For everyone who could not make it due to the mighty Eyjafjallajokull eruption, now is your time to enjoy the festival without any hassles. And for everyone who could not magically clone ourselves to simultaneously catch all of the action in the Bat Cave, Green Room, Midi Theatre and Main Hall and felt kind of bummed about it, cheer up!

We are pleased to announce that VPRO 3voor12, which is the leading cultural media network in the Netherlands, has posted additional on-demand audio streams for your Roadburn 2010 listening pleasure.

Online now! Performances by Brant Bjork, Earthless, Firebird, Horisont, Nachtmystium, Pagan Altar, Shever, Trinacria and Yob are currently available on-demand. Enjoy!

As many of you already know, nearly all of the performances at Roadburn 2010 were recorded. Right now we are still busy mixing, but you can be sure that we will share the finished results with you as soon as they are ready!

Triptykon - Tom Gabriel Warrior - Roadburn 2010 by Achrome Moments

Day 2

Dude, seriously? Fuck this volcano. Due to the mass closure of European airspace and flight cancellations, at least six bands were forced to cancel. I know I’m not the only fan who was bummed to hear we’d be missing out on Candlemass’ Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, let alone Jesu, Shrinebuilder, Evoken, Yakuza, and my buds The Gates of Slumber, but the quick-thinking Roadburn staff and a few bands that were willing to go above and beyond the call of duty and offer up some help. After all, the show must go on.

On the Tom G. Warrior-curated Only Death Is Real show on Friday, Church of Misery switched to an earlier time slot, Earthless played a second set, and the rest of the bands seemed to step up their games as well.

Continue reading: Brooklyn Vegan: Roadburn Festival 2010 in review Pt II by Kim Kelly.

Scott Heller/Oresund Space Collective - Roadburn 2010 by Achrome Moments Photography

Usually we are a group of 8 but for one reason or another Ole decided not to go and then Martin and his girlfriend were stuck in Oslo due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. This eruption would turn out to be a lot of hassles for Walter, the organizer as all the US bands that were not already in Europe would not get to play now as all flights are cancelled.

OSC arrived at the venue 1½ hrs late due to bad traffic around Tilburg and a bad turn near the venue. Anyway, all went well and we got set up and did our soundcheck in the Bat Cave and then just relaxed in the backstage room and had some food. It was all going to begin soon.

OSC played at the same time as Ancestors and Kylesa started 15 mins before us. They only had two people working the ticket window to let nearly 2000 people in so there were not that many people at the beginning of the gigs for any of these bands as it took people more than an hour for some to cue in line just to get in. People were a bit angry. OSC played a pretty killer show and the end was especially psychedelic and intense. I went off to sell some merchandise but planned to meet up with the others at the midi theatre for Earthless. I missed Jarboe, Troubled Horse (who I wanted to see) and Wounded Kings. It was a tough choice, YOB or earthless… I saw the first 20 mins of Earthless and then went off to see YOB. I did not get sucked in. It was not as powerful as I had hoped. Then to the Green room to catch some of BONG and this was amazing. I stayed the rest of the show and really liked them a lot.

Continue reading: Lowcut: Roadburn Festival – 2010 by Scott Heller.

words by Kim Kelly,

Kim Kelly knows her (good) metal, and as such, we couldn’t think of a better ambassador than this Philadelphian/writer for Terrorizer / Hails & Horns / Metal Injection. Kim checks in from Roadburn (April 15-18, 2010) in Tilburg, Holland, where she will take in some of the best metal bands currently in existence (and some resurrected from the grave), reporting back on what havoc the riff, and the volcano, hath wrought…

Goatsnake - Roadburn 2010 by Erik Luyten

ROADBURN DIARY – DAY 1 (Thursday, April 15)

The road to Tilburg is a very long one, indeed – at least if you’re coming from the mean streets of Philadelphia. After an 8am flight from Newark that landed at Heathrow at 8pm London time (before the volcano!), a few restless hours of sleep in a hostel (where a very nice Scottish boy had acted as my human alarm clock after I discovered that both my US and UK cell phones weren’t working), an hour-long bus ride to Standsted Airport (chauffeured by a rough-looking lad who spent the trip dancing in his seat to Lady Gaga and singing along under his breath), an hour flight to Eindhoven, twenty minutes on a bus to the city’s central train station, forty minutes on the train to Tilburg, and a five-minute walk with my Terrorizer mates to the Grass Company cafe / weed emporium, I was finally there – the stoned Mecca that is Roadburn.

