain mid-blowjob if the curtains were THE WRONG CUNTING COLOUR.
In contrast, 2011 appears to have become the ‘Year Of The Perpetually Whining Cock’, and for reasons best known to the drooling turdslingers who have been cluttering up forums, Facebooks, Tumblrs and Twitters for the last few weeks with their tedious complaints, the Download festival has been the main recipient of all the vitriol.
I guess that’s the price the organisers’ are bound to pay for being the original UK rock/metal bonanza: if you’ve been leading the way for a long time, the new kid on the block is always going to have more immediate appeal, the enticing gleam of the new and an air of freshness that a legendary venue like Castle Donington has long since outgrown. And yes, this year’s Sonisphere line-up looks pretty fucking great.
You can’t really argue with the Big Four or Slipknot as mighty headliners, and there are many, many other great bands on the bill too. And Limp Bizkit (fuck off, Dom – Beez). After having their arses gently booted for the last two years (with all due respect, Download won this non-existent war by booking Faith No More and Slipknot in 2009 and AC/DC trumps everything, always), Sonisphere have come up with the goods in 2011 and it doesn’t take a genius to see why, at this stage in the game, the new boys are getting the most praise.
But here’s a nugget of truth-poo for your brain-cupboards: this entire pointless debate is entirely based on an unavoidably unequal divide in support for two utterly different festival line-ups, and so as great as the Sonisphere bill undoubtedly is, every time I read some squawking dullard bitching away about how it’s “game over” and how Donington is going to be a silent wasteland populated only by tumbleweed and a heartbroken, snivelling Andy Copping sitting on a tearstained picnic blanket, I genuinely feel like setting fire to the internet and laughing as all these toothless moaners scream their mentally-deficient way into a thoroughly deserved early grave.
The truth is that for many punters, the Download bill is looking absolutely fucking splendid. Call me a cunt if you like, and I’m sure some of you will whip yourselves into a froth at the very idea that I might have an opinion that doesn’t precisely mirror your own, but I’m really looking forward to seeing Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, The Cult, System Of A Down, Korn, Alter Bridge, Down, Danzig (“what is a Dainzig?” – Ed), Thin Lizzy, Twisted FUCKING Sister, Avenged Sevenfold, Clutch, Cheap Trick, Turisas, GWAR, Evile, Suicide Silence, Your Demise, Ghost, Sacred Mother Tongue and All That Remains.
There are also more names yet to be announced, one of which has already made me nearly snap my penis in half with excitement. If that’s a shit festival line-up, then I’m Taylor Momsen. Whoever the fuck she is!!! RIGHT, KIDS???
Yes, of course, there are some bands on the Download bill that make me want to STAB STAB STAB, but then I’d rather be skinned alive and boiled in my own hissing diarrhoea than have to sit through All-Time Low, Sum 41 or Kids In Glass Houses either. Beer exists. I fail to see a problem.
And yes, I’m genuinely excited about seeing Def Leppard again. They were amazing last time round, as virtually everyone who saw them will agree, and if ever there was a band with a catalogue of hits big enough to pull off a second headlining turn at Download within three years then it’s artful old hands like them.
I find it faintly hilarious that people are criticising Download for booking the Leps again, not least because Sonisphere have booked Metallica for the second time in three years too (and let’s face it, Rick Allen is a better drummer than Lars Ulrich and can actually play Photograph and Pour Some Sugar On Me properly without passing out. Add your own limb-related punchline to that one, if you wish! Superlolz!!1!).
In fact, if you look at the headliners for both festivals, it’s a little bit ridiculous to be hurling abuse at either one. As much as I’d love to see Iron Maiden, Rush and Van Halen headlining Download, it’s obviously not going to happen this year. I suspect that Mr. Copping considered all options and researched the availability of all of rock’s biggest names before deciding on his headliners and it’s a little bit moronic to suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, Sonisphere and Metallica are openly in cahoots and the Big Four thing was always on the cards, wasn’t it? Okay, so Linkin Park are WELL TOILET on an extraordinary scale and I fully intend to drink myself to death in the VIP bar during their set, but there will be other, more entertaining things happening elsewhere at Donington at that point anyway. Rob Zombie setting fire to robots, for starters!
