As had been widely rumored (well on the interweb anyhow) since news of a Scottish date broke last week, KISS are finally coming back to give Ireland one more go.

Messrs Stanley and Simmons may have sold an estimated 80 million albums worldwide, but when they last announced they’d be showing up here back in 1996, the Irish public made it very clear that they’d all be, well, anywhere else really and the gig was cancelled amid rumours of pretty horrendous ticket sales.

But that was then, this is now and in the meantime KISS have been busy. Busy making records? Not really, well they’ve made two and the new one’s quite good infact, but more specifically they’ve been busy selling the band to just about anyone who looks sideways at it. There’s been sell-out world tours, corporate entertainment performances, a Hollywood movie, a wrestling tie-up, casket shaped box sets, the Winter Olympics, an appearance on That 70’s show, a performance and album with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a Coffee Shop, comics, a performance at the Australian Grand Prix, the Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Channel 4’s Rock School reality TV series and now a Guitar Hero pack too.

All of this, you might think will have done wonders for the Band’s popularity and maybe it has, but I suspect that it’s a case of everywhere but Ireland. I’m sure people are looking at AC/DC’s success in Ireland this year as a sign that even without radio play and media support good old fashioned hard rock and heavy metal will still sell concert tickets here. But let’s face it, AC/DC are in a very different league, having sold at least double what KISS has done and having that all important legacy of a very big fanbase here from the 70’s and 80s.

While the internet, downloading and the kind of smart promotion mentioned above have definitely changed the way today’s kids consume the music their parent’s used to listen to, I really wouldn’t be relying on them to find their way to The O2 next May. The Celtic Tiger’s cubs may have grown up watching Gene Simmons on reality TV, some of them may even have been over to Download in 2008, but with unemployment now even higher than it was in 1996 many of them could be hard pressed to even come up with the ticket price, let alone what to Rock all Night and Party Every Day…..

KISS play Dublin on Friday, May 7th 2010 at The O2. Tickets On Sale This Friday 27th November 9.00am. From Euro 49.20 including booking fee, from Ticketmaster and usual outlets.

Opeth will touch down in Dublin on October 13th for their latest Irish show, which on this occasion will see them play Dublin’s historic Olympia Theatre for the first time. The progressive Death Metal outfit from Sweden, played their first ever Irish show at The Shelter (now gone) back in 2001.

Since then the band has gone from first selling out Whelan’s to doing the same at the 1500 capacity Vicar Street. Some of the band’s more observant Irish fans will have noticed that the upcoming show, in the seemingly smaller capacity Olympia, will be the first time Mr Åkerfeldt and co have broken from D.M.E. (Dublin Metal Events) which has promoted all of Opeth’s Irish shows to date.

No doubt D.M.E. will be unimpressed with losing what must have been one of its biggest earners in recent years. The independent operator has been the main promoter of underground heavy metal in Ireland for the past decade. While one can only wonder what the move to MCD will do for Opeth, who despite successfully blurring the boundaries between underground and more mainstream metal in recent years, are still unlikely to do little better in this country than venues with a capacity lower than 2000 people.

Perhaps they want to prove themselves worthy of a slot at the Oxegen or Electric Picnic (now co-owned by MCD) festivals. Wouldn’t that go down well with those who saw them in The Shelter eight years ago?

D.M.E. may well be able to take some consolation from the fact that what goes up, does also very often come back down again. A good example of this is legendry US metal outfit W.A.S.P. who have previously been brought to Ireland by MCD but will have their upcoming Irish show, at Dublin’s Button Factory promoted by D.M.E.

While Opeth’s loyalty is clearly not what it was, Paddy Metal does have some kudos to extend to MCD for putting Ireland’s rising hard rock heroes Glyder on the bill with Metallica at Marlay Park yesterday. The band apparently went down very well at what was by all accounts a great day.

Normally at this time of year I’d be scrambling to get as much off my desk at work as possible, so I could grab my tent and head to the global Metal Mecca that is the Wacken Open Air festival in northern Germany.

