Posts Tagged ‘Ghost’
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 »
Ghost – Roadburn 2011: Qualitly Fan Filmed Video Footage On Line!
Posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Last month, Ghost delighted an unsuspecting crowd of new devotees with a phantasmal performance at the 2011 Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland. The incorporeal beings were captured by a lucky attendee who – by posting the footage online – spreads the sect’s sacrilegious scripture to new and nescient minds across ...read more
Avant-Garde Epiphanies In Tilburg: Roadburn 2011 Reviewed (The Quietus)
Posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Jamie Thomson reports back on the finest that this year’s Roadburn festival had to offer, from Swans to Sunn O))) and Godflesh to Ghost. Once a year, the cream of the world’s avant-garde, experimental, drone and doom bands converge on a small town in southern Holland under the guise of ...read more
Roadburn 2011 on YouTube Pt.1 (Thursday, April 14th)
Posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Quite a few Roadburn 2011 performances were captured on video by audience members. Here is a selection of YouTube clips handpicked by Roadburn (Day 1: Thursday, April 14th). Those moments when it was impossible to instantly transport yourself from the Main Room to the Midi Theatre, Green Room or Bat ...read more
VPRO 3voor12 Luisterpaal: Warm Up for Roadburn 2011!
Posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Now available to blast online: the good folks at the VPRO’s 3voor12 site have posted an excellent Roadburn 2011 sampler featuring Shrinebuilder, White Hills, Sabbath Assembly, Sunn O))), Alcest, Ghost, Black Math Horseman, Menace Ruine, Scorn, Wardruna and Stone Axe. This is a compelling reminder of why everyone is so ...read more
ST VITUS AND DEVIL ADDED TO HOLE IN THE SKY 2011 (TERRORIZER)
Posted on Friday, March 25th, 2011
Hole in the Sky 2011 is looking to be cracker with Saint Vitus and Devil being added to a line up that already includes Ghost, Marduk, Godflesh and Virus. These two acts tie in perfectly with the festivals aim of bringing new talent and tradition together. Doom metal has gone ...read more
Ufomammut’s Eve: Album of 2010 According To Roadburn.com Readers
Posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
In the beginning of December 2010 we asked you, our beloved Roadburn readers, to list your Top 10 Roadburn-flavored albums of 2010. By Christmas Eve we had received 110 lists. Thanks to everyone who took the time to send us their list! This is how we compiled the rankings: the ...read more
We want your top 10 Albums of 2010
Posted on Monday, January 3rd, 2011
[Update, January 3rd]: And the winner is: Italy’s own Ufomammut with the album Eve! Felicitazioni! Congratulations, gentlemen! Roadburn’s Album of the Day has become a tradition and now that the year is drawing to a close we at Roadburn HQ thought it would be fun to let our loyal readers, ...read more
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