Anyway, all waffling and idle hatred aside, my point is this: Download and Sonisphere are both going to be fucking great. Personally, I’m going to Download. I missed it last year and was gutted to do so. This year, I have grand plans to scream myself hoarse during Twisted BASTARD Sister, to bang my head until vomit spurts out of my nose during Evile and to cause major damage to my spine while Cossack dancing to System Of A Down. If that sounds like the sort of weekend you might enjoy, then do feel free to join me.
If you’d rather go to Sonisphere, feel free to do that instead! That’s the wonder of choice, ladies and gentlemen. As much as you Sonisphere fans might like to think that Andy Copping will be chasing you down your local high street with eyes full of tears, waving a soggy Download ticket at you and begging you to reconsider, I suspect he can cope with the notion that you can’t win ‘em all and that pleasing all the people all of the time is, if we’re being honest, an impossible dream. Back in the sane world Donington will be, as always, a little bit magical.
It’s festival season. Put a smile on your face, buy a ticket for the event that looks most exciting and start saving up for your exorbitant bar tab. As someone scary once said, do what thou sodding well wilt. And then shut the fuck up about it and stop annoying me. And throw your laptop out of the window. And get a girlfriend. And shave off that ridiculous excuse for a beard. You bleating fanny. Now fuck off. I’m starving.
Lots of love,
Dom Lawson xxx
Oh, now look at what you’ve gone and done. All of the bitching and whining done about festivals this year has pushed our very own Dom Lawson over the edge. Read his rant inside!
If there’s one thing that life has taught me, it’s that the more things stay exactly the fucking same, the more ridiculously irritating they become. And the internet, for all its many wonderful features (none spring to mind, obviously, but I’m sure there must be some, considering that most of us seem to spend out ENTIRE FUCKING LIVES staring at the damn thing), seems to have mutated into a giant magnifying glass with the sole purpose of making all the really annoying aspects of people’s idiotic behaviour seem a million times bigger and more brain-shaggingly stupid and soul-destroying. Yeah, thanks a lot, the internet. You fatuous tosspiece.
Yes, it’s that time of year again. Despite trying to fool the handful of people that actually pay any attention to what I do on a daily basis that I’m a professional music journalist with some vaguely interesting opinions to impart, the reality of my day-to-day existence, as winter becomes spring, is that I am spending more and more time gawping at my monitor, reading the witless and enervating synapse-spittle of joyless arsetools who simply can’t get their tiny, pointed heads around the self-evident fact that rock festivals in the UK are not designed specifically with their own implausibly awful and/or splendid taste in music in mind.
Suddenly, I’m struck with an overwhelming sense of deja-vu, because yes, I did write a blog about this very fucking subject roughly 12 months ago, inspired by the mind-blowing phenomenon of supposedly sentient beings expressing distaste at the announcement that Download had booked AC/DC and Aerosmith – two of the BIGGEST FUCK OFF ROCK BANDS ON THE PLANET, lest we forget – as headliners for 2010’s jamboree of ear-damage and liver abuse. And here we are again, one year on, and the whole exhausting cavalcade of cuntish behaviour dribbles inexorably on. How fucking marvellous.
This year’s tard-fest is somewhat different, of course. In 2009 and 2010, most people seemed relatively satisfied with the fact that the UK had two major mainstream rock/metal festivals to enjoy during the summer months. The emergence of Sonisphere meant that people had a choice of large scale rock knees-ups for the first time in years and, thanks to line-ups that were necessarily distinct, the two festivals could only really be said to complement each other. Only people with fat wallets or ghastly freeloaders like myself could reasonably expect to attend both in one year, of course, but that’s beside the point.
A bit of choice, for once, seemed like a good thing and a decent number of people expressed their preference for one festival or the other with a modicum of grace and intelligence, give or take a few thousand utter twazzocks who would complain mid-blowjob if the curtains were THE WRONG CUNTING COLOUR.
In contrast, 2011 appears to have become the ‘Year Of The Perpetually Whining Cock’, and for reasons best known to the drooling turdslingers who have been cluttering up forums, Facebooks, Tumblrs and Twitters for the last few weeks with their tedious complaints, the Download festival has been the main recipient of all the vitriol.