I’d absolutely love to be there once again (having been six times already) but unfortunately, AC/DC’s European tour and the four dates I attended this summer, along with an unmissable Hellfest line-up in France, meant that I had to cut Wacken out of my budget. Not that they’ll mind, this year’s event sold out in record time with an estimated 80,000 metal fans set to cram into that now hallowed piece of German farmland.

Wacken always gets a sizable Irish attendance. Ok, not as much as the Swedes who are alleged to number in the region of 15,000 each year. But for a small island, it’s impressive to see 300-400 making the journey for metal each August.

I’ll admit to being less bothered by not going because of the line-up being a little less appealing this year than any of the previous editions I’ve attended. Still, with so many bands, it really is quite easy to create an excellent must-see list from even just some of the names concerned. As always however, it’s the craic that makes it and I’ll miss that more than anything else.

For those going, here are my picks for this year’s must see bands:

Airbourne
Amon Amarth
Cathedral
Doro
Enslaved
Grand Magus
Gwar
Hammerfall
Heaven & Hell
In Flames
Machine Head
Motörhead
Nevermore
Pentagram
Running Wild
Saxon
Testament
Trouble
Ufo
Whiplash

For Feck Sake! Are Irish people really content to be first in the queue for a severe ass raping by the recording industry?

You may have seen the Blackout Ireland avatars here and there on the interweb of late and if you look hard enough will have seen the occasional newspaper report but that’s about the extent of Irish outrage at civil liberties being compromised by IRMA’s draconian approach to internet music piracy.

Fair enough, the harsh realities of the current economic climate are probably yet to fully hit home and as a nation we’re still fat and sluggish from years of suckling the Tiger’s tit. We’ve clearly forgotten how to stand-up for ourselves and why wouldn’t we after years of not really having to.

But this is different; the internet is of enormous importance to Ireland and the Irish right now. Yes that’s something that’s probably crept up on us, but its true, socially, economically and in this specific instance ethically. Handing over our Irish people’s civil rights to private enterprise is as corrupt as anything that’s gone on in the Financial Services sector. If we are intent on riding our so called ‘knowledge economy’ out of this recession then we’d better put our hands up now and put a stop to it.

For the record, I’m not anti measures to address the issue of online music piracy. It undeniably hurts the pockets of the industry (including the actual artists on occasion) but it should be up to the likes of IRMA to pursue the issue with the pirates themselves instead of this heavy handed crap that has serious implications for basic civil liberties and how Irish people use the internet.

The reality is that as long as people do nothing about this it will remain far easier for IRMA to get ISPs to bend over than to actually take on the people who are really ripping off its members.

In keeping with the theme of censorship and oppression here is Sepultura in some YouTube action playing ‘Slave New World’ live. Lyrics here.

So Metallica’s previously mentioned Fairyhouse open-air show has been moved to their old haunt at Marlay Park (well they played there last year).

Not only that, but its been expanded into not just Metallica, but will include a whole six other acts.

Yes indeed, the line-up for the August 1st show looks like this:

Metallica
Avenged Sevenfold
Alice in Chains
Thin Lizzy
Mastodon
Lamb Of God
The Sword

A sincere ‘we’ll done’ to the promoters on this, especially after the ridiculous move in having Tenacious D as main support last year. At the same time however it does raise questions about what could be done with a day like this if the hamster ran a little faster round the wheel inside the head of whoever booked this show.

Fair enough, and I don’t want to be too unkind here as well as the fact that clearly this is the line-up from the UK’s Sonisphere Festival, minus Machine Head who unfortunately can’t do it because they are at Wacken that night, as are Bullet for My Valentine (thankfully).

But look at it like this, you have a licence for a day long open-air metal show with Metallica headlining and you end up with Avenged Sevenfold, Alice in Chains and The Sword on the bill. Epic Fail!

Heaven & Hell, Motley Crue, Dreamtheatre, Carcass, Down, WASP, Queensryche, Faith No More, the reformed Pestilence, Gojira to mention just a few, are all doing European festivals this summer. Not to mind some of the Irish contenders. Primordial and Gama Bomb are good enough to play at some of the biggest metal festivals in the world and would go down far better than the likes of Avenged Sevenfold who I’m predicting will get similar treatment to Linkin Park the time they supported Metallica in the RDS.

