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Day two of Outbreak 2026 sees the opening of a larger outdoor stage, which subsequently becomes the festival’s main stage. It’s a mixed blessing given the blistering sun which reflects off the surrounding concrete into the melting eyes of an audience of punks. Nonetheless, with three stages and a full day of programming, today has an altogether grander feel.

One of the day’s quirks is the World Cup screening of England Vs Panama that closes out the third stage, which means a number of attendees arrive sporting the peculiar combination of band t-shirt and bucket hat. Many of them attempt to end their evening positioned judiciously between stages so as to simultaneously listen to Converge and watch Harry Kane. Nonetheless, the dedicated fanbase associated with hardcore and metal remains ever-present, as does the supply of innovative festival performances.

Words: Ben Williams

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Truck Violence

There’s something refreshing straightforward about the sludgy riffs that howl from the Marshall amps forming Truck Violence’s backdrop, even if the reality is more complex. The shirtless and tattooed Karsyn Henderson’s feral vocal performances belie the Canadians’ smartly crafted combinations of hardcore and folk. It’s a unique sound that’s further bolstered by the banjo added to ‘Guns buried in the front yard’ – a perfect contrast to the sludgy ‘Drunk to death’, which has the band at their most imperious.

Reclus.É

Having recently toured with A Perfect Circle, the duo of Soren Bryce (Tummyache) and musician/DJ Daniel P Carter deliver a balance of soaring melodies and piercing screams that show off Bryce’s depth as a vocalist. ‘Fire With Fire’ offers bite and grit, while some the less heavy moments have a more lugubrious demeanour. For an early afternoon performance in the sweltering heat, it’s an impressively dynamic showing from one of the lineup’s most creative performers.

Bodyweb

Bodyweb are insistent. “Get on the fucking stage,” yells frontman Louis Hardy. The band hasn’t actually played a note yet – they’re just that overwrought. Everything about this band is over-the-top, even down to the way their logo pulsates behind them like a radiation warning. Clearly worshippers of nu-metal, there are shades of Korn when we’re told to “get the fuck up” and touches of Slipknot when bizarre and off-kilter jungle breakdowns are shoe-horned amongst two-note riffs. It’s far from the most inspired of performances, especially given just how indebted the band are to their influences, but there’s still something enjoyable about the brute-force of Bodyweb’s antics.

Static Dress

Billed as ‘???’, Outbreak 2026’s mystery act is not Title Fight, despite the optimistic rumours and Static Dress’ decision to cheekily open with the intro to ‘Safe In Your Skin’. To add to the confusion, they jokingly introduce themselves as Guilt Trip (one of the other rumoured bands for this slot) but after much trolling, it is finally understood that the individuals standing on stage – who are clearly the members of Static Dress – are indeed the members of Static Dress. Despite a handful of individuals leaving upon realising this – did they really expect Title Fight? – the Leeds band are monstrously energetic, almost to a fault given the slightly forced shouts of “why the fuck are you standing still” from vocalist Olli Appleyard. It’s an overall consummate performance, but one that is more defined by the band who aren’t there than the one that is, thanks in no small way to Static Dress’ mischievousness.

Touché Amoré

Ten years on from the release of Touché Amoré’s ‘Stage Four’, the band arrive at Outbreak Festival ready to perform the album in full, much to the joy of one of the weekend’s most ecstatic fanbases. That said, no attendee quite matches the apparent happiness of vocalist Jeremy Bolm, who appears to be positively beaming at the occasion. Guitarist Nick Steinhardt meanwhile braves the heat in a full jacket for the opening portion of the show before eventually succumbing to the heat and removing it. The event brings with it a celebratory feel that’s devoid of the tough-guy nonsense that occasionally belittles the post-hardcore genre. Bolm’s decision to walk into the crowd sees him swamped by his adoring fans like he’s one of The Beatles. One gets the feeling that, while it’s not one for the newcomers, the already-converted will treat this as the weekend’s highlight.

Lip Critic

Bret Kaser and Connor Kleitz face each other with a couple of beefy electrics/sampling units between them. Their flanked by the band’s two drummers, whose in-unison bashing forms something akin to the backbeat of New York ‘90s hip hop. – apropos for four Brooklynites. Together, Lip Critic produce maximalist electronic hardcore that stands apart from the festival’s array of guitar-centric bands by offering a pleasingly feral energy. Kaser’s vocals are savage; he sounds more creature than human as he growls his way through songs from the band’s recent album ‘Theft World’. Other songs like ‘Sermon’ are ominous, with the listless Kaser bouncing amongst band members, conducting chaos as he goes.

