Roky Erickson @ Voxhall, Aarhus DK 28.04.2016

A shadow of his former self, a semi-rehabilitated Roky Erickson goes through the motions on life support

It was a tired looking Roger Kynard Erickson who entered the stage at Voxhall the 28th of April, 2016. Whether this is the current state of the influential musician or a result of excessive touring is uncertain, but nonetheless coloured the evening's mood a bleak shade of blue.

You don't have to be much of a rock fan to know who Roky Erickson is. Together with bands like The Seeds and Electric Prunes, Roky's band The 13th Floor Elevators more or less created psychedelic rock in the mid sixties. Their '66 debut, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, remains a classic to this day, with the track You're Gonna Miss Me being regarded as the group's biggest hit. Two albums followed, Easter Everywhere and Bull of the Woods, before the band dissolved and Erickson continued with other projects.

Dead Hills: "Purgatory / Winds of Time"

Master crafted atmospheres and grey vibes

Australia has a track record of great metal bands, and in a huge variety of subgenres too. Most well known is probably the country-continent's affinity for blackened thrash bands like Deströyer 666, but with big names like Portal, Psycroptic, The Berzerker, Abyssic Hate, Hobbs' Angel of Death, Mortal Sin and more, it's safe to say they know what they're doing down under. Dead Hills, however, is a rare occurence yet. A black metal band at heart, the one-man band rends depressive soundscapes with electronic clouds of ambience and lengthy passages of withering distortion.

Sanity Obscure: "Subterranean Constellation"

Hard pressed for lasting attention, but capable of an enjoyable end-product

The press release states something along the lines that Sanity Obscure is for fans of such bands as Pestilence, Nocturnus, Coroner, Atheist and Death. Naturally comparing a band to such legends of technical and progressive metal are big words - Can the Singaporeans truly deliver what they promise? If they really are what they claim, those names are a good start for sure.

Hammerspace: "The Kings of Mediocrity" & "Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore"

Cliché-ridden heavy metal for the edgiest of fedora-enthusiastic neckbeards

While the 80s was probably the decade that saw the most progress and evolution for heavy metal as a genre, it is also the decade that many current bands revisit and mimic - Some more succesfully than others. The joining of old and new seems much more paraxodical, though, with a "band" such as Hammerspace. Created by Timothy Branch as a sort of virtual concept band with imaginary members, or characters, the conceptual group borrows from fantasy and heavy metal culture alike.

The following is a sort of double-up review, holding up against each other the project's two releases The Kings of Mediocrity EP and Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore, released by Torn Flesh Records.

Nordland: "Nordland"

A welcome addition to the black metal roster

Vorh, a resident of North East England, has with his project Nordland joined the forces of one-man black metal bands. Since the early days, bands like Burzum, Satanic Warmaster and Xasthur have proven that the basic concept isn't necessarily a stillborn attempt at the genre. A plethora of singular individuals have sought to mimic the success of the few; most have failed. But with the eponymous debut, Nordland from the UK is a strong contender among legends.

Eudaimonia: "Hymn to the Dying World"

Ambiguous performance in black metal, atmospheres and moods

The Danish one-man effort Eudaimonia, while not entirely beyond categorization, is a project of highly diverse compositions. At a point you think you've gotten to know the band and its sound with all its facets of ambience, atmospheres and black metal-esque fluctuations, only to get thrown off by the addition of other foreign elements, forcing you to reevaluate you thoughts of Eudaimonia. As such it is a band that avoid pigeonholing.

Darkend: "Grand Guignol: Book I"

Symphonic black metal done right

When you mention symphonic black metal, most people will instantly think of Dimmu Borgir. The funny thing is that a band like Italy's Darkend in much greater capacity encompass the essence of the genre in many aspects. Though their lyrics aren't overtly satanic - as is usual custom, their riffs aren't thin tremolo-fests, their vocals aren't solely the throaty rasping usually combined with the style, and the drumming is much more varied than the conventional blast beats, at heart they are much more a black metal band than Dimmu Borgir (they were, after all, featured on a split with power metal bands Avantasia and Sonata Arctica in 2014) - or similarly prominent bands in the scene - currently are.