I have every intention of being at Freak Valley Festival 2024 when it takes place next May into June, and given the first 11 acts to be announced for its lineup, I’m already glad for that. Yes, no doubt Monolord will crush and I just saw 1000mods like a week ago so I know they’re killing it, but the chance to see the likes of Daevar or Fuzzy Grass, Speck, Mouth, Full Earth (begat by Kanaan) and Slomosa, the young Norwegian outfit at the potential spearhead of a new generation of Euro heavy rock — the kind of band who’ll be headlining in a few years if they keep putting the work in like they are and the songs hold up. Already there’s stuff I never thought I’d see, stuff I’ve seen and know will be awesome, and stuff I haven’t seen that I want to see. Call that a win for a first announcement.

I wrote a decent portion of the below, but some was added, so I’m not gonna take full credit or anything like that. Nonetheless, as posted on socials:

Freak Valley Festival 2024 Lineup Announcement!

Ladies and gentlemen, freaks of all ages, get ready to rock your world at Freak Valley Festival 2024! We’re thrilled to unveil the first part of an incredible lineup featuring some of the most electrifying bands from around the globe.
Freak Valley 2024 is set for May 30 – June 1.

You’ve already seen that Early Freak Tickets are on sale for Sept. 30 at Vortex Surfer in Siegen, and Regular Tickets again Oct. 2. Online sales start Oct. 3 and tickets hit local shops on Oct. 4.
But enough about that!!

You’ve been waiting, we’ve been waiting, and the first band we’re ready to unveil for Freak Valley Festival 2024 is MONOLORD.

The Swedish kingpins of plus-sized riffs were last with us in 2019. Will they be back with a new album next summer? It’s cool to hope so, but either way, you can’t go wrong when Monolord come to crush, which they always do.

They’ll be joined by Greek heavy rock kingpins 1000MODS, Norwegian upstarts SLOMOSA — whose second record will be out by June — and ALEX HENRY FOSTER who you might remember was supposed to play in 2023, as well as DŸSE, SPECK, DAEVAR and FUZZY GRASS from France.

Newcomer Kanaan-offshoot FULL EARTH will join us from from Norway and long-running Chilean sludge outfit DEMONAUTA will grace our stage for the first time.

Rounding out this first announcement closer to home, we’ll bring Köln heavy prog stalwarts MOUTH on board, heralding this year’s ‘Getaway’ LP, which is must-hear if you haven’t!

(#128266#) Here’s the star-studded lineup:

Monolord – 1000mods – Dÿse – Slomosa – Alex Henry Foster – Mouth – Speck – Demonauta- Full Earth- Fuzzy Grass – Daevar

All killers, no fillers. That’s how we do it, freaks. Get your tickets now because they’ll be gone before you know it.

Prepare for an unforgettable weekend filled with mind-blowing performances, heavy riffs, and an atmosphere that’ll keep you rocking all night long. Freak Valley Festival 2024 is set to be an absolute musical extravaganza!

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Monolord, It’s All the Same (2023)

In a seemingly ongoing effort to shoot my own work productivity in the ass, I was at the office late yesterday evening dicking around on the internet, and I came across this YouTube clip for the song “Demonizador” by the Santiago, Chile, band Demonauta:

Demonauta — not to be confused with Argentina’s Dragonauta despite the “d–auta” similarity — are a pretty regular fixture in my feed on Thee Facebooks, which if nothing else speaks to their ongoing capacity for self-promotion. I respect that. It finally got me to hit up their track above, and I wound up thinking it was well worth the time. Hopefully you did too.

I saw from their profile that they had a Soundcloud page too, and in hitting that up, found that not only is “Demonizador” available to stream, but so is the entire Vol. 1 full-length from which it comes.

To wit:

And that’s how fucking easy it is to “discover” a new band these days. Roughly 12 minutes of time invested (most of that spent listening to “Demonizador,” which as you can see almost accounts for nine on its own), and I’m drenched in gloriously heavy psychedelic fuzz. It’s not as much commitment as buying an album, waiting for it to arrive from South America, and digging into it over time, but it’s immediate satisfaction, which seems to have an appeal of its own if this post and the course of human existence in general are anything to go by.

Hell, looking at that widget above, you don’t even have to leave this site to download the whole of Vol. 1 if you don’t want to (and I don’t know why you’d ever want to leave; I never do). There’s a button right on there. What a fabulously interesting thing musical globalization has become. Just listen to how Kyuss‘ “N.O.” riff has been reworked into the verse of Vol. 1 closer “Desvanecer” if you don’t believe me.

Thanks to Demonauta for continually putting themselves on my radar, and for making their music so readily available. If you also dig what they do, feel free to drop them a line and say so.