Posted in Whathaveyou on June 29th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
By my count, the last time Duel were in Europe was… Spring ’25. Which for most humans isn’t that long ago but Duel tour enough that that’s probably forever. In the interim, the Austin, Texas, metallorockers went to Japan for the first time in their increasingly storied tenure, and if you’re fortunate, you can catch them in July at Asheville Doomed and Stoned in North Carolina. The newly-announced Euro run below is booked around slots at Heavy Psych Sounds Fest — I think it’s fair to call them a flagship Heavy Psych Sounds band at this point — as well as Desertfest Belgium, for which they were announced earlier in June, and Westill Festival in France, after which they have an open date on Halloween. You should book them for your Halloween party, have them faceblast all your normie friends, film it and let the band put it out as a video. Or just put together a show in Paris, maybe. Whatever’s better for you.
Dates hoisted from socials:
đ„EUROPEAN DATESđ„ we Iâll be back in Europe for a few weeks in October!! 2 dates still open!! Contact bookingheavypsychsounds@gmail.com to book your show
** DUEL – European Tour 2026 ** Thu 15 Oct 26 CH OBERENTFELDEN – Boeroem Fri 16 Oct 26 DE HPS FEST BERLIN Sat 17 Oct 26 DE HPS FEST DRESDEN Sun 18 Oct 26 BE LIEGE OM â Desertfest Belgium Mon 19 Oct 26 CH DUDINGEN â Bad Bonn Tue 20 Oct 26 FR LYON â Rock n Eat Wed 21 Oct 26 *** OPEN SLOT *** Thu 22 Oct 26 FR DAX – BrewSocial Club Fri 23 Oct 26 ES GIJON – Lucy Club Sat 24 Oct 26 PO PORTO – Woodstock 69 Sun 25 Oct 26 ES CACERES – Boogaloo Club Mon 26 Oct 26 ES JEREZ – La guarida del Angel Tue 27 Oct 26 ES MADRID – Wurlitzer Wed 28 Oct 26 ES PORTUGALETE – Groove Thu 29 Oct 26 FR BORDEAUX – L’Astrodome Fri 30 Oct 26 FR VALLET – Westill Festival Sat 31 Oct 26 *** OPEN SLOT ***
DUEL is Tom Frank – lead vocals & guitar Jeff Henson – lead guitar & backing vocals Patrick “Scooch” Pascucci – Drums Drew Potter – bass & backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 1st, 2026 by JJ Koczan
I’ve made no secret over the last few years since live music came out from its quarantine-era hideyhole that I sweat Desertfest Belgium pretty hard. It has not been subtle, the admiration for the lineups in these successive editions, and looking at the poster below for 2026’s three-dayer Oct. 16-18 in LiĂšge, I don’t see where that will abate. This round brings Hippie Death Cult and Duel from the US — they’re labelmates on Heavy Psych Sounds; think they might tour? — as well as Boris, Kombynat Robotron, Zahn and Belgian psych orientalists Wyatt E., so there continues to be plenty to like about what they’re putting together, especially considering the bull these acts have signed on with, from Uncle Acid at the top to the likes of Monolord, 1000mods, Greenleaf, Skraeckoedlan, Mondo Drag and Earth Tongue and Early Moods, among others — having just seen Dopelord a few weeks ago, yes, go, do it — the daydream fodder remains strong.
Barring some kind of financial windfall that won’t happen, I’m not anymore likely to get to Desertfest Belgium 2026 than I was to get to last year’s fest, and that’s sad, but life invariably rolls on, and if I’m muddling through somehow, at least I’ve got the satisfaction of existing on the same planet with this thing. Read ’em and weep:
Hi Desertheads
We are back with 6 devilishly new Desertfest Belgium names!
