Necromag.co.uk » slipknot

Sonisphere Bring the Big Four To The UK

James Paterson — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 01:10:10 +0000

Sonisphere

The official line-up of UK headliners for the touring festival Sonisphere reached a whole new level with the announcement that the BIG FOUR were coming to Knebworth in 2011.

This latest announcement sees the big four bands of the early thrash scene, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax all play together on the same stage for the first time in the UK. This booking is a massive coup following the group’s performance at several European Sonisphere dates this summer which were broadcast to cinemas across the planet.

These four massive acts will perform on the Friday night of the festival spanning the weekend of. 8th-10th July with Slipknot and Biffy Clyro also currently announced as headliners. Given the sheer stature of these acts many fans are saying this has sealed their decision between attending Sonisphere or Download, however a recent tweet by Andy Copping, Festival booker for Download Festival and Promoter for Live Nation, suggested that the festival were still fleshing out their bill. “Third Download headliner, along with some other tasty morsels, are getting locked down. I intend to do the next announcement in the New Year”.

Currently both Download and Sonisphere are selling a number of ‘early bird’ tickets though owing to the touring nature of the festival, for a short period sales of Sonisphere UK tickets will come bundled with to apply for EITHER a free ticket to SONISPHERE POLAND on 10th June PLUS a free ticket for SONISPHERE CZECH REPUBLIC on 11th June (both single day with camping festival) OR a free weekend ticket to NOVA ROCK in Austria on 11-13 June.

With Download headliners System of A Down also playing Nova Rock this pretty much seals the deal for the more jet setting metallers out there willing to fly to Austria.

For more details on the bundle offer visit the official Sonisphere website.

20 new bands announced for Download.

James Paterson — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:28:59 +0000

In the past fortnight there have been a few significant releases of non headliner bands in this years Download festival line up, with many being quite big names and others being curious surprises.
Returning to the festival are bands like Down and Killswitch Engage, Killswitch having played Download a number of times before with Down also aving the special pleasure of being the so called secret band of the 2006 line up.

In black and white, the new additions to the line up are:
DOWN, CHRIS CORNELL, PAPA ROACH, LACUNA COIL, JOURNEY, BLACKSTONE CHERRY, SKIN, TESLA, CLUTCH, KARMA TO BURN, PARKWAY DRIVE, OPETH, MESHUGGAH, DIR EN GREY, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, YOU ME AT SIX, STEADLÜR, LAWNMOWER DETH

2009’s Download Festival will also see a very special appearance from ex-Guns ‘N’ Roses bassist DUFF MCKAGAN, who brings his latest incarnation LOADED to Download for the very first time.

Most amusing of these announcements is the inclusion of America’s 5th greatest rock act, Journey. Best known for their song, Midnight Train (“Don’t stop Believin’!”) have reformed after a 12 year lul in gigging with a newly auditioned singer plucked from youtube for his dulcet tones.

This years lineup also features yet another UK festival appearance from already wel establised Japanese metal band Dir En Grey. This performance seems set to cause a stir with a number of UK J-rock fans and will be a trial by fire in one of the best UK out dopor festivals in recent years.
We’ll continue to keep you posted and look forward to covering the festival as it happens.

Album review: Slipknot “All Hope Is Gone”

Oxking — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:14:28 +0000

Slipknot have divided and conquered for over a decade now, and each album they release has changed the way their fans and the world in general think about them. Their last album “Volume 3; The Subliminal Verses” saw them take the ultimate risk, abandon all that the legions of devoted fans had came to expect, and deliver something entirely different. Beautiful melody, acoustic guitar and brilliant song structures came across pure brutal riffage and thrash metal guitaring. And they definately are continuing along this path with album four. “All Hope Is Gone” is intended to rip your tits off whilst singing you a lullaby. Gematria (The Killing Name) is a 6 minute long thrash metal epic about the evils of America’s foreign policy, and by God Corey’s voice is better than ever. It’s a fantastic statement which carries into the sing-a-long hooks of “Sulphur” and the Megadeth-esque chug riffing of “Psychosocial.” Brilliant. “Dead Memories” is probably one of the catchiest Slipknot songs ever, while still maintaining that we are no longer listening to pissed off nu-metal teen angst kings, we are seeing the band as a whole now. Pure Metal through and through, Balls to Bones. To close the album, we have a soft/heavy brotherhood of “Snuff” and “All Hope Is Gone”. The former is something which not a lot of people would expect from Slipknot, one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a long time. Its acoustic guitar meets keyboard and drums over a lovelorn Corey spilling his guts in an entirely different way than what he has put out before. And the latter is simply the heaviest thing I have heard all year, recalling “Pulse Of The Maggots” in its raw, metal attack. Once called by Kerrang! Magazine the most important band in the world, we can definately see why Slipknot are as big as they are today, they evolve to constantly be one step ahead of every band around. A very exciting record indeed.

[OX KING]