Metal Up Your Ass - April, 2009

Whilst Glasgow is still embroiled in Easter festivities, rolling Kiss-painted eggs down St Vincent Street and craving the tidal wave of chocolate poised tantalisingly just the other side of Lent, Edinburgh makes an uncharacteristically solid start to a busy month of rock action.

Henry's Cellar Bar, having thankfully shaken the rumours of imminent closure, leads the way for Edinburgh's happening shows. They kick off with Thews (4 Apr) the Dundonian supergroup (in our book anyway) featuring members of Laeto, Alamos and Avast! Also appearing that night are thunderous Welsh grungers The Death Of Her Money. Though not exactly metal, visceral French export Fordamage follow this up (8 Apr) with their scathing, energised racket. Having earned a reputation for blinding live shows on the continent, it's perhaps worth setting the black t-shirts aside for one night only.

Next on the capital's menu is the Metalhead Weekend at The Ark. Unsurprisingly, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Cue a weekend of bands with such colourful monickers as Junior Priest, Metaltech and of course Cancerous Womb. Three days' worth of hair-whirling guitar brutality ensues from Thursday through Sunday (9-11 Apr).

Forty days of spasm-inducing abstinence behind it and not to be out-done, Glasgow waves Lent farewell and indulges itself with a mini metal festival of its very own at Rockers, down by the Clyde. This time it's the quaintly named Unholy European Black Metal Invasion (16 Apr), featuring Profundis Tenebrarum, Valpurga and Daemonolith. The following day sees Unearthly Trance visiting the 13th Note from the US (17 Apr) with support from Glasgow's own crushingly heavy Black Sun.

Though again stretching definitions of metal, Sleazy's plays host to Seattle's now fairly infamous Earth (19 Apr), whose booming, cavernous waves of noise are a match for even the most facially-painted goth misanthropy. Simultaneously, mere yards along the road, ABC hosts another Sub Pop affiliate in The Supersuckers, who appear alongside the bashful and understated Nashville Pussy.

Another double-header (22 Apr) presents the dilemma of choosing between 65 Days of Static's enormous break-beat metallic crunch at King Tut's or Rolo Tomassi's skittish “casio-core” at Stereo, although the latter are exhibiting more and more prog fixations as time goes on.

Co-Exist, Glasgow's long-serving godfathers of brutal, brutal metal, head a cast of similar social miscreants at Stereo (24 Apr) with Deamonolith, Achren and Burning Earth completing the evening. The following night sees This Is Our Battlefield represented in typically excellent style when they bring the gruff-punk-cum-melodic-hardcore of Bridge And Tunnel to Arc Studios (25 Apr).

Obviously dissatisfied with just one metal festival in a month, Edinburgh's GRV hosts its own “Deathfest” in association with Zero Tolerance Magazine. Seven of the heftiest metal groups currently doing the rounds, including London's Dyscarnate and Glasgow's own Cerebral Bore, congregate to beat you senseless with music. Should you leave with any hearing in tact, Henry's Cellar Bar will doubtless finish you off the next night (26 Apr) as Greek progressive death metal act Echidna mess the place up.

As May approaches, there's one last chance to get a load of some metallic post-rock when two of our best native proponents of the art, Jousting With Dracula and You Already Know, perform for free at Bar Bloc in Glasgow (30 Apr).