Busy month for local guitar player Rohan Todd with not one but two absolutely killer releases with two bands and a bunch of shows around their launches coming this summer.

Mental Cavity will release their second full length album Neuro Siege through three labels: Brilliant Emperor, Medusa Crush and Oblivious Maximus Records on LP, CD, digital, and tape on the Friday, 6 December and the band are supporting Crowbar at Crowbar in Sydney on the very same day. The local launch will take place on the Thursday, 6 February at Transit Bar with Blight Worms and Facecutter.

A couple of tracks have been dripfed along with a video and another is on the way. Ripper of an album, so chuck it on your Christmas list.

Rohan’s other band is an altogether darker experience. Ploughshare have collated their latest harvest in the form a new EP entitled Tellurian Insurgency. The reviews and press say they’re a black and death metal blend, but I’ve always found their sound to be more in the black metal camp in terms of oppressive atmosphere and aesthetic. Maybe it’s that their execution is so high quality that’s where the technical death metal comparison is drawn.

The EP is launched at The Basement on the Saturday, 30 November with a killer line-up including Sydney’s Sumeru, Burden Man, and Yoko Oh No.

To warm you up for that show, there’s a KILLER gig at Transit Bar on Friday, 29 November with Sydney black thrashers Bastardizer coming to create bangovers and hangovers. The “night of darkness” features Mytile Vey Lorth, Black Mountain, and Auld to warm into the blast beats with some doom. At 15 bucks you can’t go wrong.

That same weekend, Canberra acts Lucifungus, Pod People, and Witchskull head to Victoria to play the inaugural Sunburn stoner doom festival on Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th at the Tote in Melbourne with Whitehorse, Peeping Tom, Potion, Earth Tongue, Yanomamo, Bloodnut, Sloven, Reaper, Burn the Hostages, Dr Colossus, and Thaw.

With Lucifungus enjoying rave reviews for their debut, Witchskull going into the studio for album number three, and Pod People emerging from hibernation, that bodes well for doomy sounds in 2020.

Wolves In The Throneroom haven’t dropped a new album since the great Thrice Woven a couple of years back, but that’s not stopping them making a welcome return to The Basement on the Monday, 2 December. The tour includes Melbourne black metal super group King. The boys are about to release their second full length album Coldest of Cold on Friday, 22 November and you can check the video for the first single Star on the YouTubes. Ploughshare also playing this gig, as are with Claret Ash.

Does it need to be mentioned here that Iron Maiden are touring in May with Killswitch Engage? Probably not. But for internationals there’s still time to pick up Marty Friedman tickets for the Saturday, 14 December shred fest at The Basement also!

There’s so much international action in the 1st quarter of next year for Christmas present tickets too; Cattle Decapitation, Sacred Reich, Vio-lence, Jinjer and The Exploited all before March.

Not really brutal, but worth mentioning is that Bob Log III is at Transit Bar on Friday, 27 December which should prove to be a great Christmas present/hangover shaker!

And finally, an early warning for Saturday, 25 January with The Neptune Power Federation coming to town to play with the Pilots of Baalbek at the Transit Bar. Their new album Memoirs of a Rat Queen is out and you can read my review in this very issue or online (it’s true; click here). Going to be an unmissable show.