Upchuck

The high ceilings of the BEC Arena do few favours for Atlanta’s Upchuck. The room gobbles up the intricacies of the band’s music, rendering the politically-conscious lyrics of vocalist KT difficult to hear. While the content of Upchuck’s words don’t necessarily translate, she nonetheless yells through the most savage of punk songs with ruthless aggression. The scraping of guitar against cymbals, a drummer who mid-set becomes the vocalist, and the combining of gritty bass tones and droning guitars remain remarkable, despite the muddiness of the acoustics.

High Vis

High Vis are one of the weekend’s tightest performers. The band seem to share a telepathic relationship as they traverse songs that contain as much pain as they do hope. It’s all centres on Graham Sayle, a passionate frontman whose honestly between songs is as inspired as his charismatic vocals. He delivers a lengthy speech about friendship and the importance of speaking to others during difficult times, with Sayle drawing upon his own experiences with alcohol with a stark honesty. By framing past difficulties as exactly that – in the past – the future looks bright. It means that his subsequently Olympian-like stage dives become euphoric displays of uninhibited joy.

Pup

Canadian pop-punkers Pup offer something lighter than the hardcore that dominates much of the weekend. This, alongside a fleeting downpour, delights a crowd that welcome the rain as much as a singalong. ‘Kids’ and ‘Reservoir’ offer the latter, as does the featuring of a selection of songs from the band’s debut album, ‘The Dream is Over’. The decision to so heavily feature a now decade-old album is in keeping with the nostalgia that has imbued the festival. Nonetheless, there remains an exciting rawness to the music. “I’m not gonna say very much, we’re just gonna fucking rip,” says frontman Stefan Babcock, which pithily summarises the experience.

Higher Power

For not the first time this weekend, a Leeds-based hardcore band take to Outbreak 2026. Having been recommended by High Vis a few hours prior, Higher Power draw from the aesthetics of ‘90s alternative rock to deliver something rather aloof. The band are mostly backlit, making it difficult to see anything more than a few profiles. This combines with the hazy guitars to create a unique atmosphere, over which High power blast through their set with workmanlike efficiency. With drums that are de-tuned to the point of sounding like timpani, and guitars that sounds ready to raw, it sums to an impressive showing.

Loathe

They’ve consistently performed live in recent years, but Liverpudlian’s Loathe haven’t released an album since 2021’s instrumental and ambient ‘The Things They Believe’. Knowing that another is on the way this summer means that the mere appearance of the band’s on-screen logo is enough to bring a sense that, though they never went away, Loathe are back. They’re old-fashioned in some ways – four musicians dressed in black playing heavy metal music. In reality, these songs are some of the weekend’s most complex. The 6-minute ‘Screaming’ shows off instrumental prowess and crunching riffs, all alongside Kadeem France’s talismanic charisma. “This is our favourite festival to play ever,” says France. It sounds like a trope, but given the symbiotic relationship between band and audience, it’s not so difficult to believe.

The Armed

Various performers at Outbreak 2026 could be described as chaotic. The Armed, however, take things further. In an unhinged display of madness, The Armed create pandemonium as soon as they clatter their way through the opening moments of ‘THE MUSIC BECOMES A SKULL’. Musicians are crowd surfing (with their instruments), a saxophone is made to sound like a pained animal, and ‘ALL FUTURES’ manages to manifest a mosh pit on the stage itself. Converge’s Jacob Bannon joins for a cover of ‘Homewrecker’ and bedlam ensues once more. For some, it’s sensory overload. For others. it’s a cathartic release. But for all it’s a performance that’s impossible to turn away from.

Alexisonfire

“Alright,” screams George Pettit. “This is from our hearts,” responds the jubilant crowd, as Alexisonfire launch into ‘Drunks, Lovers, Sinners and Saints’. It’s been twenty years since the genre-defining ‘Crisis’ was released. Two decades on and much has changed. Pettit looks less tough-guy and more avuncular coworker; endearing with his floppy hair and leather jacket. Vocally, he sounds largely unchanged, as does Dallas Green, whose cleanly delivered vocals sound remarkably youthful. It’s a curiously young crowd in attendance, some of whom were likely too young to remember ‘Crisis’ upon its 2006 release. It results in a charming cross-generational audience of students and masters, all standing before Alexisonfire’s titanic presence.

Converge

There have been many whole-album performances across the weekend. This penchant for the music of the past brings mixed emotions. At times it is celebratory, while at others it feels regressive. Ideally, bands should remain innovative, with each new release able to sit alongside older songs with seamless integration. Converge are one of very few to get this right. Opener ‘Love is Not Enough’, the title track from one of two albums released this year by the metalcore legends, sends their audience into as much of a frenzy as classics like ‘Conduit’ and ‘Concubine’. Over three decades into what is becoming an illustrious career, Converge eschew nostalgia with new music that is every bit as gutsy as the band they were all those years ago.

