Tuesday, August 4, 2026
The Cosmic Clash

hard rock

QOTSA 3 ACL TV Nov 20
Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: The seance will be televised – Queens of the Stone Age ACL TV taping

Robert Dean 2100 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Marcel Proust was a dark-minded poet-philosopher, once musing: “Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.” Imagine him at a Parisian café with Queens of the Stone Age mastermind Josh Homme, trading cigarettes and wine. Would they challenge death or toast to it? These thought and more came as QOTSA’s Austin City Limits TV taping took place on November 18 at ACL Live. 

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Boris Mohawk Drew Doggett
Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Boris brought metal shapeshifting to Mohawk

Case Cockrell 2111 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Heavy metal in 2025 is in a healthy, hell-charged state. Bands are experimenting with the genre like Deafheaven, Full of Hell, Sunn O))), and even Austin acts like Portrayal of Guilt. For Tokyo, Japan’s Boris, a wave of extreme metal shapeshifting has paved the way for an everlasting gauntlet that’s redefining heavy music for 2025. With releases that dabble in drone metal, doom metal, and noise/experimental rock, Boris arrived for a Tuesday night gig in downtown Austin that came as a stop on their US tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark tenth studio album Pink. For their third local appearance in two years, the Japanese berserkers stormed the stage at Mohawk in the Red River Cultural District yet again to astronomical results. 

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Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: Nuclear Daisies make a splash at Hotel Vegas

Robert Dean 1590 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Every once in a while, you’ll be at a show and wag your finger because you just know. That familiar light pops on that a music nerd can recognize when the band onstage isn’t just another local band; they’ve got the sound that moves beyond “this is good” to “this is international.” I’ve been to easily over a thousand shows in my life. I have seen many a band. Sometimes, you catch a Spiritual Cramp and can see from a million miles away, “these guys are gonna blow up,” and slowly but surely, those tours keep getting bigger. I said the same thing about Fontaines D.C., and after catching Austin’s Nuclear Daisies onOctober 28 at Hotel Vegas, I think it’s pretty obvious they have all the correct DNA to make a splash. Some of us can remember when Die Spitz was playing Chess Club. Now, they’re headlining Stubbs.

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Die Spitz Stubb's Drew Doggett
Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Die Spitz sold-out Stubb’s for debut album release

Case Cockrell 2227 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

A sold-out show at Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin can be one of the most treacherous live music experiences in the downtown area. For the occasion of hometown heroes Die Spitz, exceptions had to be made to celebrate their debut album release Something To Consume via Jack White’s Third Man Records on Friday, October 24. The Austin hard rock quartet has been busy the last couple of years, racking up multiple headlining tours, opening slots for the likes of Amyl & The Sniffers, Viagra Boys, and Sleater-Kinney, and dropping new tracks ahead of their recent full-length studio release. For their homecoming after multiple stints worldwide, Die Spitz brought fellow Austin acts The Opera and Fuck Money to help them celebrate this monumental occasion. 

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Coalesce promo photo
Live MusicReviewRobert Dean

Live music review: Coalesce Invented Your Favorite Band and You’ve Probably Never Heard of Them

Robert Dean 8622 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

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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Semihelix HSN 2025 13th Floor Troy Gonzales
Greg AckermanLive MusicPhotos

Live music photos: Hot Summer Nights featured Andrew Cashen, Semihelix, Portrayal of Guilt and more

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The Red River Cultural District’s cover-free Hot Summer Nights event took place last weekend in venues all over the downtown neighborhood July 24-26. Nearly 150 primarily Austin-area artists took to the stage at Mohawk, 13th Floor, Elysium, Chess Club and a dozen other RRCD venues. This is the eighth year the neighborhood organization has organized the event which spawned from its original sister event, Free Week which takes place the first week of January each year. Resound Presents founder, Graham Williams is credited with originating that event while he was working as a talent booker at the original Emo’s on Red River and Sixth Street. featured in this photo story is Andrew Cashen and Disciples of Creation, shoegaze/psych rockers, Queen Serene, Pearl Z, Sexpop, Mujeres Podridas, Stop Motion Orchestra, Portrayal of Guilt, Semihelix and lots more.

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Hawt Dawg Fest 3 2025 contestants Troy Gonzales
Greg AckermanLive MusicPhotos

Live music photos: Hawk Dawg 3 with Tear Dungeon, Queen Serene and Dregs

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An ignominious event, Hawk Dawg 3 took place on a rainy July 4 at Red River Cultural District favorite Mohawk with a hot dog eating contest that left no wiener untouched. The Cosmic Clash even had staff photographer and writer Drew Doggett joining the fun with our man trying to stuff as many dogs into his face as possible (evidence below) but the main event of the day party which got going at 4 p.m. was headliners, Tear Dungeon, fronted by Andrew Cashen (A Giant Dog, Andrew Cashen and the Disciples of Creation) with a bevy of well-known local players did their best ATX approximation of shock rock acts like Gwar complete with masks, spewing blood, mosh pits and stage dives. Fellow local acts, Queen Serene and Dregs joined the party.

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Greg AckermanLive MusicPhotos

Live music photos: Third annual Big Dumb Fest by Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol at Mohawk

Greg Ackerman 3916 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Austin hard rock band, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol hosted their third annual Big Dumb Fest June 14 at legendary Red River Cultural District venue, Mohawk. The self-styled Doom Wop band curates the lineup themselves, hand-picking each local act invited. This year’s roster included Bat Lips, Gus Baldwin and the Sketch, Glime, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, Subpar Snatch and Gran Moreno for an all night affair. BDF included food pop-ups from Bad Larry’s Burgers, Grandpa’s Glizzy’s and Sucio Boy Burgers to feed the hungry hard rock fans attending.

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DFA at Empire Troy Gonzales
LiveMike CosmicReview

Live music review: Death from Above You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine tour stop at Empire

Mike Cosmic Cota 3825 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Canadian rockers Death From Above (also known as Death from Above 1979 or DFA) delivered an electrifying performance to an enthusiastic crowd last Friday at Austin’s Empire Garage. The duo, comprised of bassist and synth player Jesse F. Keeler and drummer and vocalist Sebastien Grainger, played their critically acclaimed album, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, in its entirety. It has become a sort of tradition for bands to tour and play albums in entirety, to celebrate the albums anniversary. Indeed DFA are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album. The tour began last Summer in UK

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Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: Metal madness with GWAR at Radio East

Case Cockrell 4645 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

It’s Halloween every day in GWAR land. The Richmond shock metal outfit has been at it with their comically serious hustle since 1984.  Despite numerous lineup changes and the untimely passing of David “Oderus Urungus” Brockie, the chaos, vibe, feel, spew, and unhinged madness at their shows remain intact. At Austin’s Radio/East on Thursday night, the long-running spectacle ensured nothing was safe in their mesmerizing presentation.

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Tear Dungeon 2 HV SXSW 2025 Troy Gonzales
Case CockrellLive MusicReview

Live music review: SXSW 2025 finished with Space Agency Booking, Webberville Block Party

Case Cockrell 4477 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Austin’s South by Southwest finished things up with countless showcases that made the last two days of the music festival a pick-and-choose affair that didn’t let up until the crack of 2 a.m. on Saturday night. For most festival goers, energy can run slim on these last two days, and seeing what you can before the festival’s end is essential to closing the book on yet another March festival edition. Here’s who we closed out our SXSW with on the final two days of our festival experience at Hotel Vegas for Space Agency Booking’s annual showcase along with a closing festival celebration at the Webberville Block Party followed by a return to Hotel Vegas to close out SXSW 2025.

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