[soundtracks of fear]

[video]https://vimeo.com/129780473[/video]
It has been a busy week, and after getting food poisoning on the last day of this festival was a little bit fragile at the start of the week ( the wife says I was just hungover, being old an all, now 40+ I just can't take it anymore!;))
Anyhoo for those of you who are interested and asked for a festi review here goes:

I'll just start by saying this really was an awesome festival, probably the best one I've been to in the U.K. for extreme music, the layout of stages, band line-up, number of peeps just right, and they only ran out of beer on Saturday night!!!
I made a little viddi of the bands I managed to catch or at least when I remembered to, the snippets are short, as you know it's not really the done thing at these sort of gigs. The douche filming with his camera phone blocking everyones view. I did it all for you bitches!

Best bands for me - Impetuous Ritual(Aus), Monarch(Fr) and Portal(Aus). Most fun was Leng T'Che when the vocalist became part of the crowd, encouraging the audience to scream the vocals to their songs. Sea Bastard rocked but short set due to drummer having a broken wrist - hard-core or what.
Lots of local ales, and vending machines full of red stripe and cider, food -limited, but quite good/fresh but minimal for veggies.

Impetuous Ritual were completely new to me and two members are from Portal - it was just an onslaught of really heavy penetrating, repetitive and hypnotic guitar - all of this with the lights and smoke, I was transported to their world., they even wore old school nails in their costumes, like Slayer used to. Bolzer a two piece didn't really have their shit together. Portal were fantastic, and a good presence on stage, no cuckoo clock on head, but new dead queeny ghost attire, with lovely ladyman leather gloves, we wondered if this growling beast may be female!? Anyway they were brlliant. Sunn 0)))nearly killed me!! I only saw 30 mins of the set having inhaled a whole zeppelins worth of dry ice, and had to depart in fear of dying. They were loud and the vibrations shuddered through your body, people told us the next day people threw up when they started playing with the sheer pressure of Sunn's amps. The band all seemed really fucked. Intense stuff, and not to be missed.
Monarch was the band for me on Sunday, and also met them. A raging harpy on vocals, with heavy doomy bass and guitar riffs destroying through the venue. When they finished their set the vocalist, a very humble, sweet French girl thanks us so very much for listening. Great!
Earth are always a bit sleepy for me, or maybe I've seen them too many times now. I liked hem in the early days wen they sounded like Sunn O, and the reason Sunn exist.
All in all a top festival and should almost definitely be going again - Cheers!

[deafmetal]

@Dagar - Great to see Impetuous Ritual and Portal hit the top of your charts. Although I have been a fan of both bands for many years, I felt there were both in excellent form on this recent tour. They can get really hypnotic, especially Portal, and almost sound like synchronized machines rather than a band playing instruments. Incredible dark metal of death.

Also, the tale of people vomiting from the sheer onslaught of sound from Sunn O)))! This only adds to the mythology that is that band.

[thewaystation]

Great report, @dagar. May I ask what food caused the poisoning?
Sunn seem to have taken their show even further from when I saw them. Will definitely check out your video.

[soundtracks of fear]

Ah well the food was actually from the hotel I was staying at 24/7 room service, I'm sure it was the vegetarian lasagne, seemed like a good idea at the time! Alas no Sunn O))) footage as I fear my phone would have exploded with pressure as I nearly did.