Roadburn

Neurosis have always held strong to the notion that their newest album is their best album. This hasn’t always been true, of course; their career has gone through minor dips and peaks like anyone else’s. But seeing them live you understand why they’re so steadfast in this belief. While the quality of their songs has not always trended upwards, their newer material sounds significantly better live. The lows are lower, the textures denser, the samples pop more…

…Sometimes you don’t want to answer big questions like that. Sometimes you just want to listen to rock music, loudly and in person. Despite disparaging the concept of a rock show twice in these recaps, it’s important to remember that we’re all here ostensibly because we enjoy guitars being played through amps over drums. Tau Cross reinforce the notion that good metal bands tend to be good rock bands…

Its hard to imagine a better locale for people watching than a metal festival. Any single metal show is sure to packed full of weirdos, but festivals have the added benefit of bringing together a wide array of different types of weirdos. Every variety of metalhead that you can imagine is on display on Roadburn’s main avenue: Crust punks covered in patches, retro thrashers with high top Reeboks, old heads with comically long grey beards, goths in intricate lace dresses, recovering hardcore kids who dress like low budget hypebeasts (that’d be me), and short hairs in tight jeans that would fit right in at Chicago’s Empty Bottle if they weren’t speaking fluent Dutch. My personal favorite absurd fashion choice was the guy wearing a Game Of Thrones t-shirt with a leather trench coat draped over his shoulders like a cape…

House music, albums in full, and rattling churches in Tilburg

The above pic was posted on Slayer‘s Instagram earlier in the week. Does it herald, as many expect, a new Slayer album in 2015? Is it the genesis of their pivotal post-Hanneman/Lombardo/Rubin album…

Enslaved at Gramercy Theater, Sept 2011 (more by Greg Cristman) Norwegians Enslaved have a single show scheduled in the US for 2012, a free (with RSVP) Scion A/V Roadburn Records showcase in Los Angeles with White Hills, Earthless and Astra this weekend (11/10 at The Roxy)…

Hexvessel are a self-described “psychedelic forest folk” band from Finland who go by the slogan “Plant trees and worship Sagan!” This isn’t what someone might normally associate with your typical Roadburn 2012 entry, visions of dancing, luted sprites and such, but Hexvessel maintains an eerie undercurrent that keeps things dramatic, haunting, and overall listenable…

If you’re anything like me, you spent the weekend wishing you were at Roadburn 2012. This year’s Tilburg festival included Voivod performing Dimension Hatröss in full…