Posts Tagged ‘Comus’
The Guardian: Occult Rock – The Path of Darkness
Posted on Friday, November 25th, 2011
‘When you see TV footage of the 1960s or early 70s, going to a meeting of a coven was almost like going to a book club or a knitting class because it was that commonplace,” suggests Lee Dorrian. He’s the frontman of doom metal legends Cathedral, and someone who also has an interest in going to a coven meeting being commonplace – he founded Rise Above Records, a label with long-standing ties with the occult rock movement. “People didn’t have the internet or computer games, and young kids were reading Tolkien and Dennis Wheatley books and watching Hammer horror films. It was just in the air, I suppose.”
It was a time when the occult cropped up in rock with surprising frequency. Students of arcane sonic mischief fondly recall such albums as US acid-rockers Coven‘s 1969 debut Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, Italian crew Jacula‘s In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (also 1969) and British acid-folk mob Comus‘s First Utterance (1971), all of which sought to evoke a sense of spectral terror and satanic subversion, setting alarm bells ringing in the offices of those self-ordained protectors of western morality.
The Rolling Stones toying with occult ideas on Their Satanic Majesties Request may have caused mild alarm in the mainstream, but true occult rock aspired to reach beyond superficial imagery to oil the hinges of hell’s gates, bringing a bona fide whiff of danger to the fledgling heavy rock world, and informing its iconography and subject matter for 40 years to come.
True occult rock – as opposed to the flirtations of bands who brandish pentagrams while selling out arenas – is just a minor subculture. And like any other minor subculture, of course, it has existed primarily for those willing to scratch the surface and dig a little deeper.
“Black Widow were the obvious band that everyone knew about, but their interest in the occult only lasted for one album,” says Dorrian, referring to the Leicester band whose debut, Sacrifice, reached No 32 in 1970, and who appeared at that year’s Isle of Wight festival. “But there were tonnes of others, like Zior. Zior’s singer Keith Bonsor was apparently a serial occultist from round Colchester way, and there was a story that he was executed at a black mass and has never been seen since. I don’t know if that’s true. People always mention Coven, too, and Italian bands like Jacula and Antonius Rex took the occultism thing more seriously. Even Mick Ronson, one of his solo singles has a B-side called Powers of Darkness, and that’s a mega occult rock track.”
Continue reading: Occult rock: the path of darkness | Music | The Guardian.
Tags: Blood Ceremony, cathedral, Comus, Coven, Dom Lawson, Ghost, lee dorrian, Occult Rock, rise above records, the devil's blood, The Guardian, Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls
Posted in 2011, Interviews, Roadburn Recommended | No Comments »
Kink X-Rated Roadburn Radio: 8pm to 11pm CET (Get Ready For The Broadcast of Comus’ Performance at Roadburn 2010)
Posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Here is our playlist for this week’s Roadburn Radio on Kink X-Rated. Tune in from 8pm to 11pm CET (2pm EST / 11am PST) and listen to the latest sounds from the underground and the bands that inspire us as we work on next year’s Roadburn festival. And get ready ...read more
Album of the day: Comus – East of Sweden
Posted on Monday, July 4th, 2011
Praise for Comus‘ East of Sweden from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: “Live reunion album” aren’t three words (in sequence) that we normally get too excited about. But when the band is the legendary British pagan acid folk rock act Comus, who are responsible for having made one of our very favorite ...read more
True Cult Heavy Metal: Roadburn 2010 Day Two: The Mind Melts
Posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Lovingly pinched from True Cult Heavy Metal (Blog by Louise Brown, Editor Terrorizer): Sorry I didn’t post day two of my Roadburn blog before this. That’s what happens after festivals. Life gets ya. It brings you down to the earth with an almighty punch in the lady garden. And blimey, ...read more
Lowcut.dk: Roadburn Festival – 2010
Posted on Saturday, May 8th, 2010
We were back to Roadburn for our 6th year in a row and staying at the same hotel. I travelled down with my band, Øresund Space Collective and we played a gig the night before in Den Haag at a cool club. Anyway, Magnus and I would meet up with ...read more
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