Weâre stoked to add the pink metal of Boris, the stoner doom of DUEL, the psychedelic riffs of Hippie Death Cult, the wondrous rituals of Wyatt E., the teutonic soundscapes of Kombynat Robotron, and the dark jazz of ZAHN to our bill!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 18th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Some quick (and fun!) math tells you that if eight bands have been announced and there will be 17 total featured at Asheville Doomed & Stoned Chapter II, then there are nine still to come for the two-nighter set to take place July 17-18. The first batch brings 16 — their take on the Bee Gees‘ “Tragedy” at the bottom of this post comes from their impending covers LP, Forgeries Vol. 1, 1972-1984, out soon on Heavy Psych Sounds — as well as Austin heavy rockers Duel, who are unto themselves at this point in live performance, Crop, Horseburner, We Follow the Earth, False Gods, Ice Howl from Indiana (who recently announced a new drummer), and Weight Shift.
It’s an enticing prospect, and I don’t know what you’ve got going in July, but my calendar’s pretty wide open at this point and I’m down for a little travel. I last drove to Asheville in 2009 for a fest (I also wound up getting some custom sandals made that carried me for years), and dug the weirdo-enclave aspect of the town for sure. I’ll keep an eye on who else gets added here for the second edition of Asheville Doomed and Stoned, but already there’s a lot to like.
Social media has it like this:
Asheville Doomed and Stoned Chapter II: July 17th and 18th first wave of bands announced!
I’ve been waiting a long time to share the first wave of bands and cannot wait any longer! Absolutely stoked for Duel, -(16)-, Crop, Horseburner, We Follow The Earth, False Gods, Ice Howl and Weight Shift an grateful of each of them making the trip and playing Asheville Doomed and Stoned Chapter 2!
$50 Weekend passes are live and good for both nights! July 17th at The Odd and July 18th at Sly Grog.
A total of 17 bands will be playing and a limited quantity of tickets will be available for both nights to act now!
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 8th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
If you want to be technical about it — and who doesn’t? — I suppose Austin, Texas, bull-in-the-china-shop-of-riffs heavy rockers Duel will go on their first Japanese tour still supporting 2024’s Breakfast With Death (review here) on Heavy Psych Sounds, but really, as a band from the States, I think you tour Japan whenever you get the chance not just to promote a record, but because it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. To wit, they haven’t even done it yet and when I look at the list of shows to come — including two nights at Tokyo Doom Fest — my first thought is ‘congratulations.’
Of course, this isn’t coming out of nowhere. First of all, if you’ve never seen them, the band are incendiary live, and second, they do it all the time. That is Duel announcing a tour isn’t a surprise, it’s just a question of where they’re headed. They’ve heralded Breakfast With Death across multiple continents already, and that continues a years-long momentum they’ve maintained the hard way: by getting out and doing the work on stage. Will they have a new record by May? It’s not impossible, but this tour is its own excuse for being, and they’ll probably have more live activity before it as well, as they always do something for SXSW in their hometown each March, up to and including the Heavy Metal Parking Lot/Stoner Jam, in which they’re directly involved.
The dates were posted on socials:
đ„ BIG NEWS BUCKAROOS đ„ dates for our tour of Japan in May/June are up!! Our good friends from Italy @tonsofweed666 and JPN doom rockers @hebikatana will be with us @heavypsychsounds_records
5/27 Osaka – Sengoku Daitoryo 5/28 Gifu – King Biscuit 5/29 Nagoya – Huck Finn 5/30 and 5/31 Tokyo Doom Fest – Ryogoku sunrize (2 nights 2 sets) 6/1 Yokohama – El puente 6/2 Koenji Kiraku 6/3 Hatsudai – Wall 6/4 Nakano – Moonstep
DUEL is Tom Frank – lead vocals & guitar Jeff Henson – lead guitar & backing vocals Patrick “Scooch” Pascucci – Drums Drew Potter – bass & backing vocals
Posted in Reviews on February 3rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Earlier – Before Show
Saw some of the Vegas arts district this afternoon, which is new to me. I guess when I travel by myself like this, generally speaking, most of what I’m seeing is bands. The structure of this festival is a little more relaxed.
