Freak Valley 2016: The Devil and the Almighty Blues Added to Lineup
Norwegian beardly fivesome The Devil and the Almighty Blues offered up their self-titled debut (review here) in 2015 and made one of last year’s finer opening statements with it. It would seem that what the Oslo troupe have discovered since that time is that their particular style of classic heavy is just what listeners around Europe and beyond have been looking for; the Blues for the Red Sun Records release continues to resonate and find an audience. They took most of the winter off, if social media is anything to go by (and it may or may not be, of course; entirely possible they were writing or doing something other than playing out during that time), but in May they’ll join a vast and international array of acts as part of the lineup for Freak Valley 2016.
I do not know how many more acts Freak Valley 2016 has to add. I’ve kept up as best I can with their one-at-a-time announcements since late last year, but no question that however much fuller it gets, the bill is stacked. You can see the full list below, under their welcoming for The Devil and the Almighty Blues, which goes like this:
Norwegian heavy riffers THE DEVIL AND THE ALMIGHTY BLUES added to the Freak Valley Festival 2016 line-up
The Devil And The Almighty Blues are filled with a profound love for the old heroes of the Blues walking hand in hand with rock, metal, country and last but not least punk. Armed with vintage Gibson guitars and tube amplifiers, they play a new take on blues-based rock, heavy without becoming metal, slow without being doom, bluesy without being straight up and boring. The result turns out slow, heavy, melodic and raw.
When the 60’s turned into the 70’s there was a musical crossroads. The American blues had had its run with teens on both sides of the Atlantic long enough so that the blues-offspring named rock’n’roll had to expand or die. It did not die, it expanded in all kinds of directions! And right there in the crossroads between blues-based rock and all the world’s other sub-genres of rock, something happened to the blues. The format got experimented with, expanded and almost made unrecognizable. But at the same time the roots to the original ’real’ blues was never lost. Where Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac in 1970 with the track «Green Manalishi», where Johnny Winter stretched his musical legs, where ZZ Top bought Marshall full stacks and shot from the hip, and last but not least where the legend himself, Muddy Waters, stretched the limits of that was ’legal’ with the album «Electric Mud». And not to forget Hendrix, Free, Canned Heat and the rest of the gang from the Woodstock-era. The result was a highly electric musical revolution, where e.g. the newly born genre hard rock walked hand in hand with traditional delta blues.
It is out from this musical mud The Devil and the Almighty Blues have found their inspiration. Their music is slow, heavy, melodic and raw, all without losing the almighty blues out of sight.
Superb poster art by Headbang Design
FREAK VALLEY FESTIVAL – 26th-27th-28th May 2016
www.freakvalley.de – www.rockfreaks.de
FVF 2016 is SOLD OUT!!
Freak Valley Festival: No Fillers – Just Killers
Line-up 2016:
GRAVEYARD [SW] – Vintage Rock
DEAD MEADOW [US] – Psychedelic Stonerrock
SPIDERGAWD [NO] – Post-Boogie
WHITE HILLS [US] – Fuzzed Out Motorik Psychedelic
THE SHRINE [US] – Psychedelic Violence Rock and Roll
BABY WOODROSE [DK]- Psychedelic Garagerock
LONELY KAMEL [NO]- Heavy Blues, Hardrock & Stoner
ROTOR [D] – Instrumental StonerRock/Psychedelic
MONOLORD [SW] – Doom/Sludge
MANTAR [D] – Death Metal Doom Punk
TOUNDRA [SP] – Postrock
FARFLUNG [US] – Spacerock for 21st Century Heads
BLACK RAINBOWS [IT] – Heavy Psych
THE GOLDEN GRASS [US]- Heavy/Funk//Psych/Freakbeat
SPIDERS [SW] – Hard/Glam Rock
LÉ BETRE [SW] – Bluesy Hardrock
GIÖBIA [IT] – Acid Rock
THE DEVIL AND THE ALMIGHTY BLUES [NO] – HeavyBluesRock
THE SONIC DAWN [DK] – Psychedelic Rock
…more tba very soon
www.freakvalley.de
https://www.facebook.com/freakvalley
https://twitter.com/FreakValley
https://shop.ticketscript.com/channel/web2/start-order/rid/LYSQRABJ/language/en