Oh well…..

I wanted to write about this last week when the news broke, but I was again up the walls with work. That and it was snowing….. Anyway, last Wednesday, Blabbermouth carried the news that Metal Maniacs and Metal Edge were closing their doors. The sister publications are to the US heavy metal scene what Metal Hammer and Terrorizer are to metal fans in the UK and Ireland. Well sort of anyway….. Indeed both publications are actually available in Ireland too and many Irish metal fans will be familiar with them. Metal Edge is the longest running metal magazine in America. It was first published in 1986. Metal Maniacs isn’t far behind it with 20 years under its belt.

Anything factual about the demise of the two publications seems to be thin on the ground at the moment. Wednesday’s information came from staff at the magazines who leaked the news. No official announcement seems to exist. The best I can gather is that Zenbu Media, which publishes both has ceased trading or is at least in some serious trouble. Zebu only acquired the two publications in 2007 and both have apparently changed hands in the past also. So it does remain to be seen if this is in fact curtains and they will end full stop or emerge again on another publisher/owner.

So what happened? Most of the online commentary seems to be blaming a combination of the economy and the internet, with the odd attack on how the publications have been run of late thrown in for good measure. Whatever happened its likely to have had something to do with a combination of all three and yes the internet has indeed made print media publishing an extremely challenged entity.

Businesses however fail for a variety of reasons and have done so in both good and bad times for as long as there’s been people to run them. Whether the internet however or the global recession is to blame, or even mistakes made by the publications themselves is probably irrelevant at this stage. The only certainty is that print media music publications were not exactly best placed to survive long term before the economic downturn hit and now that it has, Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs are unlikely to be the only metal casualties.

Its no great secret that marketing (including advertising and PR) spend is one of the first things to get cut by companies under pressure to reduce costs. So yes, inevitably there will have been enormous pressure piled on music publications by their advertisers once the recession started to hit sales. If today’s kids however aren’t really buying music to begin with (and all the signs would suggest that that is the case) then they certainly aren’t going to pay to read about it either. That to me is the crux of the issue.

How do you sell a music magazine to someone who isn’t buying music. Music can be sourced free and easy on the internet and so can just about anything you might find in a music magazine. That’s why Irish publications like State and The Event Guide have recently had to call it a day and why the likes of Q Magazine has diversified its content to concentrate far less on music and more on lifestyle, thereby escaping the limits of a muso only readership. Because of this, where Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs have fallen others will surely follow before long. The days of the commercially viable specialist music magazine seem to be numbered.

So what happens now? Who the hell knows? Maybe specialist music magazines will come back into fashion. Stranger things have happened. But if they do then it will only be in a time when people place a value on music again, want to pay for it and pay to read about it. The economy and the internet matter not.

If in 2039 RTE is still making its nostalgiatastic series ‘Reeling in the Years’ then a look at 2009 would surely include a couple of events from this week. America’s first black president Barack Obama is being sworn in today, U2 have launched the first single from their forthcoming 12th studio album ‘No Line on the Horizon’ and the Irish economy is big time in the shit. Sadly there’ll be no mention whatsoever of the fact that this coming weekend is going to be one hell of a weekend for indigenous Irish heavy metal. So I’ll just have to grudgingly document it here then.

I’m referring of course (in part) to the mouthwatering Primordial, Mourning Beloveth and Darkest Era show at the Button Factory this Saturday night.

For all three bands 2008 was an incredibly productive year. Primordial put in a massive Europe wide live assault which included both a festival and club tour in support of their acclaimed 2007 release ‘To the Nameless Dead’. Therapy? aside this was probably the first time since the heyday of the likes of Thin Lizzy, Sweet Savage and Mama’s Boys that an Irish heavy metal band played to so many people in Europe.

At the same time as this was going on, Mourning Beloveth were clocking up fantastic reviews by critics worldwide for their fourth album ‘A Disease for the Ages.’ The album received almost top marks from two of Europe’s biggest metal magazines gaining a 9.5/10 in Rock Hard Magazine (Germany) and 6/7 in Metal Hammer (Germany).

