Gig - Stygian Bough and 40 Watts Sun at the Dome, Tufnell Park

ALMuti

Just coming back from this and grinning like a school kid.

40 Watts Sun was solo acoustic (which surprised me) and it was soft, nuanced and incredibly heartfelt. Great stuff.

Stygian Bough is a Collab between Bell Witch (2-piece doom duo) and Aerial Ruins, which is usually a doomy folk acoustic singer-songwriter, but plays guitar and sing here. The result is mammoth doom rhythms layered with ethereal melodies and gauzy clean vocals. Both visceral and pretty - not always easy to do live!

they 100% brought it, managed to deal both the obliterating wall of sound and the prettiness. also incredible work by the bass player, playing a 7 string bass with signal split across 3 amps, playing bass lines with his left and tapping guitar-like lead lines and even clean chords with his right! these guys were playing more parta at once than a power trio usually does.

So yeah, a good night of joyful noise out there. 

ALMuti

(apols, clocked "post" by mistake - finishing the post in editing!)

motnikrap

I've got tickets to see them in Manchester on Monday and looking forward to it even more now :-)

Thanks for the review!

ALMuti

no worries! enjoy the Manchester show - you'll have a good time I think.

I don't need to tell you, but DO take earplugs, this was one of the loudest shows I've been to. 

PLOP

Saw them last night in newcastle. How many strings can a bass have before it stops being a “bass guitar”? Surely seven is the limit right? 

Having seen both bell witch and 40WS before, I was also surprised at the acoustic set. He did an excellent rendition of Carry Me Home and a few Warning songs. Generally the “person with an acoustic guitar” vibe doesn’t click for me but it was good. 

Stygian Bough were great too. I wasn’t too impressed with Volume 2 on record as it doesn’t feel as heavy/dense/loud as the first but live there’s a lot of depth. It’s obviously no Mirror Reaper but it’s loud and gloopy. 

Nice to see a thread on music I’m into on here! Don’t happen that often  

ALMuti

Hell yeah! glad you enjoyed it! and that there's at least a whole whopping THREE of us here

on the bass... yeah I kinda found myself thinking that there's specialist instruments that at this stage may be closer to his (amazing) way of playing... thinking Chapman Stick/Warr Guitar/Touch Guitar. 

Agreed that the new record sounded great live. I come at this music from a proggy/Psych angle, so I have to say I just loved SBII from the start.

motnikrap

ALMuti said:

no worries! enjoy the Manchester show - you'll have a good time I think.

I don't need to tell you, but DO take earplugs, this was one of the loudest shows I've been to. 

Ha, yes, thanks for the warning!  I'm in the "earplugs always" camp these days.  I saw Conan at the same venue in Manchester a few years ago and they were SO loud I had to physically run away from the stage and go hide by the bar... bought earplugs the next day :-)

earwighoney

My days of going to gigs are over, but I'm a Bell Witch fan too.  Tbh, I've not given their albums with Aerial Ruin that much time, but Mirror Reaper IMO is one of the modern metal classic albums. 

So it's 4 fans here at least. 

PLOP

Maybe in future I can post gigs here I'm going to. Maybe some (four) people might like it! 

I may as well plug a gig I've got coming up in a similar genre. 

In March Rainbow Grave with Bong II are playing near me. Bong II is a sort of successor to Bong, I think only one of the original members remains, but the guitarist from two other bands I like joined. If you want something loud and gritty and messy, check out Yoke: 

https://yoke-uk.bandcamp.com/album/yoke

So I'm pretty excited to see the new direction of Bong. Its still surely going to be psychedelic doom! 

Also this is a great Bong album if anyone's interested: https://ritualproductions.bandcamp.com/album/thought-and-existence-2

ALMuti

PLOP said:

Maybe in future I can post gigs here I'm going to. Maybe some (four) people might like it! 

I may as well plug a gig I've got coming up in a similar genre. 

In March Rainbow Grave with Bong II are playing near me. Bong II is a sort of successor to Bong, I think only one of the original members remains, but the guitarist from two other bands I like joined. If you want something loud and gritty and messy, check out Yoke: 

https://yoke-uk.bandcamp.com/album/yoke

So I'm pretty excited to see the new direction of Bong. Its still surely going to be psychedelic doom! 

Also this is a great Bong album if anyone's interested: https://ritualproductions.bandcamp.com/album/thought-and-existence-2

cool! where are these taking place? 

Reverend

Was playing Thursday so couldn't go but did see Pat do his forst acoustic solo show years back

motnikrap

PLOP said:

Maybe in future I can post gigs here I'm going to. Maybe some (four) people might like it! 

I may as well plug a gig I've got coming up in a similar genre. 