Tonight is the last of it, and that’s sad, but you can feel it’s time. People are starting to talk about plans for getting back to real life, when’s your flight, and that kind of thing. An inevitable part of the cycle. The community built over the course of this weekend will disperse, everyone hopefully a little better for it than they came in. I feel restored in the very specific way that I’ve only ever found an experience like this can provide.
But, what’s been billed as “Last Call” by fest-curator John Gist returns to the five-band format of Friday night, with Jason Walker’s Badmotorfinger open, playing the Soundgarden album, then Iota, BoneHawk, Duel headlining and Luna Sol (plus guests) closing out late. My trust in the righteousness of what’s coming is complete. I’m ready for it. It’s been a good weekend to be alive.
Once more into the night:
Jason Walker’s Badmotorfinger
Jason Walker, who was singing and started off on guitar but put it down to concentrate on vocals — fair, considering the subject matter — has played with Gene Simmons and Bang Tango and is very clearly one of those uber-talented professional musicians, and his band operated at the same level. This is probably for the best as they groove-tread on what for a lot of people is sacred ground in playing Soundgarden’s seminal 1991 third album, Badmotorfinger. I’ll confess I don’t have the history with the record that many in the crowd clearly did, but Walker gave it due vocal scorch in standing up to one of rock and roll’s most legendary voices, and it was on point and nearly as ’90s as Godzillionaire the other night, so immediately there’s a tie-in, a flow to the night. This was a cool one-off thing, kind of exclusive thing for the people who are here — something special — and Walker absolutely cintrol-wails as a singer, respectful but not without putting something of himself into it. I’d say I’ll be lucky to have “Outshined” in my head for the next week, but really it’s still “Freelance Fiend.” More on that later.
Iota
I was nervous to see Iota. Not that I didn’t expect it to be good, but 2008’s Tales (discussed here) is a record to which I do have no small measure of sentimental attachment, and last year’s surprise return, Pentasomnia (review here), is no less stunning for the months since its release. This is fortunate, since Iota’s cosmic heavy desert blues is nothing if not lustrous. The guitar tone and vocal croon of Joey Toscano are defining elements, but Andy Patterson’s drums — also production on the albums — and Oz Yasri’s bass lock in that groove on the records. How could I not be looking forward to it? Patterson wasn’t with the band, and they played as a four-piece, with Yasri, Dio Britto on drums and Chris Clement, shared vocal duties in dead-on flow and harmony with Toscano to riveting effect. They raised the monolith at the start, and it was all shove and go and fuck yes, but whatever hearing I lost taking my earplugs out for “The Intruder,” it was worth it. Toscano was talking between songs and said something about how we’re in hard times and we’re scared, but stopped himself and said, no, we’re not scared. Well, I am, so I said so. We’ve met, but he didn’t know it was me or anything. I was out front and the lights were low. I said, “Fuckin’ I am.” A couple laughs. He said, “I hope this soothes, brother,” and they played “The Returner.” It did.
BoneHawk
If Iota took the ’90s of Soundgarden covers and showed the extent to which it is malleable, Michigan’s BoneHawk redirected energy into straight-up heavy rock, some mellower groove, but the real thread between the sets is songwriting. Yeah, genre bands share elements — this is not a revelation, I’m aware — but it’s the way that sharing has been thoughtfully steered that makes the difference here on Planet Desert Rock, where for sure BoneHawk fit right in. For the most part their stuff was comfortably placed — tempo set for vibe; not a complaint — but they did change it up, shift through some push or heavier roll as one would expect. Thinking of bands from other nights like Fire Down Below, The Watchers or even Omega Sun, who are based in large part around straightforward structures and weighted groove — to be sure, the list goes on — BoneHawk gave that side of the proceedings a wink, but they had bluesy aspects too and a bit of strut in reserve when they needed it. They used it well. Guitarist/vocalist Matt Helt — joined in the band by bassist Matt Smith, drummer Nate Cohn and former-but-sitting-in guitarist Chad Houts — told a story between songs about falling down the stairs at the casino where the band are staying and being laid up for the last two days. Didn’t take away from the bounce even a little bit.