Darkest Era, one of the most exciting young bands emerging from the Irish scene at the moment inked a deal with Germany’s Northern Silence for the release of their debut EP ‘The Journey Through Damnation’ which has also turned in an impressive array of excellent reviews.

In what has to be one of the best all Irish line-ups assembled by promoters D.M.E. all three bands will take the stage in the Button Factory this Saturday night, January 24th. The show is sure to sell-out with three quarters of tickets already sold apparently and if Primordial’s last Button Factory show is anything to go by, the atmosphere will be something special.

After all that you might be surprised to see me write that I’ll actually miss the whole thing. The reason is I’ll be in Germany for the other part of why I think this is such a significant weekend for Irish metal. I’ll be at the Winternoise Festival at Osnabrück in Germany where two more Irish metal bands will be in action. The line-up which leans heavily in the direction of Pagan, Folk and Battle metal includes Irish acts Mael Mordha and Waylander.

While Mael Mordha will use to the festival to take some time out from writing their third studio album, due later this year, Waylander are in full live assault mode having released a particularly impressive comeback album in 2008. The Ulstermen are currently signed to French label Listenable Records and are showing signs of making a real impact on this occasion with a slot at the upcoming Hammerfest in the UK in April alongside some serious big name acts among their more impressive recent achievements.

It’s a fantastic festival for both bands to be apart of. The presence of the likes of Turisas, Moonsorrow and Thyrfing on the bill means that both bands will be playing to exactly the kind of metal fan that is going to appreciate their style. Friends and allies will be made, cds and merch sold and hopefully return invitations extended.

Come on you boys in Green!

Check out this fan filmed footage of Waylander live in Paris last month.

Here is my pick of the Irish metal acts that will impress in 2009.

Overoth - Death Metal
The Belfast based outfit play some fantastic Death Metal and have done well over the past two years. A new album due for release this year should see their rise continue apace. Currently aligned to Belfast’s Rundown Records a move to a bigger European label really wouldn’t be much of a surprise.
Listen

Altus Astrum - Black Metal
Altus Astrum were a well known fixture within the Irish scene for many years under their former moniker Aftermath. A name and line-up change along with new material has consigned their previous entity to the past and their first album ‘Antediluvian’ is recorded and should see daylight in the first months of 2009. Talents honed during the Aftermath years should hopefully produce a Black Metal release of very strong quality.
Listen

Steel Tormentor - Heavy/Power Metal
Back around 2004 it was quite exciting for many in the scene to find a band hidden away in the West of Ireland with traditional heavy metal sound honed to near perfection and fronted by a hugely talented guitarist and songwriter. Unfortunately some of the other elements were missing with the remainder of the line-up looking more like wedding band material than potential world beaters. Frontman James Kelly took a new Steel Tormentor line-up off to Italy in 2008 to record the bands new album. Whether or not the Latin air will help their live show is another matter but what seems almost certain, judging by some of the clips already leaked by the band, is that this album could well be strong enough to open the eyes of a decent sized European label.
Listen

Two Tales of Woe - Stoner/Sludge
This band’s following continues to grow and its hotly anticipated forthcoming album ‘A Conversation with Death’ looks very much like being one of the gems to come out of the Irish metal scene during 2009. The Dublin outfit has been busy over the past 18 months impressing the city’s fans of stoner/sludge metal and a strong new album is just what’s needed to prick up the ears of slow tempo metal fans abroad.
Listen

Morphosis - Death Metal
As already referenced in ‘Sounding Heavy #5’ the band will release what has to be the longest awaited debut album by any Irish band. If it’s as good as is expected then it really should make a decent splash for the band beyond these shores. According to the lads themselves there’s been quite a bit of interest from abroad since their reactivation in 2006, so fingers crossed that the new album will end up being their ticket to success in Europe.
Listen

Mutilated Messiah - Death Metal
Possibly the least known name of the bunch but already highly regarded by the Death Metal nerds in the Irish scene. Interestingly the band will release two (already recorded) albums in 2009. With their somewhat niche sound, they may never do great things but certainly have the potential to command their own cult following beyond the Irish scene. With song titles like ‘Motorcunt’ sure why wouldn’t they?
Listen

Details of Full Metal Racket 2009 are slowly seeping into cyberspace.