In March Rainbow Grave with Bong II are playing near me. Bong II is a sort of successor to Bong, I think only one of the original members remains, but the guitarist from two other bands I like joined. If you want something loud and gritty and messy, check out Yoke: 

https://yoke-uk.bandcamp.com/album/yoke

So I'm pretty excited to see the new direction of Bong. Its still surely going to be psychedelic doom! 

Also this is a great Bong album if anyone's interested: https://ritualproductions.bandcamp.com/album/thought-and-existence-2

Oh cool, Yoke is another project by "the bloke from Smote".  Absolutely love Smote, I've seen them a few times at the White Hotel in Salford and it's always mesmerising.  Not doom in any way of course, but a great immersive live experience nonetheless.

Will deffo check Yoke out :-)

Bong II are a new one on me also, I'm sort of imagining the weed-worship strand of the doom pantheon, which is fine by me if done well (other fine bands with "bong" in the title which I enjoy include Bongripper and Earthbong).

PLOP

motnikrap said:

PLOP said:

Maybe in future I can post gigs here I'm going to. Maybe some (four) people might like it! 

I may as well plug a gig I've got coming up in a similar genre. 

In March Rainbow Grave with Bong II are playing near me. Bong II is a sort of successor to Bong, I think only one of the original members remains, but the guitarist from two other bands I like joined. If you want something loud and gritty and messy, check out Yoke: 

https://yoke-uk.bandcamp.com/album/yoke

So I'm pretty excited to see the new direction of Bong. Its still surely going to be psychedelic doom! 

Also this is a great Bong album if anyone's interested: https://ritualproductions.bandcamp.com/album/thought-and-existence-2

Oh cool, Yoke is another project by "the bloke from Smote".  Absolutely love Smote, I've seen them a few times at the White Hotel in Salford and it's always mesmerising.  Not doom in any way of course, but a great immersive live experience nonetheless.

Will deffo check Yoke out :-)

Bong II are a new one on me also, I'm sort of imagining the weed-worship strand of the doom pantheon, which is fine by me if done well (other fine bands with "bong" in the title which I enjoy include Bongripper and Earthbong).

Yes! “The bloke from Smote”. I certainly enjoy Yoke more than Smote but I enjoy both. Been lucky enough to see both live too, given Yoke, Smote and Bong are all Newcastle bands! We definitely have a decent doom scene here, the above bands plus Boz, Goblinsmoker, Yersin, Friend, giant walker and plenty more I can’t think of now. 

Bong are certainly stoner doom but to me are more mature. The songs rarely have words and are more like meditations for shrooming (“shroom doom” is a favourite sub-sub genre of mine!). I generally find the weed worship bands to be quite contrived in the same was as I see the black metal that’s all about satan and being in snowy forests. 

@ALMuti - it’s at the lubber fiend - the best venue in the north east. 

motnikrap

I know what you mean about genre tropes for sure. Both Bongripper and Earthbong I think avoid that to a degree, the former have some absolutely cracking long-format instrumentals IMO and the latter have a really cool jazzy free-form vibe at times

Sounds like a good scene up there in the North East.  I lived in Durham and later Gateshead for a time, great part of the world :-)

Reverend

Bong are not usually stoner down. Ive seen them do super extreme sludge sets and then totally tripped out kosmiche/hawkwind type stuff. Each time they have been different. Dawn has also been doing solo according drone style studded as well.  Mike from bong also did 11 paranoias with Adam from ramesses/lord of Putrefaction 

motnikrap

To continue the general theme, Bell Witch / Aerial Ruin and 40 Watt Sun were amazing in Manchester last night.

A Monday night gig is always tough to get motivated for in my experience, and yesterday evening found Mrs M and I in relatively subdued spirits heading into town.  Arriving at the venue the general vibes in Rebellion were fairly reserved despite a decent head count.

40 Watt Sun appeared on stage with very little fanfare, but once he started playing the crowd quickly fell silent, and midway through the opening song you could genuinely sense the entire venue holding its breath.  The set was gentle and moving as a whole, spellbinding at times, interspersed with a nicely leavened line in wry (generally self-deprecating) humour.  He devoted a couple of songs to different audience members who had caught him before the gig and requested specific tracks, which was a touching and intimate gesture.

If 40WS was the calm, Bell Witch / Aerial Ruin was the storm.  As they launched into Waves Became the Sky the air in the club shuddered into a juddering mass of standing waves which remained a prevalent feature of the rest of the evening.  The sheer physicality of that seven-string bass is simply not captured on record in any sense, but it's a visceral experience in person, to the extent that AR's Les Paul through two half stacks sounded fairly incidental at times.  Although the set as a whole was dense, slow, and loud, the band integrated well-judged moments of respite: a droning synth passage here, a solo guitar/vocal section there, delivering a well-balanced show landing on just the right side of leaving the audience wanting more.

Notwithstanding the natural challenges presented by the prospect of a metal show on a dank Manchester Monday evening in February, the bands totally delivered.  Absolute banger of a show, two thumbs up.