Seattle heavy pop and progressive alternative rock quartet The Home Team have announced a headline UK tour for November 2026. The major autumn run serves as a celebratory precursor to their highly anticipated live appearances at Slam Dunk Festival this coming weekend, where they are scheduled to share stages alongside the likes of President. The … Continue reading The Home Team announce November 2026 UK headline tour
Enigmatic, anonymous metal outfit President have officially announced the details of their highly anticipated debut full-length album, Blood Of Your Empire, set for release on 4th September 2026 via Atlantic Records. In tandem with the album announcement, the band has mapped out a 13-date autumn headline campaign across the UK and Europe. Operating under a … Continue reading President announce debut album ‘Blood Of Your Empire’ and autumn 2026 UK tour dates
Acclaimed biographer Jimmy McDonough’s new book Gary Stewart: I Am From The Honky-Tonks goes deep into the rough-and-tumble life of Stewart, one of country music’s unsung greats. My own first exposure to Stewart came via an incredible cover of his song “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” on Wednesday’s 2022 album Mowing The Leaves Instead Of Piling ‘Em Up. The cover quickly became one of my all-time favorites, and it piqued my interest about the source material. So I’m excited to share this new essay from Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman discussing her love of Stewart’s music and reflecting on McDonough’s book. —Chris DeVille
I am often late to the party when it comes to artists who may have already been around for years. I will admit that Plini and Sungazer were both bands who were really in peripheral vision only prior to this Electric Bristol show.
I was unsurprised that a virtuoso guitarist, whose debut album Electric Sunrise prompted Steve Vai to comment over a decade ago that “When I saw Plini play, I felt that the future of exceptional guitar playing was secure,” could have a good pop at filling one of the bigger venues in Bristol.
There are many people who find this music deeply absorbing. For me, it was a night of discovery and appreciation of true high-level ability.
Plini – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
Plini (Plini Roessler-Holgate) takes the stage flanked by a trusty trio of musicians. Simon Rowe on bass, Jake Howsam Lowe on guitars and drummer Chris Allison provide the vehicle for the Australian to showcase his talent, and over the 90 minutes of the show, all four demonstrate why technically Vai was correct.
The musicianship flows beautifully, with each member of the band (apart from Allison) switching to instruments with more strings. Eight-string guitars, six-string bass? No worries. It is all here.
It is a set based on his most recent album, An Unnameable Desire, with six tracks, including two of the opening trio, the title track, and Ciel getting an airing.
Plini – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
Virtuosity only counts for so much, though, and although the healthy-sized audience was soaking up every note, there were times I found my attention wandering.
It is ironic that I had spent the previous weekend in Zottegem, Belgium, lapping up post-rock bands of all shapes and sizes. Ironic because this is another outfit who avoid lyrics. But Plini has a couple of key strategies to maintain attention. The main one is getting the audience a little “weirded out.”
At various points in the evening, we have the audience making farmyard animal noises instead of applause or cheers. Of course, getting the crowd to moo is suspiciously close to a boo, something that Empyre used to make their own strategy.
Plini – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
At the start of the penultimate song, The Time Will Pass Anyway, there is a surreal wall of death, one side mooing and the other imitating a rooster, before a gentle yet lively mosh pit briefly kicks into life.
It is something of a challenge to watch musicians as skilful as this. Rowe looks like he could be out for a walk on a Sunday, whilst Allison’s controlled percussion anchors everything. And Howsam Lowe is no slouch either, trading licks or solos with the main man.
Plini – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
It is a lively evening, closing with Electric Sunrise to a huge ovation. Plini is a maestro, his band are exemplary musicians, and it is an honour to watch such talent up close. I may not have the attention span needed for such intricate work, but I can certainly admire and appreciate it.
Sungazer – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
Sungazer
With 56,000 streams a month, Sungazer are hardly unknowns. Tonight they strike a nerve, which is welcomed.
Their avant-garde progressive jazz fusion is compelling, as is the between-song banter from bassist and founder Adam Neely. Having missed the band at ArcTangent in 2025, this was the perfect opportunity to find out why the band straddle genres.
Sungazer – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
It is the dominance of saxophonist Jared Yee that stands out, although once more, the combination of Neely, drummer Shawn Crowder and guitarist Joshua De La Victoria make this such a compelling band.
