Don’t panic–Strange Matter will not be dumping a year’s supply of your own feces onto your head on Thursday. No, the fourth Year Of Shit Fest will merely bring you a jam-packed lineup of doom, sludge, crust, and other varieties of dark, heavy, brutal metal. If anything, it’s an eight-hour antidote to the crappy 2013 you’ve had so far. And if you’re one of those weirdos who’s having a good year, it’ll make it even better (or something).
Don’t panic–Strange Matter will not be dumping a year’s supply of your own feces onto your head on Thursday. No, the fourth Year Of Shit Fest will merely bring you a jam-packed lineup of doom, sludge, crust, and other varieties of dark, heavy, brutal metal. If anything, it’s an eight-hour antidote to the crappy 2013 you’ve had so far. And if you’re one of those weirdos who’s having a good year, it’ll make it even better (or something). Unlike 2012’s Year Of Shit III Fest, which spread itself over an entire weekend, Year Of Shit IV presents a condensed, single-day lineup of powerful metal bands from all over North America.
Headlining the evening will be Year Of Shit veterans Weedeater, who also headlined back in 2010 (which was actually Year Of Shit II. What happened in 2011? Don’t ask me, I have no clue). These North Carolina stoner-rock heroes, who released their latest album, Jason… The Dragon, on Southern Lord back in 2011, will fill the room with loud, heavy, possibly smoky sluge grooves. Here they are playing the title track from their latest album in Brooklyn a couple years ago:
But Weedeater are just the beginning. Also on the bill will be Canadian post-hardcore noiseniks KEN Mode, who’ve been grabbing a lot of attention lately with their latest album, Entrench. Released earlier this year through Season Of Mist, Entrench has received props everywhere from Metal Injection to Pitchfork. In fact, Pitchfork premiered their video for “Counter Culture Complex,” in which warriors summon a demon while the band plays in the snow:
Then there’s Ancient VVisdom, who you can tell have some relation to Integrity due to their love for replacing capital W’s with double V’s. Sure enough, singer Nathan Opposition and guitarist Michael Jochum played in Integrity for most of the past decade, but unlike that band’s metallic hardcore sound, Ancient VVisdom are producing similarly spooky occult sounds through the use of acoustic instrumentation. It’s still really creepy, though–check out the video for “Deathlike,” which is the title track from their latest album on Prosthetic Records, and see for yourself:
There are several other amazing out-of-town bands gracing this bill, including stoned Ohio shredders Lo-Pan and the metallic post-hardcore epics of PA’s Rosetta, as well as the witchy proto-metal rituals of North Carolina’s Bloody Hammers, and the dark, heavy psychedelia of The Saint James Society. Check out the latter’s vaguely Deliverance/Texas Chainsaw Massacre-ish video for “Ballad Of The White Horse” below:
Finally, the only Richmond band on the bill, Sinister Haze, features members of Cough, Windhand, and Balaclava who are quickly making a name for themselves in their own right. They’ll open things up with a set of heavy doom and gloom to start the Year Of Shit off right.
All this is happening this Thursday, August 6, starting at 4 PM, at Strange Matter (located at 929 W. Grace St). So grab your tickets now–they’re only $15 in advance from yearofshit4.eventbrite.com, but they’ll be $18 at the door, so don’t sleep! And don’t worry about the fact that it’s a Thursday night, either. After all, you can always call in sick on Friday. Or just quit your job. You don’t need the stress anyway.
For more info on this event, click here.
