Red Crust's annual winter metal feast takes over SEVEN venues in Edinburgh. I didn't get to all of them, and I didn't see all the bands. I am not a magician.
I saw:
POLYJAMORY: Regular readers might recall my less-than-favourable opinion of cover bands. POLYJAMORY are no exception. Normally can be relied to pull in a fair crowd of students early on, but not this time. Played to a mostly empty Mash House. To their credit, they played a somewhat more adventurous selection of covers, but still... Not for me.
TUSK: Up now to the top of a very narrow and twisty staircase to Room 3, where we find Glasgow metal trio TUSK. Unfussy and straightforward metal. It's bloody cold up here, and the sound is a bit murky.
SWARMS: The first of today's foreigners. Riffs, slams and beatdowns from Co Durham's SWARMS, out on tour with HAMMER and VERMINTHRONE, both of whom will be along shortly.
LO RAYS: Glaswegian apocalyptic electro-punks. A bit breathless, because they just got here from Inverness ten minutes before their set was due to start. The floor in Room 2 is disconcertingly bouncy, and it's just as cold as Room 3 upstairs.
VERMINTHRONE: Sludge/hardcore crossover - Sludge-core? - from exotic Milton Keynes. I was expecting black metal, judging solely by the name. Didn't get it. Clearly.
ELD VARG: Unashamed heavy metal, songs about Vikings and wolves and fists of steel. No video for this one, because I fucked it up.
KURO: Electro-industrial alt-metal from Glasgow. No video for this one either, because the sound was terrible.
HAMMER: Appropriately named death-tinged extreme metal. Local lads.
THE GALLOWGATE MURDERS: Immensely entertaining Glaswegian Celtic folk-punks. Instigated a 'wall of ceilidh' in the crowd, wherein violence is replaced by linked arms and reels. Which is nice.
SCORDATURA: Glaswegian death-metal. Violent, but fun.
CODESPEAKER: Bruisingly hefty sludgy post-metal from Edinburgh's finest. Photographer in the pit beside me said they were the worst band ever to get pics of. Hard to disagree...
TIBERIUS: Local 'anthemic progressive metal'. They get the award for the most flowery mic stand of the day.
BENEATH A STEEL SKY: Off to LEGENDS for one last band, and more of that post-metal. Another band nigh on impossible to photograph. I blame the singer, Greg - he's also in CODESPEAKER.
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