Duel
Duel might be Austin’s foremost heavy rock and roll export at this point, and while they were raucous as ever their delivery. “Children of the Fire” always lands with me. It’s a sure bet. The double-guitar bastards o’ riff and charge continue to support last year’s Breakfast With Death (review here), from which they aired “Pyro” before dipping back to 2019’s Valley of Shadows (review here) and daring toward taking a breath with “Black Magic Summer.” Duel have a catalog at this point — Breakfast With Death was their fifth record in nine years; the rush in their music is meta-urgency — and they’ve toured for all of them with the usual plague asterisk, and have developed the ability to go back and forth between different levels of aggression and dynamic more, and time has seen them develop into a richer but no less furious band. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen them, but they have yet to let me down, and honestly it’s getting to be an increasingly high level of expectation on my part. Oh, Duel are playing? Well that’s guaranteed front-to-back riotous heavy, some metal (“Chaos Reigns”), some punk, some boogie, usually done in praise to some arcane entity or blasphemous proposition. So yes, in other words, they were very much the headliner. Remember Mos Generator tearing it up last night? PDRW strikes again.
Luna Sol
Oh shit, Dave Angstrom’s the real deal, y’all. Like one of the best rock and roll performers I’ve ever seen on a stage. I don’t care that I didn’t see Cactus in 1972 because I got to watch Luna Sol nail “Evil” in 2025. Hyperbole? Fuck yeah it is, and nothing less would do. Side note, because in the spirit of Angstrom’s mindmelting shred I’ll go ahead and improv while keeping it conversational: Doug, the bassist, apparently also runs the Denver Bong-a-Thon, which I think might be the coolest factoid I’ve ever heard about a human. I don’t know drummer’s provenance, or his name — I’m somewhere between Zeph and Zeth — but I do know he was class as fuck on that kit in “When You’re High” and the take on Mountain’s “Never in My Life” (for more, see “Cactus” above) and the whole band was fire from start to finish. Blowout classic heavy blues rock. Originals and covers.
The entire time, Angstrom was the consummate entertainer. He told stories that were genuinely funny. He was comfortable talking to the crowd — he called the crowd “his people” and it was sweet and sincere — and so, so, so much fun. I had no idea. Blindsided. I stood up front for most of the set, did take a break to write, but it didn’t work and I needed to be back out so that’s where I went. You have to understand, I wasn’t going into this completely unaware. I’ve covered Luna Sol before. I reviewed Vita Mors, the album they put out last year on Ripple. It was cool. The vocals were a little high in the mix here and there, but certainly worse sins have been committed.
My point is I had no idea that’s who Dave Angstrom was on stage, and no idea about the chemistry of the band or the sheer joy it would be to see them play. Whether I was hypnotized watching Doug and Zep/th jam while the guitar got a well-earned new E string, or Jason Walker coming out for the ‘and Friends’ portion toward the end of the set and the whole band dropping jaws taking on Budgie’s “Breaking All the House Rules,” it was something special because they made it that way.
For the very end, Angstrom opened it up to a jam on — wait for it — Leaf Hound’s ultra-catchy, ultra-classic strutter “Freelance Fiend.” And giving Doug a break on bass for it was the very Adam Sage of Sonolith, who locked in and played around that bassline that I’ve been listening to him practice at his house where I’ve been staying for the last couple days much to my utter delight at having that groove in my head. I was happy for my new friend, happy to see him play, and it was right at the finish where the narrative threads aligned one last time and the music and community around the music coalesced. Those two things, as I have now been fortunate enough to experience, are what really ties all of Planet Desert Rock Weekend together. They are the core of it, along with passion.
Thank you for reading.
—
This was beautiful. I have the best friends.
I am so incredibly grateful. Thank you. I said “I love you” a lot tonight. I meant it every time. Let’s keep saying it. Please.
