COGAS, BANNERMAN'S. EDINBURGH, OCTOBER 23 2026

Back to Black(Metal)

If it achieves nothing else, this gig serves to remind me just how ridiculous black metal really is. Immense fun, of course, and occasionally quite disturbing, but basically just very daft.

Line-up:

NYCTOPIA: Local black metallers, featuring a bagpiper, a lady waving burning things around, a bass-player in a chain-mail balaclava and lots of corpse paint. And a moth-eaten deer head. None of which is necessarily a bad thing. Occasional glitches when the singer seems to forget to switch on his goat skull microphone, and when the guitarist realises that he has mislaid his spare instrument and has to run off to find it.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/9EwFUQIthdE   https://www.facebook.com/Oracleofdeception

OMINOUS COVENANT: London based non-Italians. Scary lady singer with a voice like knives. Very loud, very fast, very black. No dead animals, though.

VIDEO:   https://youtu.be/MbjOPeEInww   https://www.facebook.com/ominouscovenant

COGAS: London based Italians. Possibly the most convincingly nasty band of the night, they look like they would happily eat your children and pets. Raw.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/KhEr4VfZeZ8   https://www.facebook.com/Cogas.Black.Death

Now, see, I LIKE Black Metal. Live black metal, at least. Yes. it's nasty and brutal and ferocious but, at the same time, very, very silly. And - I hope - they know that.

RITUAL KING, THE HIVE, EDINBURGH, OCTOBER 22 2026

Heavy psych/stoners on tour, in an oddly lightless Hive. Not sure why it was so dark. Maybe somebody forgot to put 50p in the meter...

Line-up:

ARDUA: Local metalcore lads. Their first ever gig, it seems. Confident and clearly well-rehearsed. Singer sometimes seems unsure of what to do on stage when he's not singing. 

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/eKE7S3qcz6g   https://www.facebook.com/ArduaUK

KURNEL FIST: The first hefty psych/blues stoner power trio of the evening, this one from Dundee.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/7xrJi_qNatQ  https://www.facebook.com/kurnelfist

OBSIDIAN SAND: Sludgy post-metal trio, mostly very loud, occasionally less so. Fond of long songs.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/wlTbHqbLy98   https://www.facebook.com/ObsidianSand

RITUAL KING: Tonight's main feature, and the second hefty psych/blues stoner power trio of the evening. All the way from Manchester. Didn't let a couple of feedback gremlins spoil the fun.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/QHH6kLfjSTg   https://www.facebook.com/ritualking

AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR, GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, OCTOBER 17 2026

A post-post. And the reason I couldn't go to the second night of that black metal thing in Edinburgh, as mentioned in the previous post.

Line-up:

OTAY:ONII: Solo performance project of Chinese artist LANE MINGYU SHI. Visceral, electro/industrial/cabaret/jazz/metal. Amongst other things. She plays what looks like the biggest keytar ever, or maybe it's a regular one and she's just very small. She also makes electronic noises by twisting a thing that looks like a flower on a coil of metal tubing. As you do.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/UFiYcCXAJHE   https://www.facebook.com/Laneshiotayonii

CASPIAN: Taking nothing away from the other artists on the bill, this is the real reason I am here tonight. It has been far too long since CASPIAN were here, and I was NOT going to miss them. And they are glorious. Post-rock of the highest order - delicate, beautiful and crushingly hefty. Thick smoke and hostile lighting only enhance the show, even whilst making it very hard to take photographs.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/GcKK3yk8bsw   https://www.facebook.com/CaspianTheBand

AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR: Did I say CASPIAN were hard to photograph? ASIWYFA take it one step further. Smoke, lights, AND hyperactive musicians. Now can legitimately be called 'veteran' post/math rockers, they've been kicking the shit out of stages over the world for bloody ages. They rip through a set culled from the whole of their career. They've got nothing new to promote, so there are no great surprises. Until...

They come out for an encore and leave us with 'The Voiceless', a song from their very first record, one of my absolute favourites, and one that I believed I would never see played again. 

Somewhat unfortunately, I managed to fuck up the audio recording to some degree so the video below is not without its issues, but it is what it is and I'm happy that I got to get a record of that song.

VIDEO:  https://youtu.be/TuU6eAUjQrY   https://www.facebook.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar