One of the biggest draws to this year’s Levitation Festival in Austin this month is New Orleans’ swamp weirdos, Acid Bath. If you’re reading this and underground metal with a Louisiana flair ain’t in your wheelhouse, lemme get you right: this is the band everyone at the festival can’t miss.
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The kids are all right. For a while there, it seemed like the industrial scene was dead as disco, but after catching Austin’s Street Sects open for King Yosef and Youth Brigade at the 29th Street Ballroom Wednesday night, it’s a fair take to conclude that something’s bubbling up in the industrial scene like it did with hardcore and punk, with waves of new, young fans finding the music, in part to being chronically online. The underground is finding its way, even if it’s via TikToks and Instagram blowing bands up – whatever, it’s better than Sabrina Carpenter
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I get that Jeff Buckley is beloved. I know people with tattoos of his lyrics. Listening to it, I was taken to a place of feeling like, it was too dated for me, that I felt like people loved this record for its mythology of Buckley dying young and tragically more than the actual musical weight of the record, that his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” made him so deep. It got me thinking about hype, legacy, and ultimately, Mark Lanegan.
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Generally, something is lacking in spirit when attending a legacy show. Artists who’ve been in the game forever can feel
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After a tumultuous few months, the cavern in our hearts is about to close: The Lost Well is finally ready to (re)open. After some nefarious Austin money shit went down, the famed heavy metal haven for weirdos and castaways was forced to close, leaving many in the city feeling like a friend had died. Yet, the mighty Lost Well returns from the dead.
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I’ve seen a lot of things in my years of going to rock and roll shows. I have experienced a man in a rubber sex mask spit fake blood into a child’s face. Whenever Tear Dungeon plays, there is always a chance of something insane happening. Between roof climbs, the highest stage dives, a garage being ripped down to the studs (see: their show at the now-defunct Ghost Cat Lounge) the band has established a culture of chaos at their shows, that if you’re here, being an absolute psycho is A-OK. The band’s show at Radio East on Saturday, August, 9 was no exception
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One of the joys of the chaotic internet is that legendary bands never truly die—they just slumber beneath the surface, waiting to drag themselves from the muck like Godzilla and roar back into the stratosphere. Coalesce, the Kansas City hardcore pioneers who helped birth metalcore in the ’90s, has been one of those beasts. During my annual hometown pilgrimage to Chicago this July, I discovered Coalesce was playing with local post-metal heavies Pelican at the gorgeous Thalia Hall in Pilsen. Having not seen them since probably 2000 or 2001, I had to witness whether middle age had dulled their legendary violence.
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Music is like an emotional sledgehammer to our lives; it’s the soundtrack to moments, to milestones. Everyone has those songs that, upon hearing them, transport them back in time. Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” is that time machine for many, a raucous small rip of mind fuck that fuels speeding cars, hot sex, or wild montages of cocaine and whiskey medicine. It’s a few moments of perfection, which the band never intended to be anything but album filler. That’s the majesty of the band – they created a genre: Heavy Metal. And the four lads from Birmingham experienced their fruits in real-time. Yesterday, Ozzy Osbourne, the King of Metal, passed on
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Someone online said something profound about Ozzy’s final performance with Black Sabbath at Villa Park in their hometown of Birmingham, England on July 5: they called him a tired king. And as that tired king looked out over his court, with the whole world watching, he gave one last welcome to those still loyal to his heavy metal kingdom.
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I wanted to give you a few new things to listen to if you’re in the market for new ear candy. When the world is a constant depression machine, the power of music is unmatched, a salve that can make us feel human again when there’s just too much punishment on our hearts and souls and by the grace of god, some caveman, somewhere, figured out that if you beat a few rocks together with sticks over a cowhide, the beautiful noise happened.
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I bitch about Austin a lot—parking, traffic, rent prices. But every once in a while, the city gets it right. Not So Fun WKND at The Far Out Lounge March 8 was one of those moments. The all-day fest with Trapped Under Ice, Parade of Flesh, God’s Hate and many others took place at the popular South Austin venue. An opening party was held Friday, March 7 at Sagebrush with Suburban Scum, Dmize, Creeping Death and more. Hardcore bands from across the country descended on Austin, turning the weekend into a cathartic release of bad vibes and raw energy.
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