Thank you to John Gist. Thank you to Jocelyn and Adam Sage (and the weimeraners). Thank you Wendy. Thank you Cate Wright. Thanks Scott Spiers, Leanne Ridgeway, Behrang Alavi and the Samavayo cats, Todd & Corinne Severin, Ryan Garney, Mario & Tim from Borracho, Sean and Andrea, Manu, Treetops Tony (he’s tall) and Phoenix Phil who was gonna send me some Stone Witch to check out but I already looked them up and I’ll close out a week with them at some point, and everyone I spoke to along the way.
I had old friends at this festival. And I made new ones. And I already hope I can come back.
I fly home tomorrow early afternoon. Work to do beforehand, plus packing, so crashout needs to happen. Thanks again for reading and by the time this goes live you’ll hopefully find more pics after the jump.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Not a huge surprise that Duel are heading back over to tour Europe again this coming Spring, but apart from Metalheadz Open Air in Augsburg, the run as it stands now is entirely club dates, and call me crazy, but when phrases like “Spring European tour” pop up these days, my mind immediately goes to a list of festivals a band are likely to be playing. They’ve done the circuit, so I don’t think it’s neglect necessarily, and their sound is well suited to the directly-facebound, bouncing-off-the-back-wall-to-hit-you-again-immediately impact a venue can provide and open air can’t. Honestly though, there’s no wrong answer.
The Texas four-piece released their bruiser of a fifth record, Breakfast With Death (review here), which my brain kept incorrectly autocorrecting as Breakfast With Satan, I think because of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the ‘Riding With Satan’ episode, though there was no mistaking the cover art, which also ruled. In any case, if you haven’t caught Duel in the last few years, consider it advised you do so. Whoever they’re riding with, what they’re riding is the line between heavy rock and three or four different kinds of metal, and the force with which they execute on stage is enough to remind you why you loved this kind of music in the first place.
Okay, here’s dates from socials:
DUEL – European Tour 2025
đ„EUROPEđ„ we will be back once again this May/June!!!
DUEL – European Tour 2025 WE. 28.05.25 DE DRESDEN – CHEMIEFABRIK TH. 29.05.25 AT KUFSTEIN – KULTURFABRIK FR. 30.05.25 DE AUGSBURG – METALHEADZ OPEN AIR SA. 31.05.25 CH OBERENTFELDEN – BĂRĂM SU. 01.06.25 IT CAGLIARI – CUEVA ROCK TU. 03.06.25 FR MONTPELLIER – ANTIROUILLE WE. 04.06.25 ES SAN SEBASTIAN – DADADABA TH. 05.06.25 ES PORTUGALETE – GROOVE FR. 06.06.25 ES AVILES – FACTORIA SOUND SA. 07.06.25 ES MADRID – STARVING SU. 08.06.25 ES BARCELONA – CLUB SAUVAGE MO. 09.06.25 FR ***OPEN SLOT*** TU. 10.06.25 FR ***OPEN SLOT*** WE. 11.06.25 FR NANTES – SHELTER TH. 12.06.25 FR ***OPEN SLOT*** FR. 13.06.25 CH – TBA SA. 14.06.25 CH – TBA
DUEL is Tom Frank – lead vocals & guitar Jeff Henson – lead guitar & backing vocals Patrick “Scooch” Pascucci – Drums Drew Potter – bass & backing vocals
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 1st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
As one might have suspected, the final act to be added to Planet Desert Rock Weekend V‘s ‘Last Call’ final-day lineup is a doozy. Austin marauders Duel will make their way westward to Las Vegas to top the bill, which has been unveiled piecemeal as featuring BoneHawk, Iota, Luna Sol and Jason Walker’s Badmotorfinger — the latter a covers set celebrating the Soundgarden album — and has turned out to be a party with no less a sense of curation than that which is bringing Sergeant Thunderhoof to the US for the first time to play the fest-proper. Planet Desert Rock Weekend happens at the behest of Vegas Rock Revolution aka promoter John Gist, who believed Vegas could be a place for heavy rock to dwell before many, then went ahead and proved the concept himself.