I guess that’s the price the organisers’ are bound to pay for being the original UK rock/metal bonanza: if you’ve been leading the way for a long time, the new kid on the block is always going to have more immediate appeal, the enticing gleam of the new and an air of freshness that a legendary venue like Castle Donington has long since outgrown. And yes, this year’s Sonisphere line-up looks pretty fucking great.
You can’t really argue with the Big Four or Slipknot as mighty headliners, and there are many, many other great bands on the bill too. And Limp Bizkit (fuck off, Dom – Beez). After having their arses gently booted for the last two years (with all due respect, Download won this non-existent war by booking Faith No More and Slipknot in 2009 and AC/DC trumps everything, always), Sonisphere have come up with the goods in 2011 and it doesn’t take a genius to see why, at this stage in the game, the new boys are getting the most praise.
But here’s a nugget of truth-poo for your brain-cupboards: this entire pointless debate is entirely based on an unavoidably unequal divide in support for two utterly different festival line-ups, and so as great as the Sonisphere bill undoubtedly is, every time I read some squawking dullard bitching away about how it’s “game over” and how Donington is going to be a silent wasteland populated only by tumbleweed and a heartbroken, snivelling Andy Copping sitting on a tearstained picnic blanket, I genuinely feel like setting fire to the internet and laughing as all these toothless moaners scream their mentally-deficient way into a thoroughly deserved early grave.
The truth is that for many punters, the Download bill is looking absolutely fucking splendid. Call me a cunt if you like, and I’m sure some of you will whip yourselves into a froth at the very idea that I might have an opinion that doesn’t precisely mirror your own, but I’m really looking forward to seeing Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, The Cult, System Of A Down, Korn, Alter Bridge, Down, Danzig (“what is a Dainzig?” – Ed), Thin Lizzy, Twisted FUCKING Sister, Avenged Sevenfold, Clutch, Cheap Trick, Turisas, GWAR, Evile, Suicide Silence, Your Demise, Ghost, Sacred Mother Tongue and All That Remains.
There are also more names yet to be announced, one of which has already made me nearly snap my penis in half with excitement. If that’s a shit festival line-up, then I’m Taylor Momsen. Whoever the fuck she is!!! RIGHT, KIDS???
Yes, of course, there are some bands on the Download bill that make me want to STAB STAB STAB, but then I’d rather be skinned alive and boiled in my own hissing diarrhoea than have to sit through All-Time Low, Sum 41 or Kids In Glass Houses either. Beer exists. I fail to see a problem.
And yes, I’m genuinely excited about seeing Def Leppard again. They were amazing last time round, as virtually everyone who saw them will agree, and if ever there was a band with a catalogue of hits big enough to pull off a second headlining turn at Download within three years then it’s artful old hands like them.
I find it faintly hilarious that people are criticising Download for booking the Leps again, not least because Sonisphere have booked Metallica for the second time in three years too (and let’s face it, Rick Allen is a better drummer than Lars Ulrich and can actually play Photograph and Pour Some Sugar On Me properly without passing out. Add your own limb-related punchline to that one, if you wish! Superlolz!!1!).
In fact, if you look at the headliners for both festivals, it’s a little bit ridiculous to be hurling abuse at either one. As much as I’d love to see Iron Maiden, Rush and Van Halen headlining Download, it’s obviously not going to happen this year. I suspect that Mr. Copping considered all options and researched the availability of all of rock’s biggest names before deciding on his headliners and it’s a little bit moronic to suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, Sonisphere and Metallica are openly in cahoots and the Big Four thing was always on the cards, wasn’t it? Okay, so Linkin Park are WELL TOILET on an extraordinary scale and I fully intend to drink myself to death in the VIP bar during their set, but there will be other, more entertaining things happening elsewhere at Donington at that point anyway. Rob Zombie setting fire to robots, for starters!
Anyway, all waffling and idle hatred aside, my point is this: Download and Sonisphere are both going to be fucking great. Personally, I’m going to Download. I missed it last year and was gutted to do so. This year, I have grand plans to scream myself hoarse during Twisted BASTARD Sister, to bang my head until vomit spurts out of my nose during Evile and to cause major damage to my spine while Cossack dancing to System Of A Down. If that sounds like the sort of weekend you might enjoy, then do feel free to join me.