Continue reading:  Roadburn Festival 2010 kicks off despite the volcano – our Day 1 report includes Goatsnake, Eyehategod, a wedding & more.

Goatsnake

Yob

Jarboe

Sons of Otis

Eagle Twin

Enslaved

Eyehategod

Monkey 3

Shining

Even during their hiatus, YOB have maintained their position in the vanguard of contemporary doom because of the quality and originality of their mind bending doom-metal. Now they have returned and are prepared to reach even greater heights (and doom depths).
The band’s latest album, “The Great Cessation” is definitely YOB’s finest hour. Led by Mike Scheidt’s crushing doom riffage and relentless stomp, YOB have easily reclaimed their rightful cosmic doom throne while generating new fans and momentum.

Roadburn will celebrate YOB’s return to the fold by offering the band the opportunity to play different shows at both the 013 venue, and the Midi Theatre during the festival.

Mike Scheidt comments: “YOB is quite thrilled to announce our first European trip to play the most excellent Roadburn festival in 2010. We have wanted to come over to Europe to play for many years and to have our first show be at Roadburn is beyond incredible for us. We are looking forward to sharing in the atmosphere of the fest with all of the excellent bands and fans that will be in attendance. April will not get here soon enough! DOOM!!!”

This is Walter’s (Roadburn’s promoter / artistic director’s) playlist for September 2009. Please share your personal Top 5 in the comments box below.

Masters of reality - Pine-Cross Dover

Masters of Reality – Pine / Cross Dover ( Cd – Brownhouse / Mascot)
Pairing rhythm-heavy tracks to long and winding free-form instrumentals, Masters of Reality return to form with Pine / Cross Dover. Departing from their previous acoustic leanings, the band gives a nod to Public Image Ltd and Mahavishnu Orchestra, while still sporting the distinctive Masters of Reality sound, courtesy of Chris Goss’ legendary production talents.

Shrinebuilder - Self Titled

Shrinebuilder – S/T (CD – Neurot Recordings)
Perhaps the most anticipated “Roadburn album” of the year: Shrinebuilder’s self-titled debut album melds the different styles of Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, Wino), Al Cisneros (OM, Sleep) and Dale Crover (Melvins). Memorable, canyon-size riffs lead to psychedelic guitar solos; subdued vocals lend mellow parts; and the wandering, groove-laden ambience ultimately creates crushing doom riffage, which is only strengthened by the natural vibe between these musical heavyweights.

OM - God Is Good

OM – God Is Good (LP / CD – Drag City)
OM’s first full-length featuring the Al Cisneros / Emil Amos (of Grails fame) line-up. God Is Good drifts into uncharted Middle Eastern territory amid OM’s signature hypnotic repetitions. Strings, sitars, tablas and
flutes lead the way as we travel the acid drenched, ancient routes of the Holy Land.

Bong – S/T (LP – Contact Infinite Exchange Records for availablity)
Sunn 0))) meets Sleep? Hawkwind jamming with Ravi Shankar? All that and more: meet Bong. Their self-titled debut album is a mind-bending headfuck!

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – When Sweet Sleep Returned ( LP / CD – TeePee Records)
Universe-spanning, 100% undiluted psychedelic rock that sounds like the very best of the psychedelic era (the late 60s / early 70s), ranging from Crazy Horse to Spirit and from Blue Cheer to 13th Floor Elevators.

Yob - The Great Cessation

YOB – The Great Cessation (CD Profound Lore)
YOB’s latest album, The Great Cessation is definitely the band’s finest hour. Led by Mike Scheidt’s crushing doom riffage and relentless stomp, YOB have easily reclaimed their rightful cosmic doom throne while generating new fans and momentum.

Yob - Great Cessation

Oregon’s YOB have carved out a niche of “cosmic doom,” which is a descriptor, not a subgenre. Few bands do what YOB do– marry Black Sabbath’s heavy and psychedelic sides. Sabbath did both equally well. But when they wheeled out acoustic guitars and bongo drums, they were just taking a break. YOB keep the pressure up, driving riffs into subterranean depths, yet sending melodies spiraling skyward. 2005′s The Unreal Never Lived perfected such duality. It found the intersection among roaring guitars, yoga class, black light dreams, and white light ecstasy. Black Sabbath with Dio as singer changed their name to Heaven and Hell for legal reasons. Had they followed through sonically, YOB might have resulted.

