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Last night at NYC’s Mercury Lounge, after Earthless tore my face open (psychedelically speaking) and I spent the entire duration of Iron Age’s set talking shit at the bar trying to wingman one of the dudes in Priestess with a kinda lame chick, Disembodied stepped up to the plate and took an enormously heavy and dissonant dump all over the crowd. Musically speaking. In a good way.
The 2010 incarnation of the CMJ Music Marathon is almost upon us! A solid week of booze, partying and music in the streets and clubs of New York City makes us all just a little bit crazy every year, but there’s just so much fun shit happening all week that impossible not to heed its beck and call. Fortunately for you and for us, there’s plenty of metal at this year’s festival including some killer shows that aren’t even officially sanctioned by CMJ. Here’s a list of MetalSucks-approved events happening next week:
Whew… it’s going to be a punishing week! See you out there.
High on Fire took their U.S. tour with Priestess, Bison B.C. and Black Cobra in tow to Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church this past Tuesday. MS photographer Diana Lee Zadlo was on hand to capture the action with her usual flare. Her photos, after the jump.
And that’s about all I have to say about it. Stereogum [via SMN] is streaming the track “Trapped in Space & Time,” — from the band’s recent Tee Pee Records release Prior to the Fire — which you can listen to below.
Priestess – “Trapped in Space & Time”
See also: my brief writeup of one of Priestess’s many SXSW performances.
-VN
“The last day of SXSW is always the most metal.” – Kip Wingerschimidt, the morning of the last day of SXSW 2009, before staying up all night partying with Dredg and then tearing the insides of his knee to shreds in the most non-metal of ways whilst getting ready to go to the airport. Fortunately there would be no injuries this year, but the last day of SXSW was indeed quite metal, we did stay up all night, and we worked out some really sweet deals.
Only one problem: it was fucking cold outside. Not just Texas cold… actual cold, like low 40s / high 30s. We New Yorkers are used to that kind of weather (on a good day in the winter) but having to endure it in Austin in the Spring was a major buzzkill.
The calm before the storm… E. 6th St. at about noon, while trucks are making their beer deliveries and everyone else is still sleeping off their hangovers from the night before.
But we had our own method of keeping warm. With at least half of the bag o’ herbals left and only one day to smoke it, it was do or die time for the sweet leaf we purchased in Dallas. First mission of the day was to roll it all up. Fifteen minutes later we were ready to begin our final mission, five joints in tow.
MetalSucks is double-dipping this year at the annual showdown/brodown/hoedown in Austin, TX by bringing you TWO awesome metal shows. You already know about the amazing Full Metal Texas lineup during the day on Thursday, March 18th — featuring Darkest Hour, Howl, Fair to Midland, Iron Age, Karnivool, Iwrestledabearonce and more — and today we’re pleased to announce that we’re sponsoring the showcase for one of our favorite metal labels, Prosthetic Records. The lineup, starting at 7pm on the festival’s inaugural Wednesday night, features the future of Prosthetic’s roster: Scale the Summit, Landmine Marathon, Withered, Book of Black Earth and The Funeral Pyre. We haven’t heard of Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire or Lions of Tsavo before, but if Prosthetic gives them their stamp of approval they seriously must be excellent… and aren’t festivals like this supposed to be about discovering new music anyway?
But wait — there’s more! The Prosthetic showcase is taking place at the same venue as the Action PR showcase at the very same time, meaning once you’re in you’ll be able to freely roam between both stages, one inside and one outside. And check out THIS fucking lineup: High on Fire, Priestess, Bison B.C., The Gates of Slumber, Zoroaster and Namm. Holy fucktickles, are you kidding me? That’s 13 fucking awesome metal all for just $10 (free if you have a wristband) in one metal-filled evening. FUCK YES.
Coming soon: a MetalSucks-approved calendar of all the metal goings-on at SXSW 2010.
Priestess are easily my favorite band on the Tee Pee Records roster, most of which is firmly planted on the psychedelic rock side of the stoner spectrum (although, as I learned a couple of months back, Earthless are pretty fucking rad too). Priestess, however, have serious balls of steel; the easy analogy would be to say they’re a less weird / more consistently rocking version of Queens of the Stone Age, but like most musical band-to-band analogies that description falls shorts of capturing the band’s true essence. Where Queens come from a background rooted in punk as much as metal, Priestess are straight up metal dudes influenced by equal parts by traditional heavy metal and NWOBHM; witness Mikey Heppner’s scorching guitar solos juxtaposed with the band’s Sabbath-esque grooves.
The Canadian quartet’s new album Prior to the Fire has been out in their homeland since October but is only coming to US, UK and European shores February 2nd (unless, of course, you live in 2010 and have the rendering-international-release-dates-useless Internet… but that’s a topic for another day). The entire album is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page; you best check it out now because it probably won’t be up there for long and that shit is the bomb, I promise.
-VN
Canadian stoner metallers Priestess were way too cool for their alma mater RCA Records, for whom they released only one album — 2006′s Hello Master — before being dropped. The album undoubtedly underperformed by major label standards, even with that nice sync fee they got for the inclusion of “Lay Down” in Guitar Hero III. Fitting then that stoner stalwarts Tee Pee Records have picked up Priestess to release their next album Prior to the Fire in February of 2010. Tee Pee’s roster includes a lot of acts just a tad too like wayyy stooooned ouuut maaaan for this site’s tastes, but with the release of Iron Age’s stellar thrasher The Sleeping Eye earlier this year and the announcement that Priestess have joined their ranks, things are looking a bit heavier at the Tee Pee camp.
Priestess have a new song called “Sideways Attack” up on their MySpace page. Me rikee… it’s a bit more up-tempo than a lot of the material from Hello Master and the production is super-dry but tight, not unlike that of Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf.
Priestess performed in NYC this week twice at the CMJ Music Marathon… if you were there, kindly fill us in.
-VN