Posted on July 6th 2026, 12:00pm

There was a real ritual to it, wasn’t there. You walked into the caff or the pub or the youth club, you fished a few coins out of your pocket, and you stood in front of that big glowing jukebox … Continue reading →

The post From the Jukebox to the Smartphone: How a Generation Took Its Entertainment Everywhere appeared first on DMME.net.

Hellfest 2026. Clisson, France. Summer Solstice and Mayhem are bringing their Norwegian Black Metal to Hellfest’s Temple Stage. The buildup of heat under the canvas has just sent the Napalm Death guitarist off stage puking his guts up. France is under a red heatwave warning.

In the distance, The Offspring, headlining main stage, can be heard. Over there, it is all massive crowds, pyro, light and pop punk fun. Here it is smaller, hotter, dark, spartan and ominous. This is Extreme Metal at its most physically demanding for fans and bands alike.

This is my first time seeing Mayhem, and having seen the craziness at some of their gigs online, I was expecting a lot. But after four days of battering heat, the crowd is appreciative and listening rather than frenzied and furious.

The movie Lords Of Chaos is a must-see. About the early years of Mayhem, it makes every insanity of your teenage years seem like child’s play in comparison. Necrobutcher (bass) is the only founding member of Mayhem still playing, another legend on stage at this weekend of the greats.

Attila Csihar (vocals) changes costumes constantly. In the blackness, it is hard to appreciate the detail, but they are ritualistic outfits, a black magic pope, a blackened commando and a spikey gothic Lord, amongst others.

His vocals, sung through a bone-covered microphone, tear into the air, sending your flesh crawling. Hellhammer (drums), Ghul (guitar), and Teloch (guitar) are all technically precise, poundingly intense and dissonant, creating an atmosphere worthy of hell.

The atmosphere is aided by the festival toilets being emptied outside, which temporarily brings the smell of putrefaction to add to the unwavering acoustic macabre. Disgusting but bizarrely a nice touch, which I am assuming was unplanned by the band.

The set list covers all eras of Mayhem, including opening with a couple of songs from their new album Liturgy Of Death. The classics Freezing Moon and From The Dark Past, from their first album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, get obvious roars of appreciation from the gathering.

This festival has some of the largest, highest-resolution digital screens I have seen in my life, particularly on the main stages. But largely they have just been used to communicate to the back of the enormous arena what is going on at the front.

This is where Mayhem’s show steps away from just being a band, as the film that forms their backdrop is integral to the show.

This could be Spinal Tap horror parody, but in fact, the film is completely disturbing. My respect to whoever made this. A series of many pictures with one or two-tone colour imagery, a kaleidoscope of horror, matching each song with visual evil. Satan, the occult and brutal violence abound.

Some images, such as during Freezing Moon, are simpler with an eerie moon on a blue background or a Transylvanian Dracula-style castle. 
I was particularly keen to see if the band would take advantage of it being the witching hour on the summer solstice to do something unusual, but there was nothing, well, except for an image of a demon strangling a woman, presumably a virgin.

Hellfest is brought to an end with an uplifting roar for the band. The audience has been immersed, disturbed and forever changed by the Mayhem onslaught.

Limp Bizkit

Limp Bizkit’s set takes the form of a giant speaker system, with the DJ behind it holding an open comic book about Ozzy Osbourne. Tributes to The Prince of Darkness are everywhere, and this is a sweet touch.

Elsewhere on the set, a collection of cassette tapes, which looks like it covers fan favourites. This is a nu-Metal Headliner that is hotly anticipated by the crowd that stretches far, far back.

Wes Borland (lead guitar) in a truly bonkers, steampunk witch doctor style gold and black ensemble arrives first, teasing a couple of opening chords from Megadeth, a homage to the Thrash legend that has just left the other main stage.

Fred Durst (vocalist) bounces on with the rest of the band, looking like he has Dad Vibes and is about to go out for a Sunday Roast. A striped shirt and blue jeans are the antithesis of the rock god and set off Wes’s crazy outfit perfectly. 

Amazingly, they opened with what must be their best-known number, Break Stuff, which sends the fan base in the front fields into a dancing frenzy, screaming the lyrics out. This is more easily done than usual as the lyrics to most songs are displayed on the digital screen throughout the show. This was a trick that did not float my boat. Fans do not need lyrics to get them to sing along. 

The classic numbers get the crowd grooving from front to middle. I am told those watching further back were not buying into the gig so much, but in the thick of it, it was hot, fun and very physical dancing. 

Light relief is provided by cuts from classic pop tunes, including Tainted Love by Soft Cell, to which they stick up a picture of Metallica looking shocked with the text “When Metallica hears Limp Bizkit”. There is always a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour.
 
