Sunday 25 May 2014

The Wounded Kings

I, Melachi ibn Amillar, being of unsound mind and body, did attend the gig of The Wounded Kings, Sigiriya and Coltsblood, on Saturday 24 May 2014, at the Black Heart, Camden, London.  Coltsblood played art-distort with big hair, slowly. I quite liked their last piece which introduced a theme and then improvised upon it, as though a ponderous, loud and and blurry jazz. I thought the main tune could have been repeated intermittently, though, as it was difficult to bear it in mind and there was a danger of it degenerating into an assemblage of random chords, after Moss. No red-blooded rocker could possibly object to Sigiriya, playing very solid traditional heavy metal, and they well deserve their coming status as house band, despite the Welshdom.

Those Wounded Kings were fronted by a crone warbling half a dozen notes in splendid dissonance faster and with firmer structures than the Coltsblood (or Jex Thoth) producing a seamless pummellation of awe-inspiring doom such as I had not heard since, well, to be precise, the Electric Wizard gig at the Forum a few years ago. I immediately picked up all their material from the merch stand.* Unfortunately only a few dozen were there to hear them, mainly orthodox Jews.

[*not technically true as there was not any].

Sunday 4 May 2014

IQ: Road of Bones


Perfect frequency
I, Melachi ibn Amillar, did attend the IQ album launch gig at the Islington Assembly Halls on 3 May, 2014. The supporting act was a solo guitarist accompanying bars he himself had played moments earlier. I am not entirely sure how this is done, and I hope it does not catch on. Why not just a little Villa-Lobos? IQ themselves played to a deservedly packed house for about 2 hours, mainly the material they had performed at their show in December, and some from the new "Road of Bones", seeming generally a little heavier and with more of a mellotron lead, the title track sounding the best. Peter Nicholls himself was in perfect tune and voice from the first note to the last. I, Melachi, will remark no more on this.