I think this is the end of Planet Desert Rock Weekend V‘s lineup reveals — though there’s always the potential for things to change — so I’ve included the poster for the fest-proper so you get the full picture of what the weekend looks like. It’s a sight I’m trying hard to get there to see for myself.
From the PR wire:
PDRW Last Call final band announcement – DUEL
Alright we are super excited to announce our final band for Planet Desert Rock Weekend V – Last Call on February 2nd at Sinwave in the Arts District in Las Vegas! We are bringing in a former Vegas Rock Revolution band from Austin Texas… DUEL! These guys have been putting out spectacular albums since 2016 as they have 5 studio albums and 2 live albums. Their latest album “Breakfast With Death” on Heavy Psych Sounds Records took it up a notch in heaviness and landed #5 on the July Doom Charts as voted on my insiders from around the world. Duel has toured all over the world and continuously brought a smoking set to each crowd. They are a can’t miss kinda band live and will be wild to see their new heavier stuff incorporated into their sets. And lastly frontman Tom Frank may have the best hair in the heavy underground!
We think the blending of having this wildly good heavy rock/ doom band (Duel) from Texas pairing with bluesy hard rocking Luna Sol (Dave Angstrom from Hermano fronted) from Denver along with the mighty Bonehawk who is a premier stoner rock band with amazing harmonies out of Michigan and then a rare appearance from heavy psychers Iota out of Utah whose 2024 album “Pentasomnia) will give our rocking fans an adventure in live heavy music. And starting off that show is Jason Walker’s Badmotorfinger who will play most of that iconic grunge era album along with a few older tracks to get the party going.
Jason recently toured as part of the Gene Simmons band in Europe alongside Brian Tichy ( Whitesnake/ Pride and Glory/etc) and Brent Woods (a Randy Rhoads student). Word has it Dave Angstrom (Luna Sol) has a few tricks up his sleeve for their set which will be final band of the evening. We are so honored to have such talented bands joining us for all 4 nights of Planet Desert Rock Weekend V and we have one more band to announce in the near future. VRR is very humbled to get such great support and feedback about PDRW V! Legacy bands like Fireball Ministry, Unida, Solace, Mos Generator don’t play a ton of shows in the states and pair that with 8 international bands joining us from all over the world truly personify what we try to achieve at PDRW. Sergeant Thunderhoof and Fire Down Below will be playing exclusively PDRW V while in the states.
Posted in Reviews on August 2nd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Alright, buckle up, because it’s time to get theoretical. What if Duel have been thrash all along?
Sit with that for a minute and think about what it might mean. I’m not saying the Austin, Texas, four-piece — whose fifth album, Breakfast With Death, arrives via Heavy Psych Sounds with sinister, chipped-tooth grins a-plenty across its air-tight nine songs/38 minutes — are just that, necessarily. They’ve never sounded specifically like they’re aiming for the kind of ground one might expect Exodus or Kreator to cover, or even necessarily High on Fire. But as they delve further along the lines of brash-gnash burl offered by 2021’s In Carne Persona (review here) with ever sharper turns and a presence in the recording bolstered through lead guitarist/backing vocalist Jeff Henson‘s emergence as a producer for his own band and a slew of others — rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist Tom Frank also produced; Henson engineered and mixed, and Alberto de Icaza mastered — the vision of sound from which Duel are working has become accordingly more refined beneath its outward grit. And they revel in nasty. Hearing them at their most aggressive, in songs like “Chaos Reigns” or the bruising closer “Burn the Earth,” Frank, Henson, bassist/backing vocalist Drew Potter and drummer Patrick “Scooch” Pascucci are downright gleeful in their charge.
