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Up in Smoke Festival Announced — Pentagram, Colour Haze, Truckfighters and More Added to Lineup

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 9th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Who wouldn’t want to settle in for a Switzerland autumn? Frankly, it sounds about as close to ideal as I can picture, and it would seem that Sound of Liberation — the booking powers that be behind the last few years’ Up in Smoke traveling fest — are in agreement. In league with the Swiss venue Z7 in Pratteln, they’ll present the first Up in Smoke indoor festival, and they’ve put together a killer lineup for their first outing. With Pentagram, Colour Haze, My Sleeping Karma and Truckfighters among their first batch of announced headliners, the Up in Smoke fest is sure to get a heavy beginning and hopefully it’ll be the first of many to come.

Here’s the poster and official announcement, plus a live clip of Colour Haze from the first Up in Smoke tour, just for the hell of it:

UP IN SMOKE indoor Festival

Born in 2011, the concept initially called UP IN SMOKE Roadfestival is a tribute to the clouds of blue smoke which wave around the dances and trances of music lovers around the world ! Each time, for each volume, we offered a well suiting band package and got them to hit the European roads to meet their fans and rock the crowds with psychedelic, doom, heavy rock and experimental riffs.

As free to move as a cloud of smoke were the four first editions of the road festival…
But this year, the UP IN SMOKE festival becomes sedentary, and sets up in PRATTELN (CH), a location close to the French and German borders.
On October 5th 2013, a new puff of smoke will rise up from the one of the very best Swiss venues : Z7 KONZERTFABRIK ! Take part and join us !

date : 05th October 2013
place: Z7, Pratteln, Switzerland

The roadfestival UP IN SMOKE stops its caravan in Switzerland for a new rendez-vous: after 3 years of wandering around Europe, we have decided to offer a “home” to UP IN SMOKE for one full day in the sweetest swiss rock venue : Z7.
Description: Heavy Rock, Stoner, Sludge, Doom & Psychedelic Festival
16 bands – 2 stages – 1 day

Line up so far:

PENTAGRAM (US) ***excl.Switzerland Show
COLOUR HAZE (D) ***excl.Switzerland Show
TRUCKFIGHTERS (SWE) ***excl.Switzerland Show
MY SLEEPING KARMA (D) ***excl.Switzerland Show
RADIO MOSCOW (US)
GLOWSUN (F)
MONKEY 3 (CH)
SHEVER (CH)
JOULES (CH)
MARANT (CH)
+ more bands to be announced soon

www.soundofliberation.com

Colour Haze, “Lights” Live at Up in Smoke 2011

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shEver, Rituals: The Doom of Exclusion

Posted in Reviews on July 5th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

Arriving some three years after their self-released A Dialogue with the Dimensions EP, the second shEver full-length, Rituals, lives up to its name. It doesn’t feel out of line to assume the band’s name is a play on the word “shiver” meant to emphasize that all four members of the Swiss outfit are women, with the odd-capitalization in their logo making the point even clearer, but more interesting to me than their gender is the scope of doom and darkened sludge shEver cover. The first-name-only lineup of drummer Sarah, vocalist Alexandra, bassist/violinist/backing vocalist Nadine and guitarist/backing vocalist Jessica wind their way through a bleak and often dirge-minded atmosphere, but there are looks in the direction of ‘90s-style doom that show up in tracks like “Delirio” to change up the approach, and screams intermingle with cleaner vocals in ambient parts while the band reels before unleashing their next assault. Rituals, which is released through TotalRust Music, is thoroughly doomed despite any variations/deviations that occur in style. Riffs lead the way almost exclusively, backed by Nadine’s thick bass and punctuated by the crash of Sarah’s lowly-mixed cymbals. The album is under-produced. Those cymbals are part of it, but I have a hard time imagining both the bass and drums don’t also come across thicker live, and that Alexandra’s screams, which sound muted here as “Je Suis Née” reaches its nonetheless punishing apex, aren’t fuller in another setting. Still, the rawness helps quitter stretches feel all the more dismal, and for the parts of Rituals where shEver are more directly sludge in their approach, it makes it that much nastier. The six extended tracks of the 50-minute offering are more consistent as well with that line drawn between them.

In case you were wondering exactly what kind of Rituals the band was thinking of when titling the album, opener “Ritual of Chaos” makes it plain, with malevolent whispers and quiet creepy parts trading off with screams, growls and clean backing vocals all at once. It may be that the band is throwing everything out there at once, but if so, it’s effective in conveying the breadth of the album overall. There are few surprises in store afterwards, but the fullness of the atmosphere that “Ritual of Chaos” constructs is affirmed in the other tracks, which are doomed enough to make early Paradise Lost blush and righteous in their heaviness despite whatever already-noted production issues persist. Before the opener is through, shEver have moved from ambient guitars to double-kick drumming, and done so smoothly while also challenging the listener to follow them. A major strength of Rituals is its challenging side, and “Delirio” – which also tops eight minutes – works quickly to enhance it with death growls and vicious higher-pitched screams atop a lumbering riff that persists loud for the first minute before moving into a more ambient incarnation of the same progression; an effective loud/quiet tradeoff and not the last to come. “Delirio” gradually rebuilds its crash and subsides again, once more hitting a satisfying peak as the song comes to a close, Jessica changing up the guitar to subtly add a shot of adrenaline. The following “Je Suis Née” is the shortest track on Rituals at 7:17 and dedicated largely to interpretations built around one riff and one tempo. Needless to say, its plod is substantial as a result, and though by now they’ve well established their pastiche, shEver move into probably their sludgiest territory yet – that riff is a beast and Alexandra’s screams are the stuff of damaged vocal cords. As with a lot of sludge, they run into trouble winding the track down, but when in doubt, drop everything else out and let the guitar ring out into a fade. Works like a charm.

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