Soundwave Festival 2015, the highly anticipated latest instalment of Australia’s premier hard rock, heavy metal, and punk rock event is nearly upon us and fans are already plotting what their day is going to look like.
But before you get your highlighters out to attack those timetables and leave them ragged, we thought it might be a good idea to familiarise yourself with some of the the must-see acts on this year’s lineup.
If you’re already an expert, then these albums, which range for recent releases, to classic albums, will do a superb job of pumping you up for when the big weekend finally arrives.
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Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar
Somewhere between the release of 2000’s timely and expository Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) and 2007’s intimate and introspective Eat Me, Drink Me, Marilyn Manson became a pop culture mainstay. Whereas once he was the man that we feared, with increasingly bizarre rumours circulating about the nature of his live show and his sexual proclivities, he’s become like your fun but totally inappropriate uncle. But back in 1996, parents around the world were preparing for the worst when an androgynous hellion unleashed an album titled Antichrist Superstar. No record will get you more invigorated to see the man live.
Judas Priest – The Essential Judas Priest
This is the Rosetta Stone right here. No comprehensive understanding of heavy metal, whether of modern forms like technical death metal and metalcore, or old-school movements like the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, can be attained without ensuring that a band of leather-clad misfits from Birmingham, England are placed high on the family tree. Without Judas Priest, there would be no Soundwave, or for that matter, Wacken, Download Festival, or Monsters of Rock. If you want to know where heavy metal started, get the first four Black Sabbath albums, if you want to know when it became heavy metal, get yourself an education with The Essential Judas Priest.
Slipknot – .5: The Gray Chapter
Beginning with their unrelenting 1999 self-titled debut, Slipknot have waged a one-band heavy metal recruitment campaign. Ask most heavy metal fans under the age of 25 what album got them into heavy metal and you’ll be hit with three oddly unnerving syllables: Iowa. Forging a defiantly modern sound built on creeping atmospherics, churning riffs, guttural vocals, and unyielding aggression, Slipknot are truly in a league of their own. Their most recent dispatch, .5: The Gray Chapter, is not only a visceral tribute to late bassist Paul Gray, but successfully frames the power and brutality of the Des Moines clique after two decades in the game.
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Faith No More – Angel Dust
Faith No More will always be a paradox. Somehow, Mike Patton and his merry band of misfit jesters are consistently cited as a major influence by countless bands, and yet no one else sounds quite like them. With the addition of Patton to the band in 1989, who took over from previous vocalist Charles Mosley, Faith No More quickly went about forging a path for themselves that few other bands had the intelligence, acumen, or balls to take. Following some teething problems on 1989’s The Real Thing (an inarguable classic nonetheless), such as Patton’s nasal tendencies, a throwback to Chuck Mosley, the band reconvened in 1992 to record Angel Dust, a tuneful, intricate, and utterly perplexing concoction of metal, rock, and the avant-garde.
Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
Revered as they are, Soundgarden never quite got their due. While the influence and importance of Nirvana cannot be overstated, their presence in the history of modern rock sometimes proves so omnipotent that we’re liable to forget that the band that everyone in the Seattle scene, including Nirvana, aspired to be was Soundgarden. Almost three decades later, little has changed. The band still wield an awesome influence over rock bands, providing many with a blueprint for how to go big and keep your integrity. Badmotorfinger is pure Soundgarden, packed with howling vocals and slithering, barbwire riffage.
The Smashing Pumpkins – Monuments to an Elegy
We’re certain frontman Billy Corgan could and would lecture you for hours about how his band’s influence exceeds even that of Nirvana or The Beatles. When you pretend you can’t speak English and run away, he’ll probably make a bitchy t-shirt about you. That’s okay. Whether or not The Smashing Pumpkins were better or worse than other bands is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is Corgan’s ability to write excellent rock music. And while 1993’s Siamese Dream illustrated the new sophistication of alternative music and 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness cemented it as a bonafide art form, the recent Monuments to an Elegy is what best illustrates the Pumpkins as they are here and now.
Ministry – Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs
With 1992’s Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, Ministry single-handedly made Nine Inch Nails look like run of the mill cock rock, made Rammstein look like a bunch of juvenile schoolboys, and taught Rob Zombie what it means to have the life scared out of you. After a thrashing, almost dream-like passage that repeats a sample of US President George H. W. Bush proclaiming a “New world order”, we’re treated to the album’s first lyrics: “Blood keeps drinking away / Certain of its destination“. What ensues thereafter is a harrowing, sinister, somehow tongue-in-cheek dispatch from industrial’s ruling warlords.
