Metalise Winter Warmer - Massive fests, local metal at its best, and a brutal gig calendar at your behest!

With Josh Nixon

The mercury is dropping faster than a Coalition capitulation over getting me vaccinated sometime this year, but it doesn’t mean that there are not – despite the Victorian situation – a dearth of riffs one can not loose themselves in as the frost settles in.

Temtris kick off on Saturday, 5 June at The Basement with a full performance of their 8th studio release Ritual Warfare as well as few tracks from the back catalogue. Clarity of Chaos and Red Sea are along for the ride and your tickets are on sale through the Basement ticket site.

Monday, 7 June at The Basement hosts a bit of an initiative for our UC students and I’m sure the gamut of genres will be run through on the night of Live at the Basement Uni Rock UC M.U.S.I.C. It’s a free event, but in order for us to maintain Covid arrangements you will need to register your attendance through The Basement’s ticket site.

Chain Tombstone & The Deadmen have a launch at The Basement on Friday, 11 June for their newest slab Circus of Gore which actually hit the streets in January. Axiomatic Theory and Black Heart are joining the festivities and entry is a low, low $13 through the Basement ticket site.

Mucho Sonar are reigniting their Covid delayed Murdochracy tour from their self titled 2020 EP release. The band play The Basement on 12 June with a soaring performance from the excellent Pilots of Baalbek and Rawrus Tongue from Wollongong. The Basement ticket site will get you there.

Destroy All Lines are presenting Justice for the Damned on their Pain is Power Australian tour on Thursday, 17 June with the intimidating Antagonist AD, Kid Presentable and Facecutter. Tickets are on sale but you better be quick and grab them through the Destroy All Lines website today!

If you fancy a trip down to even colder climes, I might suggest the weekend of the 17 – 19 June for this years Dark Mofo festival which announced its winter program in May.

The full program runs 16-22 June and features a tonne of amazing things done in the way that only the Dark Mofo team can do, transforming Hobart into something unique the world over. Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore kicks off events on the 16th, Lo! headline a heavy card on Thursday 17th, Om make a surprise visit headlining the Friday the 18th, and Canberra’s own Pod People feature on the Screams From The Abyss with Brisbane’s death metal legends Misery, The Amenta playing their first live show in seven years, Black metallers Altar Defecation, and locals Growth.

And there’s the winter feast hall and the MONA museum’s activities and a slew of other events. All of these are ticketed, check the website for the full program.

Polaris have been dominating the Australian scene of late and their Vagabond east coast tour on Wednesday, 23 June is currently sold out, but there’s a good chance that the ACT government might extend the capacity for that one. Just in case keep an eye and ear out for the Destroy All Lines site to release some more tickets. That show will also have Deadlights and Above, Below along.

Witchskull also pulled out not one but a whole tour full of amazing shows for winter with the aptly named March of Winter tour that takes in Sydney, Melbourne (maybe), Brisbane, Canberra and the cherry on top, a plush spot in the INCREDIBLE bill for this years Blacken Open Air festival in Alice Springs. The Canberra show sees the boys return to The Basement with an almost festival worthy line-up including new album toting Mental Cavity, Astrodeath, Mountain Wizard Death Cult and new local band BC. That gig is on 24 July and tickets are on sale through Oztix.

Blacken Open Air takes place 30 July through to 2 August and the line-up is insane. Thy Art is Murder, Psycroptic, Amyl and the Sniffers, Clowns, Southeast Desert Metal, Shepherds Riegn, Claim the Throne, Lo!, Ruins, Mountain Wizard Death Cult, Black Rheno, Potion, Descend to Acheron, Dead, Furor, Astrodeath, Dawn, Nglah, The Neptune Power Federation, Fuxache, Diskust, The Holy Dimes, and Diploid are among the first (first!) announcement of bands with the full line-up due to drop soon. You better be quick as tickets through the Trybooking are evaporating at a speed of knots.

Closer to home, the Live at The Polo, on Saturday, 10 July, hosts With a Heavy Heart 8 doom fest with a crushing line-up headlined by Australia’s long serving death doom masters Cruciform. Illimitable Dolor, Futility, Burden Man and Dust Devil round out the morose affair and fingers crossed that the new Futility record we be available on wax on the night.