The covers of Faith (George Michael) and Behind Blue Eyes wow the crowd with their melody. A strange thing is how covers from other musical genres are often some of the very best Metal songs. 

The life of Sam Rivers, their much-missed bassist, is celebrated with his picture on the giant digital screens and a minute of more peaceful music. 

All the classics are rolled out, including Nookie, Rollin’, and My Generation. The audience is a bobbing, weaving mass. The pop culture nods continue with Fred shouting that he loves Tom Cruise and a picture of Tom in Action as they play the Mission: Impossible 2 classic Take A Look Around. 

The bizarre start with the classic Break Stuff is ultimately explained when Bizkit finish with it too. The crowd goes wild one last time. A vintage night for the lovers of Limp Bizkit.

Sabaton

Sixty thousand plus people who have just had their socks blown off by Maiden is the challenge Sabaton walk out on stage to. This is the dream contrast of two titans. 

Joakim Broden nails it early and acknowledges they are coming on after “the greatest band in the world” and admits they are “nervous” about it. Sabaton are standing on the shoulders of giants, and those giants have just left the stage immediately next door.

As a massive fan of both bands, I was surprised by how one tone and aggressive Sabaton sounded initially, compared to Maiden. It is grating, but the Swedes know how to throw a party, and this passed very quickly. 

Opening with Panzer Elite, red fireworks launch into the sky, and the pyrotechnics turn the arena into a cauldron of warming fire. Sabaton are in their familiar camouflage outfits, with the drummer, Hannes Van Dahl, with his drum kit on top of an enormous tank, flanked by smaller army vehicles. A giant digital screen projecting images from their songs behind. 

Classics pour from the stage. Primo Victoria, Bismarck, The Red Baron. The crowd singing and clapping along to every tune, helped by the key lyrics projected onto the digital screens. The atmosphere is more muted compared to Maiden. The literal streams of crowd surfers have stopped, and the mood is less fevered. However, they are clearly enjoying themselves.

Christmas Truce is poignant and magical with mobile phone torches waving from side to side. From their latest album Legends, I, Emperor, about Napoleon’s genius, is accompanied by a French-speaking actor in full outfit who speaks to the majority of the audience in their native tongues, getting plenty of laughs.

A chorus of six French singers provides a different sound and support for Joakim. Their continued theatrical and musical invention is very welcome.

There is a very schoolboy prankster side to the band too, with their guitarist, Chris Rorland, sticking plectrums to Joakim’s sweaty head, mid-song. Also, jokes about their other guitarist, Thobbe Englund, going for a “rectal examination” when he disappeared off stage for some unknown technical reason. 

Sheer silliness ensues at the end with what Joakim describes as their “Best, worst song,” Swedish Pagans and the crowd chanting “woah, oh oh…oh oh woah oh oh” back and forth with the band. 

To a spectacular firework finale and flames across the arena, Sabaton take their bows. Maiden not forgotten, but Sabaton are also victors in the Hellfest fields.

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HELLFEST 2026

Prepare to be consumed by the relentless energy of the most influential bands in Heavy Metal as they ignite the Hellfest stages with blistering performances. The immersive atmosphere of Clisson will immerse you in a dark, captivating experience like no other.

With its unparalleled lineup and unwavering commitment to the spirit of metal, Hellfest 2026 promises an unforgettable journey into the depths of sonic mayhem. Read all the Heavy Metal News at MetalTalk.

MetalTalk Hellfest 2026 coverage can be found at https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/hellfest-2026.

This year’s MetalTalk team is:

Bogdan Bele

Sean Titley

Photography: 

Luke Vaughan

For Hellfest 2025, visit https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/hellfest-2025.

For Hellfest 2024, visit https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/hellfest-2024.

For Hellfest 2023, visit https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/hellfest-2023.

For Hellfest 2022, visit https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/hellfest-2022.

The post Sabaton, Limp Bizkit And Mayhem Complete Our Hellfest 2026 Coverage first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

Two titans of progressive music, guitarists Steve Hackett (Genesis) and Steve Rothery (Marillion), have just announced The Roaring Waves, an atmospheric instrumental album shaped by memory, imagination, and the elemental power of the sea. The record has been much talked about over the years, and it will now finally see the day on the 28th of August 2026 via InsideOutMusic. The first single “The Black Sea” is out now. You can watch the video here.
Read more…

Lars Gabriel delivers an expansive sonic experience with Journey, a mesmerizing blend of synth-pop, indie rock, and dream pop that explores identity, perception, and the search for meaning. Ethereal synths, shimmering guitars, and cinematic production create an immersive atmosphere, while the emotive vocal performance guides the listener through the song’s introspective themes. The arrangement evolves with patience and purpose, balancing experimental touches with memorable melodies that never lose their emotional core. Moody, atmospheric, and thought-provoking, Journey is a richly textured composition that invites repeated listens, revealing new layers and interpretations each time.