If you’d rather go to Sonisphere, feel free to do that instead! That’s the wonder of choice, ladies and gentlemen. As much as you Sonisphere fans might like to think that Andy Copping will be chasing you down your local high street with eyes full of tears, waving a soggy Download ticket at you and begging you to reconsider, I suspect he can cope with the notion that you can’t win ‘em all and that pleasing all the people all of the time is, if we’re being honest, an impossible dream. Back in the sane world Donington will be, as always, a little bit magical.
It’s festival season. Put a smile on your face, buy a ticket for the event that looks most exciting and start saving up for your exorbitant bar tab. As someone scary once said, do what thou sodding well wilt. And then shut the fuck up about it and stop annoying me. And throw your laptop out of the window. And get a girlfriend. And shave off that ridiculous excuse for a beard. You bleating fanny. Now fuck off. I’m starving.
Lots of love,
Dom Lawson xxx
Wednesday 2 March 2011
My latest review for Soundshock
Septic Flesh-The Great Mass
It’s always a heady day when Septic Flesh release an album. An outfit not known for understatement-when Septic Flesh speaks, clouds break, earth shakes and a dust cloud is strewn across the horizon. All that is evil and unspeakable is unshackled and delivered with their definitive aesthetic. Septic Flesh, the name itself seems putrid in the mouth. The band is the epic defined…pregnant with abhorrence for the world, replete with foreboding and malice. When they speak, the world shudders.
Septic Flesh last work ‘Communion’ caused trembling’s on the Richter scale, such was its titan sized scope and almost unprecedented production values. It’s not often a work comes along like that which redefines just what is achievable within music, so there’s much for the band to live up to, if they’re to shore up their hard won battles.
It takes all of thirty seconds for this masterpiece (and it will be considered such) to envelop the reader in a sense they’ve managed to get themselves into a fight between Wagner and Hieronymus Bosch organised by the Industrial Age. Listening is a violent, active process and you’re engaged by something horrendously primal. They manage to tap into the part of the human psyche that makes a person gasp and recoil at some strange majesty placed suddenly before them. This must be what medieval peoples felt when they first entered a cathedral, coming from a rustic earth living to the most ornate and awe inspiring creations of the time. It presents a strange duality, where your place in the world has never felt more locked but the wildest possibilities never more easily obtainable. Here is where you come to be humbled in the hope your wishes come true.
It seems moot to discuss the musical qualities, the production and the human aspects. This is not something human made but forged by pagan gods. Timeless, peerless, this is Septic Flesh. Say hello.
9/10. You’ll like this if…You’ll just like this.
The Great Mass is out now on Season of Mist.
Reviewed by Sam Thor Rhodes.
It’s always a heady day when Septic Flesh release an album. An outfit not known for understatement-when Septic Flesh speaks, clouds break, earth shakes and a dust cloud is strewn across the horizon. All that is evil and unspeakable is unshackled and delivered with their definitive aesthetic. Septic Flesh, the name itself seems putrid in the mouth. The band is the epic defined…pregnant with abhorrence for the world, replete with foreboding and malice. When they speak, the world shudders.
Septic Flesh last work ‘Communion’ caused trembling’s on the Richter scale, such was its titan sized scope and almost unprecedented production values. It’s not often a work comes along like that which redefines just what is achievable within music, so there’s much for the band to live up to, if they’re to shore up their hard won battles.
It takes all of thirty seconds for this masterpiece (and it will be considered such) to envelop the reader in a sense they’ve managed to get themselves into a fight between Wagner and Hieronymus Bosch organised by the Industrial Age. Listening is a violent, active process and you’re engaged by something horrendously primal. They manage to tap into the part of the human psyche that makes a person gasp and recoil at some strange majesty placed suddenly before them. This must be what medieval peoples felt when they first entered a cathedral, coming from a rustic earth living to the most ornate and awe inspiring creations of the time. It presents a strange duality, where your place in the world has never felt more locked but the wildest possibilities never more easily obtainable. Here is where you come to be humbled in the hope your wishes come true.
It seems moot to discuss the musical qualities, the production and the human aspects. This is not something human made but forged by pagan gods. Timeless, peerless, this is Septic Flesh. Say hello.
9/10. You’ll like this if…You’ll just like this.
The Great Mass is out now on Season of Mist.
Reviewed by Sam Thor Rhodes.
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