I’ve seen and heard a lot of metal things on this Monday. I thought I’d try to collect all of them for tomorrow’s first post, because that way I could do some other things with what’s left of my Monday, such as doing some work for my fucking day job, because there are some people who actually think I should do something I’m actually paid to do. But fuck that. I decided to make a start right now and finish everything up in tomorrow’s first post.
INFESTUM
Last week the European Space Agency landed a small spacecraft named Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a 2.5-mile-wide ball of rock, ice, and dust that was moving faster than 40,000 miles an hour and was 317 million miles from Earth at the time of the landing. Not a bad piece of work. I have trouble landing my car in my driveway.
Unfortunately, the spacecraft shut down on Saturday after its batteries were drained. Apparently it landed against a cliff or crater wall where it couldn’t get enough sunlight to recharge those batteries. Before that happened, Philae did send back some photos. As you can see above, one of them looks suspiciously like the cover of Monuments of Exalted, the new album by Infestum from Belarus that was released by Lacerated Enemy Records just a couple of days earlier. If you’ve heard anything from the album, you may be less convinced this was a coincidence.
We premiered a song from the album in July, and the whole thing is now streaming on Bandcamp, where it can be downloaded or ordered. I think I’ll just put it right here, because it’s really good:
https://laceratedenemyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/infestum-monuments-of-exalted
https://www.facebook.com/ordo.infestum
WITCHRIST
Witchrist from Auckland, NZ, have recorded a new three-song EP named Vritra that’s projected for release by Iron Bonehead Productions in January 2015. The EP features KzR from Bölzer on vocals. Today one of those new songs, named “Haruspex”, went up for streaming on Soundcloud. I eagerly pounced on it, and it pounced right back at me.
It’s a black/death powerhouse that begins slowly and then breaks into a storm of savage riffs and torrential percussion, with an exotic, menacing melody that winds through the song like the weaving of a cobra. As anticipated, the vocals are excellent. Witchrist have never disappointed me, but they’re really hitting on all cylinders with this song.
https://www.facebook.com/witchristofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions
HELLFEST
A bunch of new bands were announced for the 2015 edition of Hellfest, set to take place in Clisson, France, on June 19-21. It’s a wild and crazy line-up, from Limp Bizkit to Motorhead, from Korn to Satyricon, from Five Finger Death Punch to At the Gates, from Marilyn Manson to Bloodbath, from Slipknot to Faith No More… I could continue doing that, but there are 150 bands from all over the musical spectrum, so I’ll stop and just let you look at that flyer up above. Weird, and wonderful.
https://www.facebook.com/hellfest
JEFF LOOMIS JOINS ARCH ENEMY
That’s the news that’s been spreading through the interhole today, leading to significant amounts of confusion as far as I can tell. It actually doesn’t appear that Loomis is becoming a permanent member of the band, but he will be performing with them for their upcoming European tour which kicks off November 26, as well as all future tours in 2015. He is taking the place of Nick Cordle, who appears to have parted ways with the band on amicable terms. For the full text of the official announcement, go here:
http://jeffloomis.com/site/2014/11/17/jeff-loomis-joins-arch-enemy/
From my perusal of commentary, this news has elicited a mix of excitement and horror, the former expressed by people who are fans of both AE and Loomis, the latter by people who think Loomis is tanking his career by appearing on stage with a band as terrible as they think AE is. I have a much simpler take on this announcement: Jeff Loomis is one of the nicest and most engaging people in metal I’ve yet met, as well as being a phenomenally talented musician, and this will give a lot of new fans a chance to see him perform — plus he clearly wants to do this. So I’m all for it. Tour dates announced so far are below.
