Coming in as my second favorite set of HELL Smash Fest VI was Auckland based Stormforge - melodic power metal that's IMHO on par, if not better than a lot of international acts of a similar vein. This was by far the best I've heard the 'forge play - and it was somewhat fitting that the first small showers from the heavens opened up as they played - a Storm in the Forge as it were.
Read MoreWellington based Bulletbelt conducted their first live performance with new recruits Josh Obrien (guitars) and Scott Spatcher-Harrison (vocals) and did not disappoint.
Read MoreFollowing a well received outing at Napier's The Cabana one night earlier, His Master's Voice - The Devil Blues closed out HELL SmashFest VI.
Read MoreIt was a hot and sweaty Friday night, when just before leaving work to get in the mood for tonight’s 8 Foot Sativa show when a suspected fire caused a building evacuation - 15 flights of stairs and my mood soured, I was now ready to let the mood loose on a night of death and thrash metal — and so it begins.
Read More2017's Gig of the Year for me was undoubtedly Mike Portnoy's Shattered Fortress.
Read MoreThere should be some form of warning or portent to be taken with the notion that the Apocalypse fell in New Zealand on the anniversary of my birth. Am I the reviewer, photographer, metal-head foretold to bring the end of all? To be heralded by the angels of cacophony?
Read More"What are you going to fail at next?" I asked... It was an odd sort of question [insert link to interview here], but it flowed with the context of the conversation - such went my interview with Devin Townsend earlier in the month, and it's a question that resonated within my own thoughts in the intervening weeks.
Read MoreLIVING COLOUR at The Powerstation, Auckland on May 12, 2017
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