Godflesh – A World Lit Only by Fire
While relative poseurs like Einstürzende Neubauten were busy mincing about with jackhammers and fracking equipment, Godflesh set themselves apart by generating the same horsepower and sinister soundscapes with nothing but a guitar-bass-drum machine triumvirate. Consistently labelled as one of the most “unforgiving” and “punishing” exponents of so-called industrial metal, it’s only right that their first album in 13 years be one of their sternest castigations yet. Like the band itself, Godflesh’s A World Lit Only by Fire will take you by the throat, and we highly recommend you let it.
Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel
These Melbourne progressive metallers have been rising stars in the local scene for some time and it looks like the rest of the country and indeed the world is starting to take notice. Consistently praised for the sheer skill of their musicianship, the intricacies of their songwriting, their thematic complexity, and their unrelenting live performances, Ne Obliviscaris have seemed destined for greatness since their debut album, 2012’s Portal Of I. On their most recent effort, Citadel, which received acclaim for outlets around the world, it was clear from the first riff that Ne Obliviscaris are looking to leave their mark on modern heavy metal music.
King Parrot – Bite Your Head Off
The Melbourne five-piece was one of the local additions to the Melbourne leg of last year’s festival, but their gnarly mesh of Frankensteined metal and punks styles was rather sadly denied to the other stops on that year’s tour. Finally, organisers have stepped up their game and promoted this frenzied quintet from a casual position to full-time (reckon we had a hand to play in that? No? Anybody? Fine). Bite Your Head Off is your crash course to what one of Australia’s hardest working metal exponents are all about. And when we say “crash course”, we mean remember to buckle your seatbelt because King Parrot aren’t really big on safety.
Coldrain – The Revelation
They’re called Coldrain, they’re from Japan but sing in English, and one look at them will tell you they’re bound for stardom. But one listen to their 2013 album The Revelation, which saw an Australian release early last year, will tell you that these guys are more than just a future Kerrang! feature band. If their prolific output (the band have unveiled a release every year since their debut) wasn’t enough to tell you these guys mean business, the mature songcraft of The Revelation will cement it for you. Bearing an infectious dynamism that permeates a sound that is melodic, catchy, and above all heavy, Coldrain manage to slip in and out of a diverse range of genres with ease and style.
The Bennies – Heavy Disco EP
If you haven’t jumped on the Bennies bandwagon yet, then you may not know that those of us who were early adopters of their quintessentially Melburnian brand of punk-informed garage ska have been waiting for them to blow up for a while now. For some, this desire exists in the abstract – selfless fans who want to see their local heroes scale the heights they so deserve to mount. For the less altruistic among us, we simply knew that playing more often and to bigger audiences would result in a more explosive raft of pit-ready mosh anthems. With the band about to head for the summit of one of the biggest obstacles that can be put before an Aussie punk band, the Heavy Disco has arrived just in time. Packed with a propulsive urgency, this collection of militarised third wave ska is an essential Aussie release.
Soundwave Festival 2015
Faith No More
Soundgarden
Incubus
Lamb Of God
Ministry
Antemasque
Gerard Way
Mayhem
New Found Glory
Fear Factory
Hollywood Undead
Atreyu
The Aquabats
Area 7
Godflesh
Crown The Empire
The Interrupters
Icon For Hire
Emily’s Army
Patent Pending
Fireworks
The Bennies
The Color Morale
Monuments
Nothing More
Deathstars
Ne Obliviscaris
The Treatment
Slipknot
Slash w/Myles Kennedy
Marilyn Manson
Fall Out Boy
Judas Priest
Godsmack
All Time Low
Papa Roach
Of Mice & Men
Escape The Fate
Apocalyptica
Lagwagon
Tonight Alive
Crossfaith
Butcher Babies
Confession
The Swellers
Conditions
Coldrain
King 810
Dayshell
This Wild Life
The Wonder Years
Bayside
Nonpoint
Animals As Leaders
Bayside
The Devil Wears Prada
Dragonforce
Evergreen Terrace
Fucked Up
He Is Legend
Killer Be Killed
Le Butcherettes
Lower Than Atlantis
Nonpoint
One Ok Rock
Sleepwave
Twin Atlantic
The Smashing Pumpkins
Steel Panther
Millencolin
Falling In Reverse
Exodus
The Vandals
Rival Sons
King Parrot
Raglans
Terror Universal
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Bonython Park, Adelaide, South Australia
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Victoria
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane, Queensland
Tickets: Soundwave
