Roadburn Festival: Saint Vitus + Cathedral + Mono + The Outskirts Of Infinity

+ Shora + + Church of Misery + The Atomic Bitchwax + Saviours + Roadsaw + Omega Massif + Colour Haze + Angel Witch + Seven That Spells SAINT VITUS have been confirmed as the headliner of the Friday Roadburn festival date. David Chandler comments: "We are extremely happy that were invited to Roadburn and we are excited to play. Those of you that saw us on the original reunion tour in 2003 are going to be extremely surprised at our set list. We are pulling stuff out of the hat that we haven't played in a long long time. So I suggest that you all get up front and prepare for your DOOM!" Saint Vitus is known as one of the very first doom metal bands, starting out in the late 1970's, and have released many classic albums over the ensuing decades. Although Saint Vitus has been on hold for several years now, they will be reforming as the classic 'Born Too Late' line-up (Dave Chandler, Scott "Wino" Weinrich, Mark Adams, Armando Acosta) headlining Friday night at Roadburn 2009. Over the last two decades, Saint Vitus has become revered as one of the main architects of the modern doom scene, encompassing all that doom metal is all about: emotion, melody and epic songs stacked with enough behemoth riffs to light a week long bonfire. Every note the band has ever put to tape is a benchmark by which all other doom records have been judged. Saint Vitus classic phrase 'Born to Late' has become the war cry for generations of doom-aficionados. Nick Saloman [Bevis Frond] comments: "If, like me, you were inspired by the excitement, ability and sheer power of the guitar-based hard psych trio, then you cannot fail to love The Outskirts Of Infinity.They have built their sound on the solid tradition of great playing and uncompromising jamming. Bari Watts has been amazing audiences for decades via his all-too-rare live shows and sporadic album output. His guitar playing is up there with the all-time greats. A unique, burning, untutored, instinctive sonic assault guaranteed to scare off any would-be Hendrix clones. I first met him when we were 18, and even then his playing just blew me away. Ric Gunther handles drums, and having beaten his alcoholic demons into submission, he now attacks the kit with the same verve. On bass, Terry Horbury, wielding his machine like a weapon of aural destruction. Put these three guys together and you get a sound that will transport you back, sideways and upwards all at the same time. They do what you've always wanted a three-piece to do. They don't come out of their lairs frequently, so make the most of this opportunity to see what all the fuss is about." Roadburn is also pleased to report that UK doom legends Cathedral will play the Friday Roadburn date. Purveyors of psychedelic doom since 1991, Cathedral have been amazing audiences with impassioned live performances thanks to the monstrous grooves and monolithic riffs from tracks like "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)" and "Utopian Blaster." “Imagine being at a lounge in hell and witnessing this set by former serial killers playing catatonically mellow music. Or, if you're familiar with the TV series "Twin Peaks," imagine hanging out in the Black Lodge and the music that would accompany such an experience. Thankfully, you won't have to die for your sins to enjoy this, as the band in question, Bohren und der Club of Gore, exists, up here on the material plane - Germany, to be exact” -Roberto Martinelli, Maelstrom.nu Germany's Colour Haze has become Europe's leading stonerock band. They excel at lush, "Sky Valley"-inspired, transcendental jams. Once you're beyond the ubiquitous desert rock shroomaroom, this effervescent band beguiles with its mellifluous harmonies and epic guitar travelogues. Colour Haze is like a rainbow-hued, undulating sonic lava lamp, where hypnotic eddies of molten wax are replaced with exultant, analogue groove. The band are truly masters of their craft, delivering euphoric, grandiose flurries of fabulously furry, "Live Dead" riff-adelia. Happily, this isn’t a crass Gratefull Dead / Kyuss paroday, as the expert mood alchemists in Colour Haze manage to infuse an idiosyncratic formula into their immersive pools of etherized space guitar. Should you have a yen for inner space adventuring, one could do far worse than genuflect before this temple of psych. These krauts rock, but rather inwardly than out. Dragontears is a collective recording project centered around members of Baby Woodrose and On Trial featuring an everchanging line up of friends. The concept is letting songs evolve freely in the sonic playground of Black Tornado Studio in Copenhagen, and this resulted in the band's debut album, "2000 Micorgrams From Home." All the songs are linked together by sound effect interludes [from vintage tape echo machines], and are embellished with a wide array of instruments like glockenspiel, autoharp, and bubbly wahwah guitars, all manipulated for maximum weirdness.Not surprisingly, the record takes the listener on a hypnotic journey through the center of the mind. Dragontears has a new album out, called "Tambourine Freak Machine." Neurosis' Scott Kelly returns to the solo stage with his appearance at the Friday Roadburn date. Within the rage of distortion and bombardment of feedback, you are just as likely to experience sadness and beauty, light and darkness, chaos and peace, happiness and melancholy. It is Mono's [often referred to as Japan's answer to Explosions In The Sky] ability to combine, intertwine and swing back and forth from two such opposite extremes to create an emotional phantasmagoria that makes this band worth experiencing. Slow and brooding, the songs on "Geisterstadt", Omega Massif 's debut album bring flurries of soaring melodic guitar lines to elephantine riffage descended from Pelican's "Australasia" and a dustbowl ambience that sounds like what Earth's "Hex mighta" sounded like if Dylan Carlson had injected that album with a high level of chugging saurian metalcore. The voiceless nature of the music turns the focus on pure atmosphere, and they deliver it, layering the pulverizing repetitive metalchug with a sense of gloom and longing that becomes near-suffocating at times, but there are also lots of gorgeous ethereal melodies-Crucial Blast. Steve Von Till is most widely recognized as vocalist and guitarist in Bay Area heavy post-psychedelic punk / metal legends Neurosis. But, the breadth of his talents and interests reaching far beyond that band's thunderous intensity have been well established over the course of related projects like the experimental offshoot Tribes of Neurot, psych-drone band Harvestman and acoustic guitar based solo releases like "A Grave is a Grim Horse." Von Till's intense obsession with ancestry and many things ancient is deeply ingrained in all his work, but none more than within his solo recordings. His first two albums focused intently upon sounds and stories of ages past, eloquently serving to reconnect with forgotten mythologies and long-buried verse. While the same reverence remains on "A Grave Is A Grim Horse", it is also Von Till's most personal and confident effort to date. Not surprisingly we asked Steve to play at the Friday Roadburn date. The Winchester Club's "Britannia Triumphant" are the last whisperings between Mogwai’s frail mother and Godspeed you black emperor’s great-grandfather" - Dazed and Confused.