Eight years on from their debut, 2016’s Fears of the Dead (review here), it’s not that this is something new. Instead, it’s a core feature of what makes Duel the band they are. An essential characteristic of their work is the element of danger that the whole thing might unravel even as their grip on craft gets tighter. But while Breakfast With Death is also the most punk rock they’ve been in cuts like “Ancient Moonlight” and “Satan’s Invention” at the outset, the second half of the penultimate “Greet the Dead” and the catchy Ramones-y centerpiece “Pyro,” they’re also unquestionably a metal band. And a heavy rock band. So where does thrash come in? Thrash rock, maybe, if not thrash metal (though I don’t think they’d shy away from being called a metal band either, even if it’s not a complete encapsulation)? How is it that, along with the hook in “Chaos Reigns,” I can’t get the idea of Duel as a thrash band out of my frickin’ head?
Well, on the most basic level, a lot of what the do is fast. And if you have metal — which you do, as any number of the dual solos, anti-dogma lyrics and intentions toward violence throughout highlight — and you have punk, at a certain point that math is going to get you to speedy, careening grooves and the furious, headbanging thrust that takes hold after the drum-fill intro to “Fallacy” and the earliest-Metallica riff at the root of “Berserker.” But with Duel, it’s as much about the uncompromising ethic from which their work arises as it is about tempo. They’re not without dynamic — “Burn the Earth” unveils a pummel that’s clearly been held in reserve for the end of the record, the backing vocals that are such a part of the first impression in the lead verse of “Ancient Moonlight,” then show up again in “Satan’s Invention” as well as the call and response that resolves “Chaos Reigns” after the shredding solo, showcasing an element of forward growth that’s been taking place in their studio work all along — but they leave no question that their heart is in the shove that moves the listener from one end of Breakfast With Death to the other. That physicality is central to their purpose, here and elsewhere in their catalog. It’s what makes them such a fiery live act as well, and maybe that’s what’s underlying all the energy and force of delivery that seems to manifest in the recording here. Who Duel are onstage.
This would account for the swagger and scorch with which “Ancient Moonlight” leads off, as well as the focus on shorter, more immediate cuts generally. Duel have never been ones for subtlety, but their maturity seems to find them focused on how songs would work as part of a setlist, and just about all of Breakfast With Death would. It’s maybe not such a stark shift from what their approach has been since the beginnings of the band, but if one regards their albums as stages — or in terms now decidedly Swiftian, ‘eras’ — then each has been a step in terms of progress from the last and sure enough, Breakfast With Death‘s nine cuts are shorter on average than the nine of In Carne Persona, and at whatever angle a given song is throwing elbows and stomp-kicking in a circular march, part hardcore kid, part lumbering metalhead the movement is inexorably forward. This works in the band’s favor because the songs are more than just stops along the way to the finish. “Ancient Moonlight” and “Satan’s Invention” both hint toward vocal melody in a way that Frank‘s signature gruff, shouted delivery has rarely done to this point in their tenure. Not never, but in listening it feels like more of a reason those two were selected as the opening salvo, though of course that’s not to take away from the sheer push on offer in that particular seven-plus-minute stretch, either.
One could argue the commitment to representing their live show ‘on tape’ is an element born out of thrashier impulses as well, but to my ears it’s more about how Duel wear what they do on their sleeve. I’m not trying to downplay either the classic heavy rock dynamic between the two guitars, the punk, the heavy, the metal or anything else that has let them speak to multiple niches over the last eight years, but increasingly over that time, Duel know who they are, know what they’re about as a band, and are going to hit you with that in a straightforward, defiantly unpretentious way as hard as they can. Breakfast With Death hits enough marks to let one honestly say they shift gears here and there, but as with Kreator, or Destruction, or the best of Slayer, you know as a listener going into a record who you’re dealing with and what they do, and increasingly, Duel benefit from the expectation of that kind of intensity-as-priority as they continue to evolve as songwriters and performers. It suits them, and that they meet the high standards they set for themselves is no less an aspect of their identity at this point than anything aurally wrought in their material.