No website or press release to refer to just yet so check out the Full Metal Racket page on Last Fm for some corroboration.

Line-Up is:
Paradise Lost
Rotting Christ
Steve Grimmett/Grim Reaper
Scald
Celtic Legacy
Sorrowfall
Airgead Lamh
For Ruin
Sinocence
Decayor

The all dayer takes place on Saturday 25th April, 2009 at Mandella Hall, Belfast.

This is an impressive line-up. It really is. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until April to find out if we or more specifically the metalheads of Belfast deserve it i.e. will the crowds come out.

The arguably more high-profile Rottfest in 2006 is an unfortunate example of how this kind of thing can go badly wrong. Rottfest was an outdoor affair. Its big acts, DevilDriver and Nevermore probably had more potential to draw the kids in than any of Full Metal Racket’s big name foreign acts. Yet it failed to do so and ended up a one-off occurrence.

Full Metal Racket on the other hand has already had two installments. The fledgling festival squeezed itself into The Bunker in Lavery’s in 2007 and this year migrated to the larger Empire. Both years enjoyed strong attendances despite the lack of big international headliners (no disrespect to Pagan Altar this year).The planned move to Mandela Hall for next year’s festival is certainly an ambitious one, as is what must be a significant outlay involved in flying the likes of Paradise Lost, Rotting Christ and Grim Reaper into Belfast. Hopefully it will pay off. But its hard not to feel that the ambition just won’t be matched by interest from the fans and that what has been a highly enjoyable event over the past two years will suffer for it.

Paddy Metal will certainly be there and you’ll hear plenty more about FMR 2009 on here in the coming months.

Some vintage Paradise Lost via You Tube

The success of Gama Bomb, which I might add is extremely well deserved, has probably ended up putting fellow Irish thrashers Mass Extinction in the shade. Think back two or three years. Remember their amazing set at D.O.D. 2006 when they played to the biggest crowed of the day, upstaging headliners Destruction, or the summer before that when they wiped the floor with Nuclear Assault in front of a packed house at The Village in Dublin? There was an enormous buzz about the band and a real sense of excitement around what they could conceivably achieve. However, while the recent resurgence in interest in thrash metal has sent labels scrambling to sign-up anything in runner boots, Mass Extinction are still somewhat bizarrely, without a label. This despite two excellent demos and the kind of fan base that even some signed acts would be envious of.

For a band that rose so quickly it must certainly have seemed like things had drawn to a halt during 2008. Without a label to market the band outside of the Irish underground, growing the fan base further was going to be quite challenging. Playing the same underground shows again and again would do as much to cause existing fans to tire of the band as it would to lure in new ones. Today’s news that Mass Extinction has landed two support slots at Lamb of God’s Irish shows in February 2009 will certainly have put a smile back on their faces. Lamb of God are a big ticket metal act, they are essentially mainstream, on Sony Epic/Roadrunner and touring with Metallica this year. They’ve also got an enormous media profile, but most importantly the kids are down with it and will be at both gigs in their droves. We’ll actually they won’t, as it happens, it seems the gigs are over 18’s. But what I’m referring to here is the masses that read Metal Hammer, buy their metal in HMV, their tickets on Ticketmaster and wouldn’t ordinarily look sideways at an underground gig.

Don’t get me wrong, as great as this news is, I’m not inferring that it’s a career defining development for the band or anything. But if they use it well it could get them back on track in terms of growing their Irish fan base and making themselves look sexy to labels, big promoters, good-looking girls etc At the very least, if they manage to do as they’ve done in the past, then not only will they blow Lamb of God off the stage but they’ll refuse to let any of the crowd leave without buying a CD and that’s the kind of traction they just haven’t had for quite some time now.

If you weren’t going to these gigs then this is a good reason to change your mind.

Lamb of God and Mass Extinction play Mandela Hall, Belfast on February 8th and The Academy, Dublin on February 9th, 2009.

Check-out Mass Extinction in some You Tube action.