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California‘s Palm Desert might not be a location immediately synonymous with punk rock, but, just like CBGBs in New York and The Roxy in London, this arid wasteland incubated a rebellious DIY music scene whose impact still resonates. Inspired by local skateboarders’ imaginative quests to find new spaces in which to ride, bands such as Yawning Man and Across The River sought out desolate locales in which to spark up, plug in portable power generators and rock out, out of sight of the authorities.

Fuelled by beer, weed, acid and crystal meth, these impromptu, free-for-all assemblies became the stuff of local legend. And it was here that the teenage Josh Homme served his musical apprentice, in Kyuss, a brooding, intense, psychedelic punk band completed by his high school buddy Nick Oliveri on bass, vocalist John Garcia and drummer Brant Bjork.

“We were a little young to go to see Black Flag and the Misfits and GBH and Discharge without getting killed,” Homme recalled, “so we ended up creating what we wanted to hear those bands evolve into. In the desert, it was about having to make your own thing, and being isolated enough to do it without anyone fucking with you.”

Kyuss ended up recording four studio albums, peaking with 1994’s Welcome To Sky Valley, before imploding acrimoniously.

“Business started to dictate what we were doing,” says Brant Bjork, “and the spirit of creativity and camaraderie and brotherhood, all that made our band pure and organic, started to evaporate.”

It would have been all too easy for Josh Homme, the band’s most charismatic and confident character, to re-emerge from the wreckage with a vehicle which traded upon the cult success that his former band had enjoyed. Instead, following a summer serving as a touring guitarist in Screaming Trees, Homme purposefully took a hard left, renouncing stoner rock for something altogether more nimble, more abstract and more sensual.

With Queens Of The Stone Age, ‘The Ginger Elvis’ aspired to create “trance robot music… heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls.”

Inspired in equal measure by The Stooges, Misfits, Discharge, Can, Frank Sinatra, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash, the band’s self-titled 1998 debut album, with its motorik riffs, studied minimalism, louche Rat Pack swagger and obvious disdain for hard rock orthodoxy, represented both a razing of the past and a signpost to new horizons.

Is rock’n’roll in trouble Is it drowning somewhere and I don’t know?

Josh Homme

The wired, unhinged and stylistically promiscuous Rated R was an even bolder leap forward. Introduced by the remarkable Feel Good Hit Of The Summer, on which Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford joined Homme and his berserker sidekick Oliveri to deliver a verse resembling a junkie’s letter to Santa (“Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol”) and a single word chorus – the word “cocaine” gleefully stretched like bubblegum – it saw QOTSA anointed as “the new saviours of rock music” by broadsheet newspapers and fashionista style mags, much to Homme’s bemusement.

“Is rock’n’roll in trouble?” he asked drolly. “Is it drowning somewhere and I don’t know? I’ve been listening to good rock music since I was a kid. I mean, I love our music, and I want other people to love it as well, but I just don’t know that rock needed saving.”

Homme was right, obviously, but with Rated R racking up 100,000 UK sales. plus Album Of The Year accolades from Kerrang! and NME, his band were were now regarded as serious players in an industry which, via indie darlings The Strokes and The White Stripes, had suddenly fallen in love anew with guitar bands.

“[Our label] have suddenly realised they’ve got this cool little band on their hands, all ready to go,” Homme observed. “It’s almost like a challenge to stay ahead now. Some people may say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but I say, Fuck you. Catch me if you can motherfuckers.”

Expectations for the group’s third album were duly inflated… which Homme, forever a punk at heart, naturally interpreted as a green light to make Queens’ new songs louder, darker, weirder and more fucked-up.

“There are a lot of people who like heavy music but don’t want to listen to Creed or nu-metal bands,” he reasoned. “I think we can offer something a little more esoteric.”

“It’s a three-record plan,” Homme said at the time. “The first record needed to step away from Kyuss and announce a new sound, which was repetition, trance, and simplicity. Then the second record needed to fan the music out so we could display it and play whatever we wanted. So, the third record, to get it right, should combine the first two and go even further.”

Sessions for the third Queens Of The Stone Age album began in October 2001, with Homme confident that he had amassed his strongest set of songs to date.

Many of these had actually been recorded before, at the Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California, during the Homme-helmed Desert Sessions, freewheeling, spontaneous, experimental jam sessions involving the likes of PJ Harvey, Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, Masters Of Reality mainman Chris Goss (producer of three Kyuss album and both previous QOTSA long-players), Goatsnake/Earthlings’ vocalist Pete Stahl and more.

