There’s little I find more inspiring than someone putting in the time and effort to coordinate and execute a festival. It’s something I’ve thought of doing more times than I can count but have yet to be able to muster the backing or the location to get it done, so when I see the news below about the upcoming Høstsabbat in Norway, it makes me want to take to the north even more than I usually do. Which is plenty, I guess.

Norway’s heavy rock scene is widely varied and from the roster of acts playing the upcoming Høstsabbat in Oslo on Sept. 13 and 14, it seems the intent is to capture a bit of that variety in a weekend and present it to the masses. An admirable goal no matter how you look at it.

Best wishes. I hope they pull it off without a hitch. The PR wire has lineups and links:

HØSTSABBAT – NEW NORWEGIAN FESTIVAL

HØSTSABBAT is a newborn initiative, brought to life by people involved in the underground scene in Norway.

It’s a DIY-festival, in collaboration with the student-organisation at Betong in Oslo, focusing on presenting the best underground bands Norway has to offer.

Over two days you can experience slow doom, heavy bluesrock, proto-heavy metal, psychedelic spacerock and prog. The concerts will be held on two different stages, located in the same venue.
In addition to this, you’ll find stands, food, beverages and diverse stimulation for your ears and mind. Dj’s from the norwegian scene will accompany your days with the right soundtrack.

HØSTSABBAT takes place on friday 13th, and saturday 14th of September.

Cheap accomodations are located nearby the venue, and the damage for a two-day ticket is about 50 euros.

Complete lineup HØSTSABBAT 2013:

Friday 13th:
Lonely Kamel
Devil
Tusmørke
High Priest of Saturn
Spectral Haze
Hymn

Saturday 14th:
Lamented Souls
Brutus
Tombstones
Resonaut
Dunbarrow
Purple Hill Witch
The Devil and the Almighty Blues

Facebookpage:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Høstsabbat/493336370734335

Facebookevent:
https://www.facebook.com/events/118739448332674/

Link for tickets:
http://www.billettservice.no/event/hostsabbat-2013-billetter/396189

Brutus, “Personal Riot” official video from Behind the Mountains (2013)

In my seemingly-unending quest to purchase things with Electric Wizard logos on them, I recently fired up the intertubes and made my way to the venerable All That is Heavy webstore to pick up a Black Masses t-shirt. While I was there, shopping cart open, I figured I’d grab a couple other goodies as well, which was probably the right move (it always is), since the shirt didn’t fit anyway. Depressingly, that’s probably not the shirt’s fault.

Anyway, here’s the rest of what I got in the order, alphabetically:

Brutus, Brutus
Floodstain, Slave to the Self-Feeding Machine
Saint Vitus, Hallow’s Victim/The Walking Dead
Stoned Jesus, First Communion
Vibravoid, Burg Herzberg Festival 2010
Wo Fat, The Gathering Dark

There’s a couple clunkers in there. Although its title serves as an appropriate summation of how I felt about myself after the Electric Wizard shirt didn’t fit, the Floodstain album was a more metal than I was looking for in that lunk-headed moshing kind of way. Stoned Jesus sounded so much like Sleep they should be paying them royalties, but they have a song called “Red Wine,” they’re from the Ukraine and — for crying out loud — they’re called STONED JESUS! Charm goes a long way in my book.

Brutus were the first new band I found out about on the forums, and though I’ll probably always think of them first for that, their self-titled album on Transubstans also rules. “Swedish Lady,” dude. Wo Fat I got while the getting was good, and I had the bootleg CD of Hallow’s Victim/The Walking Dead, but couldn’t resist SST‘s recently-issued official version. It’s Saint Vitus. Sometimes it’s okay to have doubles.

Occasionally Vibravoid‘s studio work — though I like it — tends to meander more than it means to and get lost in itself (and thus get lost on me), so I grabbed their Burg Herzberg Festival 2010 at import price thinking it might be a little more grounded, and it was. The decade-spanning German psychedelic acid rockers/clothing outfitters open with a cover of The Beatles‘ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and work in some Strawberry Alarm Clock as well, so even though it cost me more than the t-shirt, I still feel like I came out on top.

Some you win, some you lose, but overall not a bad get. Money’s been tight lately, so this and the arrival of another long-awaited package (next BT post) should do much to hold my buying impulse in check for the time being. Okay, probably not, but that’s what I’ll tell myself while I debate bidding on Clutch promos on eBay.

Yeah, I’d call the new Obelisk Forums a win for the number of people signed up, posts posted and awesome pictures of birds making pasta, but more so, because (thanks to user diasdegalvan) I’ve found a new band to dig on. They’re called Brutus and they’re Norwegian. I thought I’d share the clip below in case anyone else didn’t catch it in General Discussion or hasn’t signed up for the forums yet.