This week the greatest band in the world ever is...: Will Haven

Downtuned, uncomplicated, heavy, groovy, dark.

I got into these guys towards the end of 2001 with the release of their frankly superb third album, Carpe Diem; just in time for them to break up less than a year later. Fuckers. Three quarters of the band (Jeff Irwin - guitar, Mike Martin - Bass and Mitch Wheeler - drums) carried on with various other projects with various other people, such as Ghostride and The Abominable Iron Sloth.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, they reformed in 2005 and embarked on a co-headline jaunt with sludge metal behemoths Crowbar the next year.

This was a good thing.

The only problem was that singer Grady Avenell's wife got taken ill in France just before the UK dates, and so wouldn't be joining the rest of the band in the UK.

This was a bad thing.

But vocal duties on the tour were taken up by whoever happened to be around at the time; Craig B of Aereogramme and Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro for the Scottish date; and Mikey D of Skindred and Kirk Windstein of Crowbar when we saw them in Newport; so the shows went ahead. And Avenell rejoined the tour for the next date in Portsmouth; so we went to see them there too.

This was a good thing.

They should have come back for another headlining tour in 2007, but shortly before setting off it was announced that Avenell would be leaving the band, to be replaced by long time friend and Red Tape frontman Jeff Jaworski. Jaworski can be seen starring as a drunken gutter-inhabiting bum about 1m 10s into this, the stunningly low budget video to Will Haven's "hit" Carpe Diem (from the afore mentioned album of the same name). Moments later, Chino Moreno of Deftones gets carjacked by an angry Avenell...

Avenell's departure was at worst a mild disappointment; but the tour promoters decided that no-one would be interested in seeing Will Haven without their original singer guy (despite the well-received gigs of 2006), and so cancelled the whole tour. The band themselves managed to organise just a single date at a pokey little dive in London called The Metro Club. I'm in there somewhere...

What's going on with Will Haven nowadays? Damned if I know. Apparently Avenell is back in the band again, Jaworski is still in the band, a rhythm guitarist has come and gone, and original bassist Mike Martin has left to be replaced by one of the guys from Slipknot... it's all terribly confusing.