Homme imagined that he could recreate the loose, organic feel of these sessions in the studio with Queens, but the vibe with new producer Eric Valentine was markedly different, regimented, meticulous and not altogether fun. To Homme’s fury, word began to filter through that “the adults”, the executives at Interscope Records, were expressing concern over the album’s direction, or, more specifically, its lack of direction.

“To other people there seemed to be a lot riding on this record,” he noted pointedly, “and they ended up standing in our way trying to help. Our main thing we had to overcome was other people that were not involved with us and sort of pushing them to the side, whether gracefully or violently.”

One man who voluntarily stepped away from the project after a mere seven days, due to other obligations, was Queens’ drummer Gene Trautmann. Fortunately, Homme had a back-up option, namely former Nirvana drummer-turned-Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, a long-time friend.

“I called Dave and said, Do you want to finish this record?” Homme recalled. “He said, ‘I’m in Malibu. I’ll be there at six o’clock’.”

Being in Queens of the Stone Age was one of the greatest experiences of my life

Dave Grohl

“I first met Josh in 1992, at a Kyuss show at the Off Ramp in Seattle because he was touring with my friend Pete Stahl‘s band, Wool, and The Obsessed,” Dave Grohl told this writer in 2009. “This was the first time I’d seen Kyuss and I was blown away, they were fucking great. They seemed like us, like kids who grew up in the suburbs listening to rock ‘n’ roll records, doing petty crime and drugs, just a little vandals from the middle of nowhere.”

“Then we had QOTSA on tour with us for a really long time in 2000. Instead of putting ‘Queens Of The Stone Age’ on their dressing room door we used to put ‘Critic’s Choice’ because they were the coolest band in the world, and honestly, we thought that too. So in 2000, as we were touring with Queens, someone asked me what was my biggest regret of the year and I said that it was that I didn’t get asked to play on Rated R.

“So Josh said, ‘Dude, if you want to play on a couple of songs…’ Then, that day, I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, going to the beach, and he called and said, ‘Do you want to play on our whole record?’

“Josh and I have a connection musically that I just don’t have with anybody else: as a drummer, playing with him, we share this frequency that I haven’t shared with anyone else. It’s intangible and unspoken, almost like ESP. I made a U-turn, went straight to the studio, and we recorded the drums in like 10 days, maybe two weeks.”

“Dave came in and made these songs that I thought were good, really phenomenal,” marvelled Nick Oliveri. “It uplifted not only our spirit, but us as players, including Josh: his playing on it really made everybody come forward. Dave was a champion of all things. He helped us in so many ways we could never repay the guy.”

As the sessions finally gathered momentum, Homme hit upon a unifying concept to tie his band’s “eclectic, schizophrenic” new songs together: they would be presented as a selection of tracks aired on disparate radio stations dialled in on a night drive from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, a road trip Homme had undertaken countless times.

“When I’d do it, I didn’t have a stereo, all I had was a radio,” he recalled in 2002. “And it goes into weird religious stations and really bad, bad music on that trip through the middle of nowhere. I used to really enjoy the silence and then every once in a while the station you were at would all of a sudden let out a screech, and become a new station. I just wanted to bring that to a record somehow. It is kind of a concept record, but as if the word ‘concept’ didn’t suck.”

The idea was a masterstroke. With friends such as The Cramps’ Lux Interior, Eagles Of Death Metal’s Jesse Hughes and Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White recruited to voice mock radio station idents – “KRDL… we spoil music for everyone”, “KLON… we play the songs that sound more like everyone else than anyone else” – the album was given continuity and cohesion.

Crystallising QOTSA’s ‘last-gang-in-town’ outlaw cool, Songs For The Deaf is a wild, disorientating joyride into a grotesque world of sex, drugs, violence and death, laced with subtle black humour. On a diverse and challenging album, not everything quite worked – the scorched-earth punk of Six Shooter is disposable at best, while The Sky Is Fallin’ resembles a cast-off from co-producer Chris Goss’ Masters Of Reality – but when Homme’s band hit their mark, it’s irresistible.

Opener You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire boasts a storming route one riff and a manic Nick Oliveri screaming “Gimme some more!”, First It Giveth deals with chasing narcotic highs, Another Love Song is surf guitar-driven Motown metal and Go With The Flow is a deathless ode to squeezing every last drop of pleasure out of life.

Best of all is the kinetic No One Knows, a Josh Homme/Mark Lanegan co-write, where the thunderous interplay between guest Dave Grohl, Oliveri and Homme recalls Led Zeppelin at their most telepathically locked-in.

Like its desert setting, this is music without horizons, all heat, light and awe-inspiring elemental power.

Released on August 27, 2002, Songs For The Deaf debuted at number 4 in the UK, and peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. Its release was preceded by festival dates for the band, including an appearance at England’s Glastonbury festival, with Dave Grohl on drums.

