Black Dogs / BEAR / Employed To Serve / Victorian Whore Dogs [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 7/7/14]
Nothing gets you in the mood for a metal gig quite as effectively as car trouble. When reviewing gigs, you want to be like Mel Gibson’s character in We Were Soldiers – first to enter, and last to leave. For this show, I was not that.
Unfortunately I missed Victorian Whore Dogs (what a name!) and Employed To Serve entirely. Shit. Send any complaints for this omission to ibreakcarssomusicwriterscantgettogigsontime@shittymechanics.com, and be sure to check out VWD and ETS via the list of links below.
BEAR
I caught BEAR’s final three songs – and they were absolutely amazing. BEAR are a djent-ridden Belgian Dillinger Escape Plan intent on making sure their instruments barely survive the equipment-wrecking end of their set, and they’re heavier than trying to read A Brief History Of Time after staying awake for 72 hours. Read more…
I’m going to skip any introductory stuff and just jump to…
This EP is a triumph.
As far as I can remember, I’ve never reviewed a tune twice here on TMMP. But I’m doing it now. Why? Because even though I 
A week after The Boileroom first announced 
Musicians have been courting controversy for a long time. Legendary Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini made his name as “The Devil’s Violinist”; Elvis’s hip-swinging performances were the cause of public outcry in the 1950s; Marilyn Manson was blamed for the Columbine High School Massacre; and every week brings a new celeb-mag revelation about Rihanna and whatever she’s wearing (or not wearing) right now. But these guys may have overstepped the line. 
Here at TMMP, grassroots music is a big deal. I’ve never understood why people will happily watch rubbish, stuck-in-a-rut TV talent shows that promote an illusory path to instant fame (and drop almost every winner once the last pennies have been squeezed from their exhaustive promotional activities) when hundreds of far more fascinating stories can be found just down the road, at a local music venue like 
Three minutes and thirty-five seconds ago, I was knackered. As in, ready to drop and not get up again for a good few weeks.
Let’s be honest here – when it comes to the football, England never learns. 1966 was a long time ago – almost half a century ago, actually. Football is the beautiful game…as long as Spain are playing. Or Brazil. Or Italy. Or…well, anyone but us.
If experiments this wild were performed on people, the individuals responsible would be locked away. Happily, though, Marco Minnemann has chosen to restrict his boundless curiosity and dizzyingly inventive sense of creativity to the world of music – and the result is a glorious piece of genre-splicing audio terrorism that’s warmed my heart and dropped my brain cells into a sea of inspired bliss. The really crazy thing? This is just one track from Marco’s upcoming solo album, EEPS!