The Metal Column – December 2011
The Skinny likes its metal like we don't like our weather – harsh, uncompromising, brutal – and although we're unlikely to be kept pleased by the dour climate this month, there's still plenty of unholy treats in store across Scotland's cosiest sweatboxes.
This frostbitten December gets off to a particularly solid start with Edinburgh band We Ate Them Off The Floor, sure to cause an ecstatic stir in the 13th Note (3 Dec) with their grungy, proggy take on instrumental rock. They're part of a five-band lineup including Wildtype, Sagat, Headless Kross and moody contemporaries What The Blood Revealed.
A couple of days later things will get considerably larger in scale when furious groove-metallers Machine Head take over the SECC (5 Dec). They'll most likely be playing their share of new material from their well-received new album Unto The Locust, but fear not, nu-metal old-timers – they'll probably get all Supercharge-d on you folks too. Speaking of old favourites, cult frontman Ginger Wildheart and Friends hit up the O2 ABC (8 Dec), playing a set of songs from The Wildhearts' extensive back-catalogue before looking ahead to the planned release of a new triple album. He'll get you with a Suckerpunch in the meantime.
If you've been waiting on a good excuse to get all glammed up that the office Christmas party just isn't providing, your time is nigh: the all-star line-up of Mötley Crüe/Def Leppard/Steel Panther screeches into the SECC on 9 Dec. Expect bad behaviour, revolving 360-degree Tommy Lee drum solos and lots of leather. We won't tell mum you borrowed her make-up either. Looking for something more brutal? Never fear; grindcore pioneers Napalm Death are set to reduce Ivory Blacks to rubble (11 Dec). You might have trouble headbanging in time to their frantic blasts of terrifying noise, but that'll be the least of your concerns as you struggle to pick your melted face up off the floor.
Architects find a sweet spot between accessibility and intensity, and they're bringing their blend of melodic hardcore to the O2 ABC (14 Dec), but if it's pure unfiltered classic rock riffage and falsetto-laden bangers you're after, Saxon (Edinburgh Picture House, 16 Dec) is your one-stop ticket. You're lucky Bill Byford's spandex pioneering dragon tacklers are still touring this regularly eh? But as the moral of Dickens' great Christmas fable tells us: Never take advantage.