This was all the more notable because, at the time, Grohl was supposed to be in a Hollywood recording studio making the fourth Foo Fighters album, One By One, a fact that understandably alarmed his bandmates. Some wondered privately whether Grohl might ever return. For a fleeting moment or two, the thought crossed Grohl’s mind too.

You invited the outsider in, and now the outsider’s gonna fuck things up

Josh Homme

“I did a one-off show with Queens at the Troubador [on March 7, 2002],” Grohl recalled, “and we walked offstage and Mark Lanegan said – and this was one of the few things that Mark Lanegan ever said to me – ‘You know, it’d be a shame just to do that only once’. My decision was purely musical and motivational.

“Being in Queens was one of the greatest experiences of my life. If you can say that you were a member of Queens Of The Stone Age that’s like wearing a patch on your chest that says ‘I Am A Badass’ for the rest of your life, because the only people that get to play in Queens Of The Stone Age are badass motherfuckers, and that’s the truth.

“Walking through the backstage area of a festival with Queens is like the moment in a Western where the saloon bar doors swing open and the piano player stops playing and everyone just stares. You have Josh, [Mark] Lanegan, [Nick] Oliveri and me walking in a straight line and it’s like being in the coolest gang. We never had a bad show. I was now playing drums in the best band I’d ever been in and fucking loving it.”

This busman’s holiday ended for Grohl at the Fuji Rock festival in Japan in July 2002.

“I started missing my friends,” he explained. “The Foo Fighters had become a family by this point and I’d been away from home for too long.”

“I always knew that Dave was going to go back to Foo Fighters,” Josh Homme admitted. “I was always trying to intimate that this wasn’t something the other guys needed to worry about. But band people, and I mean this in a very blanket way, are very easily rattled, because many bands don’t last, and they’re such an unpredictable animal that it’s easy to get your confidence rattled.

“What was great about that time was that Dave did go back, and that said that it’s possible to have a musical mistress: it would have been terrible if Dave had stayed in Queens because it would have eliminated and killed the suggestion that you can do multiple things. In a rare moment it had proved that having multiple personalities isn’t a bad thing for someone playing music. Once you feel you can do anything in music, that’s when you can get closer to God.”

Asked to ponder his band’s new found popularity in 2002, Homme had this to say: “Kyuss got noticed because it didn’t give a shit if anyone noticed it. Bands now scratch and they claw. I don’t wanna show up and go, Please can I get into this club? I want someone to ask me. That attitude is the reason why it’s still fun. It’s like being a deliberate outsider. You invited the outsider in, and now the outsider’s gonna fuck things up.”

Songs For The Deaf ensured that Homme’s band would be outsiders no more.

[Album artwork by Jon Zig]

Important question: Does tolerance suck?

Not all the time, clearly, as it’s often tied rather closely to the ever-important trait of patience. Additionally, developing a tolerance for certain things can and will open the potential to making someone / something much stronger. Have you ever seen monks in Shaolin taking endless kicks to the bojangles? Impressive. Unadvisable as balls, but impressive.

Spice level tolerance? Pretty cool. But people who use their majestic tolerance for all things Scoville scale-related as some weird flex can largely get in the sea. That said, I will always appreciate how the show Hot Ones flips that script into something wonderful.

Booze and drug tolerance? Now we’re getting into tricky terrain. Largely unhealthy, and a conceivable reason to perhaps show a modicum of concern if you get to a friend’s house and find either a two-story beer bong and / or a fat bag of dark purple weed called “Sorcerous Ogre Taint” tucked between the sofa cushions.

Which brings us to Despoiled Ethereal Purity.

Take a much younger version of me experiencing Loudness’s Thunder in the East back in the mid ‘80s and suddenly force this sophomore full-length from San Diego piledrivers Desecation into my snuggly ears? To be perfectly honest, I’m not even certain it would have registered as music, let alone a highly mutated form of heavy metal. I guess that’s what 40 years of maximum exposure to extreme metal will get you: Tolerance. (And dain bramage). Let’s go ahead and chart this evolution from, say, Loudness to King Diamond to Kreator to Deicide to Anata to Desecation—we have finally ascended into glorious madness, and the beatings will continue.

Them:
“Oh, I listen to everything!!”

