heavy metal
Kieron Tyler
Fusion is a pretty difficult word to deal with. Miles Davis's Bitches Brew might have inspired a raft of jazzers to embrace rock, but an awful lot of the crossover that followed – like prog rock – became the musical equivalent of the love that dare not speak its name. Shoot!, the debut album from Norway’s Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen, might fit that bill, but it’s not that straightforward.A formally educated guitarist, she was the 2009 Molde International Jazz Festival’s Jazz Talent of the Year. Her work with The Trondheim Jazzorkester and her own Trio Thomassen (whose repertoire includes the Read more ...
Russ Coffey
You may know Harry Shearer better as Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons. His wife, Judith Owen, is as well known for her recent stage show with Ruby Wax, Losing It, as her own albums. But though they may have limited street recognisability, in the three cities they call home they are legendary for their hospitality. theartsdesk sampled some of this warmth in their London residence where, over tea, we discussed, amongst other things, dwarf choreography, mental illness and hanging out with Metallica.The night before Owen was giving a promotional concert for her new album, Some Kind of Comfort, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This might not have been a bad album if Lou Reed wasn't on it, but its 95 minutes would still have been 50 per cent too long. Not being privy to the inner workings of the Metallica universe, I have no idea why the speaker-bursting veterans thought that working with Reed might be to their advantage, unless they'd fallen for Lou's own propaganda about Metal Machine Music being a masterpiece. In the end, the band gathered in the studio to whip up a batch of piledriver riffs and broody instrumental backdrops, over which Reed has been permitted to intone lyrics (said to be inspired by Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, all women were dressed by Frederick's of Hollywood and all men were a cross between David Lee Roth and Jon Bon Jovi. The Eighties-set Rock of Ages is so outlandish, it might as well be set on another planet. Instead, the all-singing, all-dancing action centres on a bar along LA’s Sunset Boulevard.There’s no doubt that Rock of Ages is absurd, but that hasn’t stopped it being reconfigured for a film that’s in production now. The high-octane cast includes Alec Baldwin, Mary J Blige, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Its Broadway run Read more ...
ash.smyth
Some bloke called Jack mailed to say that he did indeed have two tickets to Iron Maiden (baby), and for the Friday ‘n’all. So I called shotgun, threw on my cleanest “I ♥ Justin Bieber” T-shirt,* and pitched along to Docklands to hang out with the other teenage dirtbags – only to discover that they are, on average, actually about 40 years old. A lot of them in chinos.We were gathered there to witness Iron Maiden, seemingly at the top of their 36-year game, finish yet another epic tour, in London, in front of a Martian space-trailer set (yeah, who knew the boundary marker for manifest rock Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Explosions, 40ft flames, light shows and back projections. It may have been at the Dome but at times it felt more like being in a music video. A mini-film opened the concert. Rush circa 1973 were boys called Rash, and they’d play only when professor Alex Lifeson operated his music machine. The contraption also had a button marked “Time Machine”. When pressed this catapulted the band, on stage, back and forth through their 37-year career. Every time the trio played songs from a different era, screens announced the year. Hours later, when we shot forward to the song "2112", several thousand Read more ...
joe.muggs
All of rock is here. Like, really, all of it. One tries to avoid too many direct comparisons with other artists in a review but with Foo Fighters it's impossible. Just on my first casual listen through this album, I jotted down the following reference points: Sonic Youth, Metallica, The Kinks, Bryan Adams, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Guns N' Roses, Fleetwood Mac, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson, Queens of the Stone Age, Eighties Ozzy Osbourne, Wings, Foreigner, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Pixies. Oh OK, yes, and a little Nirvana too. It's as if five decades of rock – and, note well, only rock – Read more ...
joe.muggs
Often at gigs by bands of a certain vintage, the fans can look like they're on a special awayday: like they've dug their T-shirts out of the back of the drawer and geared themselves up for one last canter round the paddock. Not so for Killing Joke. At the Royal Festival Hall last night, a very large section of the crowd had the look of still actively living very rock'n'roll lives, and of having done so for at least the last 30 years. “How many times have you seen them?” asked a shaven-headed gent in the seat next to me. “This'll be my 46th Joke gig,” he continued with obvious pride. This is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s an important year for Estonia. The Baltic nation celebrates 20 years of independence from Russia. Capital city Tallinn is European Capital of Culture for 2011. It’s also 10 years since their Eurovision win. theartsdesk is here for Tallinn Music Week, the third annual celebration of the country’s music. Integral to the national fabric, music was fundamental to the independence movement: the move to split from Russia was dubbed “The Singing Revolution”. Tallinn Music Week is more than bands playing and DJs DJing – this festival is laden with meaning.There’s no doubt that Estonia’s music – Read more ...
joe.muggs
Next time BBC2 want to do one of those periodic “what happened to the white working class” documentaries, they could do worse than come to a Pendulum gig. The crowd at Wembley Arena last night were defiantly not “studenty” as many for post-rave music acts can be, and neither were they multicultural; in fact, switch the haircuts and outfits around and you could pretty much transplant the same set of people back 30-odd years to an early Iron Maiden show. This was a 21st century heavy metal crowd through-and-through – not fashionable, not refined, but ready to get involved to the maximum extent Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
As Ozzy Osbourne puts it, “He’s just Lemmy. You just take him or you fucking don’t, and he doesn’t give a flying shit whether you do or not.” It’s this irreducible Lemmyness of Lemmy which lies at the core of the gnarled heavy metaller’s mystique. Beyond fashion, as ageless as a rock’n’roll Flying Dutchman and with a constitution seemingly forged from buffalo hide and wrought iron, Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister is surrounded by his own private myth-bubble wherever he goes.Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski spent three years shooting this documentary. Though it sometimes meanders shaggily, it Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The music of Sibelius might speak of Finland, its unpopulated spaces, vast inland lakes, semi-Arctic climate and long, dark nights, but the annual Lost in Music festival brings together a bewildering array of Finnish bands and singers that range from rockabilly and ska to introspective folk and – of course, the national staple – heavy metal. It's hard to forget Lordi, the monster-costumed heavy-metal outfit that won the Eurovision song contest for Finland in 2006. But, as Sibelius might have agreed, an axe-wielding man in a latex mask is just one aspect of Finnish culture.It's true, though, Read more ...