Baroness

Saw these guys play the Fleece last week.  Which turned out to be quite good timing, as the very next day they managed to drive their tour bus off a 30ft viaduct in the next town over.

So we can say with some confidence that they play music better than they park.  What else do we know about Baroness?

They are from Savannah, Georgia.  Frontman John Baizley also produces some very fine artwork, and has something of the ghost pirate aspect about him - in a certain light his head appears to be a skull with a beard.  Which is cool.  They play awesome metal which frequently spirals off on proggy tangents, without ever seeming like moronic headbangers or tedious beardstrokers.  And they like that twin guitar thing that Thin Lizzy and Mastodon seem to like so much.

Baroness are the greatest band in the world ever.  Also the most hospitalised band in the world.

Get well soon chaps.  Thanks for the mindblowing gig, and sorry our fine weather, road networks and local geography all conspired to try and kill you.







Website: http://baronessmusic.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/yourbaroness
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YourBaroness
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_(band)

Twin Zero

A little while back, the very excellent earthtone9 announced that they reforming to play some shows and put out a record and stuff.

And there was much rejoicing.

Sadly, before they could reform it was necessary for them to split up. This made me very sad, and for a while the world was a bleak and uninviting place. The only slight glimmers of hope came in the form of the various other musical projects that kicked off featuring members of earthtone9; but by and large these could all be filed under the heading "Not earthtone9". It's not that they were particularly bad; it was just hard to listen to stuff that sounded a bit like earthtone9 and not want to be listening to earthtone9 instead.

Twin Zero were the one exception. Even though frontman Karl Middleton's distinctive vocal was an obvious reminder of the earthtone9 glory days, the twin drummer twiddly guitar sprawling space prog of Twin Zero was quite a different proposition.

Twin Zero are apparently still a going concern, although little has been heard of them since the release of the epic The Tomb To Every Hope almost six years ago; and if there's one downside to earthtone9 reforming, it's that it may take even longer for new Twin Zero material to appear.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/twinzero

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Zero

Amplifier

Saw them live last week, and now can't get enough of their space-prog riff domination.

The thing about the word "prog" is that it rather conjures up images of hour long flute epics based around hobbits, or something. And that's really not what Mancunian three piece Amplifier are all about.

However, their most recent release is a two hour epic cosmic guitar epic based around a space-faring, dark matter trading cephalopod, or something.

Which does sound kind of prog.

Consequently, it can be a bit difficult to explain to people just how damn good this band is. And all the other stock phrases - driving rhythms, wall of sound, sweeping epic guitars, soaring vocals - just make them sound a bit like the band U2 think they are.

And Amplifier aren't anywhere near that shit, I swear.

Website: http://www.amplifiertheband.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/amplifiertheband

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplifier_(band)