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Blowup Vol. 2 – A Weekend of Doom and Despair!

Tags: doom band album

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
H.P. Lovecraft

Following on from last year’s epic festival of Doom and of all things dark, Blowup is back, and with a vengeance. For two long nights the normally hospitable hall of Korjaamo will be host, once again, to those excellent dark forces that draw fans in droves to worship at the arcane altars of Doom.

Friday night’s proceedings get under way at 8pm with a little-known Lithuanian Band who are carving their own niche in the world of post-black metal. To be honest, I wasn’t aware until this year that post-black metal was a thing, but it is garnering a lot of support from both black metal fans and post metal fans (and I’m both), as well as other lovers of extreme music. The Au-Dessus sound is still firmly rooted in the evil Scandinavian style, but with a considerably more experimental approach, incorporating influences from drone, doom, and even shoegaze, to create a whole that is somehow even bleaker and more fatalistic than the original Norwegian pioneers. Their self-titled debut EP features almost 31 minutes (over 5 tracks listed from I to V) of slow, haunting passages seamlessly alternating with brutal, hyper assaults to create an overall atmosphere that is as frigid and desolate as a winter in Lapland.

Whereas Au-Dessus have only been around for a year or so, the second act of the night, Bastard Noise, is a veteran, having begun its musical journey of carnage back in 1991 in Los Angeles, with roots in an even older band, the powerviolence outfit Man is a Bastard. In the quarter of a century Bastard Noise has been around, Eric Wood has collaborated with many other musicians, and had other members, and has released well over 100 recordings. None of them have been easy listening, and there’s no way of predicting exactly which form of noisecore Wood will unleash when he takes the stage at 9pm on Friday, except that it will be exciting and invigorating.

At 10pm the first Finnish band of the weekend will appear, Atomikylä. For those unfamiliar with the name, rest assured there is some pedigree here. Featuring two members of Dark Buddha Rising and another two from Oranssi Pazuzu, Atomikylä are something of a psychedelic supergroup, blending the finer points of the former with the darker aspects of the latter. That said, the sound on their latest opus “Keräily” is all their own. Heavier, repetitive in places, doom-laden in others, it could be described as psychedelic doom-drone at times, with the jazzed up and trippy guitar work weaving in and out of the background.

There’s a considerable change of pace at 11.15 when the Berlin/London based Lucifer take to the stage, with the dulcet voiced Johanna Sadonis fronting their heavy doom rock sound. Lucifer first gained attention in 2015 with the release of their debut 7” “Anubis”, quickly followed by their album Lucifer I. To all intents and purposes, this was a homage to classic 70s proto-metal and heavy doom, but propelled with an energy that lent it an air of music made for all the right reasons.

Friday night culminates (and I suspect there may never be a better use of that word) with a long-awaited performance from Oranssi Pazuzu. The band has been playing abroad all summer, and the reviews of their gigs have uniformly excellent – hence the keen anticipation from the home crowd. This year they released their 4th album, Värähtelijä, which is to my mind the best release of 2016. Rather than rave on about that album, the best introduction to what we might get in the wee hours of Saturday should be left to Kim Kelly, the editor of metal mag Noisey, writing about their performance at this year’s Roadburn.

“The line to see Oranssi Pazuzu inside Het Patronaat was massive even by Roadburn terms, so it was pure luck that landed me inside close to the stage as Finland’s finest (and only) purveyors of psychedelic black metal sent the rest of the faithful packed inside the church walls into an ecstatic trance. Sweat, strobe lights and pounding rhythms dominated, scales were mangled and transformed, bodies hurled themselves across the stage, and Oranssi Pazuzu proved yet again that they’re one of the most compelling live acts in the world. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to see them play—fan-shot video gives you a slight idea of the chaotic aspect, but really, you just need to see them for yourself.”

Saturday evening begins a little earlier, at 7.30pm, when two Finnish bands will share the stage, Morbid Evils and Albino Rhino. This unusual arrangement is because Svart Records is releasing a split mini-album by the two bands. Morbid Evils hit the scene in 2014 with the release of their debut album “In Hate with the Burning World”, where they shared their desolate worldview through “soundscapes that suck the listener into fiery sewers in which there is no hope for a future.” Joining them, Albino Rhino have been creating heavy, atmospheric, downtuned psychedelia since the release of their “Goddess” EP in 2013, followed by a self-titled debut in 2014.

The second act on Saturday are Skepticism, another Finnish band, who formed back in 1991 and who are regarded as pioneers in the genre of funeral doom metal. Known for their prolific use of keyboards, especially with an organ sound, to create an overall feeling of depression, they have released 5 albums to date, with 3 EPs, often designed to be listened to as complementary pairs. Their last album, Ordeal, came out in 2015 and was considered to be one of the best funeral doom albums released to date. They’ll be onstage at 8.30pm.

At 10pm the final Finnish band of the weekend appear, Lord Vicar, who are something of a supergroup in the realms of doom, featuring members of Saint Vitus and Reverand Bizarre. Despite their pedigree, Lord Vicar have mostly passed under the radar since their emergence in 2007. Their first EP was released in 2008, and since then they’ve released 3 splits and 3 albums, the most recent of which is this year’s “Gates of Flesh”. This is a band that knows a thing or two about doom, and their heavy riffs and oddly joyous vibes are near impossible to resist. Expect to hear some killer songs illuminated by flashes of genuine brilliance, real quality traditional doom. Tony Iommi would be proud!

At 11.15 British “caveman battle doom” heroes Conan will be on hand to utterly destroy the ears of anyone in the audience not wearing plugs. Since their formation in 2006 they’ve released a demo, followed by 2 EPs, a wicked split with Bongripper, two live albums, and 3 LPs. On every one they have used riff after relentless, gargantuan down-tuned riff, battle-cry vocals, and occasional feedback to pummel the unsuspecting into submission. Finding their inspiration in folklore, fantasy and mythology, their sound is dense, immense, and intense, the musical equivalent to a knee to the groin. It ain’t pretty, but it’s not meant to be.


The final band of the weekend is Monolord from Sweden, who will be onstage at 12.30. Having formed in 2013, they were quick to enter the studio and by the following year had a debut album worthy of any doom band that had been doing it for years. That album was “Empress Rising”, and it was followed by their cover of Sabbath’s ‘Faeries wear boots’ as a single, the EP ‘Cursing The One’, and another album “Vaenir”, all to steadily growing critical acclaim. After the aural bludgeoning of the mighty Conan, Monolord will be the perfect antidote, and should complete another excellent weekend of Blow-Up music.

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