Into the Pit: 084: Paradise Lost – Live at Carling Academy Sheffield – 04-November 2009
Back from Whitby for two days – where the sum total of live bands I saw was zero – and off to the first gig of what could be a busy November.
Category: /Reviews
I’ve written a lot of reviews over the years. This is the home of pretty much all of them since about 2003.
But Listen: 091: W.A.S.T.E. – A Silent Mantra Of Rage
Silent, huh? You have to laugh at the irony of the title, really. Those of you, like me, who were all-too-aware of their debut album and subsequent EP will know full well that silent is about as far from this artist’s modus operandi than it’s possible to be. The first album was a utter brute […]
Memory of a Festival: 008: Damnation Festival 2009
This year’s variant was in the same location as last year’s very busy one, but with some much-needed changes to the way things were run. The good news, for a start, was that the stage times over the main two stages were at least partly staggered so that not everything clashed, and with a reduced […]
But Listen: 090: Autoclav 1.1 – Where Once Were Exit Wounds
It’s been a relatively short time, slightly over a year, since Tony Young’s previous album, Love No Longer Lives Here. And, in that time, he’s clearly not been resting on his laurels. Each of the previous albums has shown a distinct progression from the last – not only in quality, perhaps, but also in the […]
Into the Pit: 083: VNV Nation – Live at Corporation Sheffield – 18-October 2009
It was of course the return of VNV Nation to the venue, and a big, big crowd – it can’t have been far from selling out – as there always seems to be whenever they come to ‘town.
Into the Pit: 082: Spiritualized – Live at Royal Festival Hall – 12-October 2009
I’d never even set foot in the Royal Festival Hall before, so I was most impressed with it’s spacious layout, and even during the very, very varied “support” DJ set from Ashley Wales of Spring Heel Jack the sound was impressive.
Into the Pit: 081: HEALTH – Live at Brudenell Leeds – 06-October 2009
Yet another gig which was running horrendously late from the start. We didn’t see the whole set of any of the support acts – our need for food in particular saw to that. But then, some of the supports tried our patience somewhat, too.
But Listen: 089: Skullduggery – You Are Here. [Nowhere]
It’s three years now since I first came across this artist, on the Glitch Mode compilation H0rd3z Ov Thee El33t!, as one of many artists that I first heard there that I thought “hmm, must check them out again sometime”. Some vanished, others I went and bought the albums. This was one, I’ll admit, that […]
But Listen: 088: the M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab – Modern Expressing Machines of Revolutionary Youth
Sometimes, it’s best to ignore all the writing and promo material about a band before listening if you’ve not heard them before. Which is what I did here – other than knowing the label that they were on. D-Trash records are a small label that I’ve not really come across other than their release of […]
But Listen: 087: Dessau – The Truth Hurts
In this age of the music industry constantly re-evaluating and repackaging it’s back-catalogues, I guess it was only a matter of time before we saw more of this in the industrial scene. Of course, some labels and bands that I’m sure I don’t need to name have been at this for ages, but I don’t […]
Into the Pit: 080: Three Trapped Tigers – Live at The Harley Sheffield – 19-August 2009
Last night took me to a small, back-of-a-pub gig for the first time in a long, long time. Those nice folk at Drowned In Sound have been running a small handful of “DiScover” gigs at The Harley in Sheffield’s university district over the past year or so, and this gig on the latest DiScover tour […]
But Listen: 086: Tapage – Fallen Clouds
It seems to be an unusual aim in industrial/IDM/whatever-you-want-to-call-it spheres to want to have any flicker of emotion other than rage and anger, although some artists do manage an impressive job of doing so, often by just the use of what would be termed soundscapes rather than including vocals.
Memory of a Festival: 007: Sonisphere 2009
After a night DJing at Autonomy, my girlfriend couldn’t make the next day, so one of my best friends joined me to head south to Sonisphere instead. I’d declined the recently-won tickets earlier in the week, but much to my surprise they arrived on the Saturday, and the decision was taken that we should go […]
But Listen: 085: Psychic Space Invasion – Transitions
It’s hard indeed to describe, or review, what would be termed ‘dark ambient’ in its purest form such as this. It ebbs, it ebbs some more, and doesn’t really flow anywhere except at a glacial pace. It starts out inaudibly, takes nearly two minutes to be heard… But then, when you have forty-one minutes for […]
Into the Pit: 079: KMFDM – Live at Islington – 18-July 2009
The early start – doors at 1800 – meant that Leech Woman played to a half-empty room, which was a damned shame seeing as this was billed as their last gig in the UK for some time – main man Alex is moving abroad. There was no room for sentiment, though, as LW roared through […]
Into the Pit: 078: Nine Inch Nails – Live at Arena Manchester – 14-July 2009
It took bloody ages to get there – two hours from Sheffield to Manchester, via Woodhead, thanks to Snake being closed and awful traffic in Manchester city centre, and I managed my first longer distance drive without any problems – but last night’s gig was worth every single minute and then some.
But Listen: 084: Samarkande – 3 Synapses
Samarkande are introduced on their website as an apparently experimental group that create by way of improvisation, and to “break the rigidity of electro-acoustic and electronic music”. Quite what the latter point means in practice is a difficult one to answer, it seems.
But Listen: 083: Coreline – Bone And Blood As Stone And Mud
It’s sometimes been hard to reconcile the two facets of Chris McCall’s output. The seemingly ultra-serious music with the joyously insane (and whisper it, *fun*) live shows, but here, somehow, we may have the missing link at last. Like some kind of mad scientist (or inventor?) anything that may work is hurled into the mix […]
But Listen: 082: Alter der Ruine – The Giants From Far Away
As one of a seemingly great number of promising industrial acts from the US, previous releases from this act have been of such high quality, that it was perhaps a little bit of a worry that expectations seemed to be too high for their new album when it hit at the tail-end of 2008. And […]
Into the Pit: 077: Gothminister + Das Ich – Live at Corporation – 09-May 2009
Last night’s Gothminister and Das Ich gig was pretty strange. The turnout wasn’t too bad, although as always the small room at Corp got uncomfortably warm over the course of the gig.