The Word on Metal with Josh Nixon
April has the best local and abroad opportunities for neck damage (due to incessant thrashing) with the first couple weeks of the month alone, as I’m sure many of you will be reading, having consumed the Carcass/Black Dhalia Murder tilt in Sydney and the insane double header of Orange Goblin/Dr Colossus/ Astrodeath and Gatekreeper/Kruelty (phew!).
This reporting period kicks off with Swedish melodic death lords Scar Symmetry, who will lay waste to whatever remains of your skeletal integrity on Friday, 12 April. This is a big week at The Baso!
On Friday, 19 April at The Baso, you can travel through a post-apocalyptic world when Maitland’s Miruthan bring The Land of the Damned to town, immersing those in attendance in a world of zombies and villains.
The rouges gallery is long for the rest of this bill with Melbourne’s Kuntsquad, Gong death metallers Children of Perdition, Sydney-flavoured death doom in the form of Devoid Altar and Sydney’s blackened thrash band Asura. That’s a lotta villainy for 20 bucks! Get yer tickets here.
We’ve got several new local releases on our seasonal menu this month, either freshly plucked or about to be harvested, from local environs. Pilots of Baalbek dropped their second album, By The Seat Of Our Pants, and an excellent video for the lead single Cargo Cult, animated by Neptune Power Federation guitarist Inverted CrucuiFox. The band played Mixed Bill Madness on 23 March—which you either missed or went along to already —but you can catch them as they join Neptune for their album launch on Saturday, 27 April, at The Duke in Sydney.
Of course, you’re free to attend that show, but let it be known that The Pilots also have a regional flight booked for a Friday, 19 April slot at The Baso’s back room on a super-strong local bill that includes Voodoo Space Acid Kings, and Rawrus Tongue. Check out the record and get along to a gig! Get yer tickets here.
A welcome return home to my good mate Simon Murphy earlier this year has also created a welcome home to now 4/5ths Canberra band, Mental Cavity.
Taking no time to get one with things, the band released an EP entitled Waste Clearance, with four tracks of d beat infused death metal chiming in at a breakneck eight minutes.
Three originals and a cover of Autopsy make for a good time to check it out before the band is announced as the support for the hefty 4/20 or 20 April show at The Baso. Yes, the Suffocation Hymns From The Apocrypha tour has rounded out their line-up with the pioneering brutal assault, adding the Cavity to already announced tour buddies Revocation. Tickets at Oztix.
Another 50% Canberra band, Hekate, announced the long-awaited release of their sophomore album, House of Solomon, on Blackfarm Records. Dropping the single Cordelia on YouTube a couple of weeks ago.
The album is available online through the Blackfarm website, and I was chuffed to get a preview a while back. I’m happy to report that it’s a big step up from an already impressive debut.
You can catch the band at Sunburn on 27 April with a laundry list of Australia’s best stoner doom bands. Astrodeath, Bongcleaner, Budd, Bifter, Clagg, Droid, Elephant Orgy, Ghostsmoker, Goat Shaman, Iusa, Lucifungus, Master Leonard, Motherslug, Mourners, Moutain Wizard Death Cult, Rocky’s Pride and Joy, Smoke Witch, Sundowner and Zombie Hunger.
One huge international double bill I’ll be travelling for in July was Soundworks’ welcome announcement of the return of Louisiana’s Eyehategod and Goatwhore at Crowbar on Saturday, 27 July.
This is an absolutely tantalising tour from two of NOLA’s GOATS. This line-up features members of almost every notable NOLA band of all time, so you couldn’t ask for much more Louisiana if you tried!!!
Super welcome news is that the mighty Triumph of Death, Tom G Warrior’s unit that has been bringing the legendary legacy of the mighty Hellhammer to modern audiences over the past few years, is coming to Australia and The Baso on Wednesday, 14 August. Get yer tickets here.
I witnessed this first- hand at Dark Mofo in 2022, and you will want to get your ticket for this one early!
Really digging the new album Gilded Sorrow by The Obsessed. Wino gets a second guitar player in the band, and it’s working out great; their clip for the album’s heaviest riffs, Bombed Back To The Stoned Age, is killer, and it’s great to see the great man putting it all together; hoping to see a tour here come Q3/4 this year.
Right, that’s it this month. See you next.