Their style is relaxed, consummate musicians going about their art with a gentle confidence. The songs are driven yet not forced, with the interplay between Neely and Crowder and the audience a true highlight. They have the audience dancing, well, shuffling to the Sungazer two-step, and there are smiles all round.
Sungazer – Electric Bristol – 21 May 2026. Photo: Paul Hutchings/MetalTalk
A striking uniform approach is there on stage, too. The band appear in matching tie-dye outfits, which look like whoever oversaw laundry had made a drastic cock-up.
But their skill is in making things look easy, and they do that magnificently. They even eschew the laptop and click track for the last song. There is a ceremonious closing of the equipment before they hit a very impressive cover of Return To Forever’s Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy to close out a massively enjoyable set.
How miserable do you want your chugs? Because just in case your answer was “very”, Lithuania have seen fit to export abject desolation for your waiting ears. The order of business here is a withering combination of sludgy breakdown onanism meeting shrill, unnerving ambience hovering overhead, like vultures circling the gladiator pit. There’s an enfolding, ethereal feel to it – those simple but piercing melody lines smothering you while syncopated chugs take hammers to your limbs. Diaphanous veils of drifting refrains that inject this forlorn character into each track on top of the constant thuggish beatdowns. This approach is more often than not formidable. “Skleistis” feels like being trapped in a collapsing steelworks, the sickening plunge of downtuned open strings like tumbling girders while lachrymose plucked notes echo out over crumbled walls.
Vocalist Vaidotas Darulis has a particularly agonised bellow that felt almost like schadenfreude to enjoy. He howls like a man with problems, this jagged hardcore roar dripping with pathos. It’s a loud, forceful album that washes over and through you. Waves, waves, waves. A horde of tidal swells. There’s something meditative about water. It applies here too; distortion borne on cliff-edge tsunamis, pale stallions cresting Poseidon’s raking fingers. The album feels like a deluge; almost ambient in texture. The sheer heaviness of it blurs into static, somewhere below the earth flows, liquid clasp about an iron core, it’s a body of matter, a thing built of enshrouding distortion, “Skepsis” at 4.02 bears down with a combination of impossibly downtuned riffs boring mantle elements out black miles down below and the high-pitched screech of the flayer’s work up above. The grooves are brutal; “Svertas” is less a song than five and a half minutes of uppercuts to the guts, one groaning bottom-string riff after another, each thudding home with the implacable thump of an underslung grenade launcher. But that compliment is one that could more or less apply to every song on here – and therein lies the rub.
As effective as it is, there does come a time where the album feels to have rather made it’s point, and attempts to spice things up – a rattling hip hop beat on “Trukmè” for example – are interesting but don’t necessarily gel well with the downbeat punishment elsewhere. I think that if the band had sporadic moments where they really accelerated it could do a lot to contrast the groove that they prioritise, taking the album from one that flattens you to one that could straight smash you through the floor. The band have done this before to great effect – “lavondemes” on their “Savigaila” album opens by angle grinding your face to the bone with weaponized blastbeats and sickly, jarring chords. Something similar would have gone leagues towards salving the somewhat one-note impression the album leaves you with. I find that I enjoy each song in isolation but altogether in a tracklist, it’s undeniably a bit on the repetitive side.
Do you like Heriot? Or The Acacia Strain? How about Nemertines or Humanity’s Last Breath? If your answer to any or all of the above is “yes” then you owe Erdve your attention. It’s a churning caldera of unsavoury downtempo grunt, and even if I would welcome a touch more variation the pure heaviness of it on a case-by-case basis cannot be gainsaid.
EP Where Dreamers Fall Coming Autumn 2026 “The entire 5-song EP Where Dreamers Fall is essentially a ‘Car EP’ – I tracked the core vocals and guitars in my Ford Freestyle during lunch breaks. Being […]
Six-time platinum Finnish rock titans The Rasmus have announced a massive 23-date European and UK England headline tour for early 2027. Following an incredibly busy spell on the global road circuit, the run will see the band delivering their unforgettable stage show to the UK arena and club landscapes throughout February and March, performing classic … Continue reading The Rasmus announce headline dates across England in 2027
Photo by Ricky Mina Watch YOUR SPIRIT DIESâ âWhispers In Omenâ video HERE. South Carolina metal/hardcore goliaths YOUR SPIRIT DIES are pleased to present their video for âWhispers In Omen.â The track comes by way […]