Read the full review at Pitchfork: Album Reviews: YOB: The Great Cessation.

Yob

“It was an education, to say the least. Legally we can’t even say the band name.”

No matter how lousy your 2008 might have been, chances are it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it was for Mike Scheidt. Following the break-up of Eugene, Oregon doom masters Yob in 2005, the guitarist formed a new band, choosing the seemingly innocent-sounding moniker Middian, and released the impressive The Age Eternal on Metal Blade in 2007. However, that band’s name would open a can of worms the size of an oil drum, thanks to an overtly litigious, defunct nu-metal outfit from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that went by the name of Midian.

“It was just a very, very dark time,” he laughs, as only a person who has been to hell and back can do. “It just seemed like there was no end in sight for a while.”

Funny how things work out, though. Here we are in the middle of 2009, Yob is back in business, reunited with a brilliant new record to flog, and the outgoing Scheidt couldn’t be happier to talk about something that doesn’t involve the circuitous American legal process.

Please read the full article at: Hellbound » Blog Archive » YOB: Zen and the Art of Crushing Skulls.

Yob - The Great Cessation

Lovingly pinched from one of our favorite websites: Playing in a band isn’t supposed to be pretty or fair, but what happened to Middian was about as dogshit awful as it gets. Mike Scheidt’s post-YOB project had every indication of surpassing YOB’s already awe-inspiring output (and this, mind you, I base on “Dreamless Eye” alone), and then some do-nothing, go-nowhere band from – well, who the fuck cares, really? – hits them with a cease and desist order due to a trademarked name. If you can barely break even on tour, how are you going to pay for legal fees? The short answer is “You can’t,” so Middian hung it up.

That would have been a completely disastrous turn of events had Scheidt not resurrected YOB. And, judging by the anguished roar that he lets loose at two minutes and 23 seconds into lead track “Burning the Altar,” he also channeled the rage and pent-up aggression of the Middian experience into The Great Cessation. Doom – be it traditional, crust, funeral, psychedelic, or whatever other sub-sub-genre’s out there – is meant to be dour and slow, but here it’s also furious.

Please read the full review at:  StonerRock.com – YOB – The Great Cessation.

Yob - The Unreal Never Lived

(From our archives):  The cataclysmic supremacy of doom alchemists, Yob seems to rise exponentially with each album, and  The Unreal Never Lived soars above the paltry offerings of the metal mainstream like a doomy avatar.

Mike Scheidt is a pan-dimensional, guitar shaman who wields his lead-footed axe with the searing accuracy of battle hardened Visigoth, bludgeoning the agog listener with pendulous swathes of throaty Gibson overkill, only to confound expectation with unctuous tones of blissful psychedelic beauty.

To say that Mssrs Scheidt (Git / Vox ), Sato (Bass), Foster’s (drums) doomodelic assault verges on the transcendental is cheap hyperbole for so mountainous a composition, inspirational heavy that plunges the shrieking cerebellum into a broiling sea of pungent lysergic imagery, and ultimately I lack the verbiage to succinctly quantify the peerless majesty that is the mighty Yob…

For me, at it’s most omnipotent,  The Unreal Never Lived incubates a glorious, deeply penetrating feeling of euphoria that effortlessly transcends many of the rigid limitations of traditional doom, if not rock music itself, and thus it would be remiss of me to dissect so adventurous a work by the sum of its parts. Since this would be to it’s detriment, simply put, the genius of this album is in it’s sumptuous totality, so one must delve deeply into it’s immersive, riff-heavy folds!

The wondrous idiosyncrasy of Mike’s signature double barrelled vox whose unerring ability to affect both black metal menace and exultant melodic castrati with equal aplomb remains breathtaking.  The Unreal Never Lived is a truly magnificent experience, exemplary heavy metal unfettered by the shackles of convention…

This is THE quintessential Yob release thus far deserving of it’s uniform praise, but I will say this, read as many glowing reviews as you wish, then simply ignore them as The Unreal Never Lived is infinitely better…
In a scene clogged rotten with a plethora of cut and paste metal, it gladdens the soul to bear witness to such elegiac heavy metal grandeur, and besides, this sonic titan drops riffs heavier than a marble portcullis.
Jason De L’Orme