by BBG

Germany's Bohren & Der Club of Gore are prepping the US release of Beileid, the LP due via Ipecac on June 28th. Don't be fooled by the band's moniker, the three song LP has nothing to do with death metal, graphic violence or worship of the horned one. But Bohren do borrow dimly-lit atmospherics to dot their exploration in ambience and slow-burn jazz like on their cover of Warlock's "Catch My Heart" featuring crooner (and Ipecac label boss) Mike Patton. Listen to that track below. And stream the first track, "Zombies Never Die (Blues)" at their myspace.

So far, Bohren & Der Club of Gore has no US dates, but we'll be on the look out. Until then, European tour dates, that new song stream, the Warlock original, the new album cover, and other songs too, below...

Continue reading "Bohren & Der Club of Gore releasing 'Beileid' (listen to their Mike Patton-assisted Warlock cover)"

by JJ Koczan

We continue with JJ's report from Roadburn in Tilburg, Holland. If you missed it, you might want to start with Day One. Here is Day Two (Friday April 23, 2009)...

Cathedral LIVE at Roadburn (Erik Luyten)

It's really easy to tell as you walk around Tilburg who is here for Roadburn and who isn't. Even when I first got here from Amsterdam on the train, the front of the station looked like an Eyehategod show could have broken out at any minute, all the bearded longhairs and black t-shirts, including my own, standing around looking for a bus or a cab. Like some kind of convention for the International Society Of Social Awkwardness. But oh, we do have a good time.

The thing about the "doom scene," as much as there is one, is that it's really more of a community. Maybe it's because the majority of its patrons are a little older, a little more stoned, a little more concerned with paying their rent, but there are way fewer scene rules than, say, in black metal, where the contest to be more kvlt than thou goes on ceaselessly. Certainly there's a uniform -- see "beards and t-shirts," above -- but there are some normal looking dudes running around here and no one really gives a crap one way or the other what they look like. I'd say it's refreshing, but it's been this way for as long as I've been into doom, so it's nothing new.

This is easily the best festival I've ever seen. The fact that I'm here still astonishes me. Yesterday, as I watched Angel Witch demolish bands half their age (though Saviours would answer back heartily later on), I couldn't help but look around me and be amazed at the gathering of riff worshippers. The Atomic Bitchwax, for example, played to a Green Room so packed that people were lined up into the hallway watching them through the open doors. I've seen the Bitchwax plenty of times in our shared home state of New Jersey, and most of those shows have been relatively empty. Here you can barely go from one part of the venue to the next without doing a bump 'n grind on some poor schlub. It's something to get used to, but I made a conscious decision to take a different approach to day two than I had to day one.

continued below...

Continue reading "Surviving Roadburn, Day Two: Riding To The Sabbath"