https://www.facebook.com/archenemyofficial
ARCH ENEMY – live in Europe with KREATOR
Nov. 26, 2014 – Le Transbordeur – Lyon, France
Nov. 27, 2014 – L’Usine – Istres, France
Nov. 28, 2014 – Razzmatazz – Barcelona, Spain
Nov. 29, 2014 – La Riviera – Madrid Spain
Dec. 1, 2014 – Le Bikini – Toulouse, France
Dec. 2, 2014 – Le Bataclan – Paris, France
Dec. 4, 2014 – 013 – Tilburg, Netherlands
Dec. 5, 2014 – MHP Arena – Ludwigsburg, Germany
Dec. 6, 2014 – Turbinenhalle – Oberhausen, Germany
Dec. 7, 2014 – Garage – Saarbrücken, Germany
Dec. 8, 2014 – Docks – Hamburg, Germany
Dec. 9, 2014 – Huxleys – Berlin, Germany
Dec. 11, 2014 – Schlachthof – Wiesbaden, Germany
Dec. 12, 2014 – Eventhall – Geiselwind, Germany
Dec. 13, 2014 – Tonhalle – München, Germany
Dec. 14, 2014 – Z7 – Pratteln, Switzerland
Dec. 16, 2014 – Institute – Birmingham, UK
Dec. 17, 2014 – O2 Academy – Bristol, UK
Dec. 18, 2014 – The Forum – London, UK
Dec. 19, 2014 – Academy – Manchester, UK
Dec. 20, 2014 – Academy – Dublin, Ireland
Dec. 21, 2014 – QMU – Glasgow, UK
Dec. 22, 2014 – O2 Academy – Newcastle, UK
ARCH ENEMY – live 2015
Jan. 22-26, 2015 – 70,000 Tons Of Metal – Miami, FL
Jan. 29, 2015 – Teatro Estudio Cavaret – Guadalajara, Mexico
Jan. 30, 2015 – Jose Cuervo Salón – Mexico City, Mexico
Feb. 01, 2015 – Coliseo el Salitre Bogota, Colombia
Feb. 03, 2015 – Club Blondie Santiago, Chile
Feb. 04, 2015 – Rock & Soccer Antofagasta, Chile
Feb. 06, 2015 – Circo Voador Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Feb. 07, 2015 – Carioca Club – Sao Paulo, Brazil
Feb. 08, 2015 – Music Hall – Curitiba, Brazil
Feb. 10, 2015 – El Teatro Flores – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Feb. 12, 2015 – Plaza de toros Belmonte – Quito, Ecuador
May. 2, 2015 – Karmoygeddon Festival – Kopervik, Norway
Jun. 04, 2015 – Out & Loud Festival – Geiselwind, Germany
9 Responses to “SEEN AND HEARD: INFESTUM, WITCHRIST, HELLFEST, JEFF LOOMIS AND ARCH ENEMY”
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it would be cool if Loomis joined AE on a permanent basis, i would love hear what he would bring to the writing process in that band : )
Here’s hoping that Loomis Enemy and I are in the same city sometime next year.
I don’t know what kind of product Loomis moves now (not that that’s the only way to measure the value of an artist), but I’d suspect that some time with AE would actually get more ears listening to him and raise his profile a bit, which I can’t see as a bad thing. That should more than offset the 17 internet metal nerds that might decide such horrors make him untouchable (and probably didn’t pay for his albums anyway). It’s not like he’s changing to gospel or touring with Katy Perry.
Tickets already bought ! It’s the tenth anniversary edition of the Hellfest, I think they were aiming to make as many ‘big’ bands as possible come. And in this wild line-up, so many bands I’d always wanted to see live… finally get to see them 🙂
I haz jealousness.
And so will I be the next time you write about a cool American festival 😉
The lineup is great for sure, but after my second Wacken last year, i am very done with huge ass festivals like this. Always end up missing too many bands, there are too many people, the stages are too big and too far away, the festival ground is way too big, in order to accommodate the ludicrous number of attendees, the smaller interesting bands often only get a few songs worth of playing time, Its generally the same big bands on agian and again, and the headliners, who jack up the ticket prices, are almost always some old classic you have seen 10 times before, or the flavor of the year.
Much prefer the smaller festivals, and indoor festivals. Prefer seeing bands like Inquisition, Primordial, Sinmara, Sonne Adam, Ruins of Beverast, Grave Miasma, Necros christos, Mgla, etc on a small club stage with 200 people, over seeing Arch Enemy, Kreator and Amon Amarth play a 10 meter high stage, in front of 50 000..
Think the biggest festival i am planning on going to in the near future is Blastfest, with a capacity of around 1500.
Shit, i feel like a grumpy old bastard now.
Whomever put Motorhead on a stage with Korn and Slipknot should be beaten within an inch of his life
Also, holy fuckballs…new Witchrist!
Infestum is fucking fantastic! Black, bleak, with industrial overtones. Mmmmm…..