You:

No more auspicious words can be uttered to a fan of brutal death metal than “Oh, I listen to everything!” Please, bless-ed buzzed pate of Frank thee Tank, let that phrase be said on a first date whilst firing across the galaxy in a chariot on the way to the local Sizzler. [serenely presses play]

Look, I really don’t know enough about anything to identify when music like this is being largely improvised, but it almost becomes comical how many riffs are thrown at innocent eardrums inside these 30+ minutes. With the above “Wormhole,” as is the case with every track here beyond the brief interlude that is “We Wait for Charon,” the listener is forced to withstand an unmitigated assault of riffs that come at you so fast and from so many angles that all you can hope to do is raise defensive hands in hopes of not ending the affair by looking for a frozen brontosaurus steak compress to ease your conquered face. How the hell does a band like this know which riffs and drum patterns to fire off when they play tunes like this from the stage? And kudos to Desecation for end-capping this total bushwhacker with a creepy time-stretched excerpt from Dylan Thomas’s poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

Vocals? Sure, I guess. But you can’t convince me that the voice you hear up and down this record ain’t coming from an angry Cassowary bird that’s pissed about you wandering into their territory. They’ll fuck you up, you know that, right? It’s a fucking dinosaur bird, Chuck Darwin, so wander into the game with a little bit of caution, unless you want this flightless bulldozer of a bird to punt your marbles right up into your guts: “Their strong legs allow them to jump up to 7 feet in the air and kick with enough force to break bones.”

Listen to that series of stern warnings grumbled out after that long howl about 50 seconds into “Congenital Dystrophy.” And hey, this song also shows that the band isn’t fully afraid of slowing things down to allow a scant few moments of… humor me here… rest.

What’s interesting is the fact that the clobbering and BREATHTAKING wall of noise that mows you over amidst initial spins eventually begins to open up on repeated listens. Surprise! The guitar work flashes some really snazzy nuances the further you dip. Sure, there are less than zero leads if you don’t count the weirdly pretty intro track, but melody absolutely does enter the picture. The closing moments of “Botched Cranial Biopsy” and “Examination of Your Respiratory Tract,” for example, and especially the outset of the album’s title track.

Still, the primary objective is to overwhelm the listener with a bonkers amount of speed (I’m guessing the drummer sweats more than Ted Striker in a nosedive) and battery, and Desecation manages to do so with a weirdly uplifting sense of flare. So, yeah, this isn’t actually a very dark record that will shift your mood into terrifically grim things as it hustles along. Instead, think of it more like… getting a deep tissue massage from a Silverback on bath salts: Holy crap, that’ll bruise, but you’ll be back for another sesh in the not-too-distant future, big boy.

So, I suppose this is the 10¢ question: Should you be concerned if you find a copy of Despoiled Ethereal Purity tucked between the cushions of your good bud’s couch? Nah, they’ve just reached a Shaolin monk’s level of zen tolerance as it relates to brutality, and that is a beautiful thing.

Didgeridoo-diddly-dive in, suckas!

The post Desecation – Despoiled Ethereal Purity Review appeared first on Last Rites.

Ahead of Independence Day in the US, Gene Simmons has voiced his views on patriotism, America’s place in the world, and why he believes the country has a problem with illegal immigration.

Kiss‘ vocalist/bassist shared his opinions during a set with his solo band at Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 3, ahead of celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“In case you don’t know it, you are blessed,” Simmons told the crowd, as transcribed by Blabbermouth. “You are living in the greatest fucking country on the planet. And that’s called USA. Okay, I wanna tell you why I took a minute to talk about America, because if you’ve been asleep the last 250 years, tomorrow is America’s 250th birthday.

“This is the greatest country,” he continued. “That’s why we’ve had anywhere from 20 million to 30 million illegal immigrants. Why? ‘Cause they are willing to break the law and come into the greatest country on the face of the planet, right here. We have more illegal immigrants than most countries have populations on the face of the planet. That’s a fact.

“I myself am an immigrant, but a legal one. I came through the lawful way. You wait in line, you respect the country, you respect its laws, and then you become a citizen of the United States of America. And in return, you get police who risk their lives to protect you.

“And you get first responders who are here for you. And if your house is on fire, you get fire departments that risk their lives to come put that fire out for you. You get a school system that’s yours, and everything is free. Cops, fire department, school — free. All you gotta do is follow the law and do it legally, okay?

“I’m honoured to say I’ve gotta get up at 3:30 this morning to catch a 5:00 a.m. flight because I’ve been asked by the White House to narrate the World War II Veterans honors in America’s 250th birthday tomorrow in Washington, D.C. And unless you guys think Fourth of July is just fireworks and all that, without our veterans, there would be nothing. There would be no America. There would be nothing.

“Politicians talk the talk but veterans put their lives out there. All gave some, some gave all. Don’t forget. So the next time you’re going to a Starbucks and you see somebody in uniform, step aside and make way for a real hero. That’s the least you can do.

“And if you don’t like America, please go back to where you fucking came from.”

Simmons regularly shares his view that musicians and celebrities should refrain from speaking about politics or current affairs.Unless the musician/celebrity in question is Gene Simmons.