Highlights from night two of Bull City Metal Fest

(Colossus)

Wow! What an amazing evening! There are so many great things to say about all the bands on night two of the Bull City Metal Fest that I don't even know where to begin. Let's just say that I'm really looking forward to next year's festival. In order to conserve space on my cam, I only got video of a few of the bands. 

I arrived about mid-way through Monsonia's set, missing a few of the bands that played in the early afternoon. Even though this weekend was billed as a metal festival, there were quite a few bands that aren't strictly metal. Monsonia is one of them. This was my first time seeing them, and I thought they had a really cool Helmet/Jesus Lizard sound. 

Next up was Horseback, who put on the performance of the evening with a 15-minute version of "Invokation" and "Tyrant Symmetry." Rich from Hog was playing his first show with the band. He told me later that they're working on booking a European tour now. 

Gollum from Wilmington were next. At first I wasn't into them, but they grew on me during the show. I really liked the last two songs that they did. I can say they were one of the absolute true metal bands on the bill. 

Royal Thunder was the other band on the bill that wasn't really metal, but they ended up being my favorite band of the night. They were more like a really heavy Fleetwood Mac, with a bit of Led Zeppelin, Stooges, and even some U2 thrown in. They also had a phenomenal female singer/guitarist. I bought their CD and have been listening to it non-stop. 

The surprise of the evening was USX playing with just Nate, Josh and Justin on stage -- only half of their line-up. Nate said that they had played shows as a trio before, and it was no big deal to them. Lots of folks (myself included) have said that USX isn't necessarily a metal band. They're a band with metallic elements among a variety of influences. On Saturday, with just the three of them, they brought the metal, and were heavier than anything else I heard all weekend. After their show I was done (and so was my camera's memory card), and I ended up skipping out on Hog and Caltrop. See more photos from the evening. Ross Grady also has some great photos on his Flickr stream. 

This week's cool shows and music: Monsonia, Static Minds and more

This week's two best shows are tied to CD releases, and luckily for you, I have some music for you to check out before the shows.

The first is Monsonia, who will celebrate the release of "33.3," out now on Holidays for Quince, with a release party Friday, Nov. 12, at Nightlight. This record reminds me a lot of one of my all-time favorite bands, The Jesus Lizard, with a little Shellac and Honor Role thrown in. MAKE and Minor Stars are also on this show.

Also on the same night, Static Minds will celebrate their CD-release, "Electricity,"  with The Loners and Maldora at Kings. You can stream "Electricity" here.

Looking ahead, Brooklyn "transcendental black metalists" Liturgy will play with Nine Fingered Thug and Here Lies ... at Kings on Thursday, Nov. 18. They'll have a new album out on Thrill Jockey next year.


Finally, N.C. expats Future Islands, Lonnie Walker, NAPS and Veelee will be at Kings the following night, Nov. 19. Check out the Jason Urick remix of my favorite Future Islands song, "Tim Man," here.