Yeah, but what will you need gods for? Granted, opiates for the masses won’t get far without them, but how many other uses do abstract deities actually have? For all the purported omnipotence, has one ever managed to jump a car battery? Ever made you soup when you’re sick? Organized and executed a surprise birthday party, or even aided in any way in doing so?

No. Where, indeed, is your savior now?

You Will Need Gods is the impending second full-length from Belfast’s Molarbear, and it’s out Xmas week — see? you don’t even need gods for ostensibly religious holidays — through Cursed Monk as the follow-up to 2018’s Storklord, which I’m just going to assume was a shenanigans-laced treatise on human reproductive culture. You can see the band’s winner of a video for “Omega Supreme” at the bottom of this post, and it should give something of an idea where they’re coming from in terms of point of view, with a robot and a dinosaur and heavy aggro groove and all that fun stuff. I haven’t heard the rest of the record yet, because existentially speaking I’m something of a slouch, but the holidays will be here before you know it. Preorders are already up.

You don’t actually need gods to preorder either. Just PayPal or some such.

I really can’t wait to read the lyrics for this one. From the PR wire:

MOLARBEAR – You Will Need Gods

Release Date: December 23rd

Preorder: https://cursedmonk.bandcamp.com/album/you-will-need-gods

Format: CD, Digital Download

Cursed Monk Records are thrilled to release MOLARBEAR’s sophomore album You will Need Gods on December 23rd.

Since their debut Storklord, Belfast’s MOLARBEAR have become a live favorite all across Ireland with their crushingly heavy, groove laden shows. This year their music video for Omega Supreme was even nominated for an Northern Ireland Music Prize for Video Of The Year.

Big dirty riffs, lots of shouting and also some nice bits, infectious experimental sludge documenting the human experience. you’ll love it.

https://www.facebook.com/allhailmolarbear/
https://www.instagram.com/allhailmolarbear
https://twitter.com/wearemolarbear
https://molarbear.bandcamp.com/

https://www.cursedmonk.com/
https://cursedmonk.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/cursedmonk/
https://www.instagram.com/cursedmonkrecords/

Molarbear, “Omega Supreme” official video

Molarbear, You Will Need Gods (2022)

Molarbear, Storklord (2018)

First of all, I know nothing about the band, but I’ll give credence to any event that features a group called Goatschlager, because that, my friends is how you win at monikers. Second, that righteously-named troupe is just one of the reasons one might think about booking passage to the inaugural Crypt of the Riff Festival, set for May 18 in the Northern Irish capital of Belfast. Among the others? Hornets, Elder Druid, zhOra, Molarbear, Two Tales of Woe, So Much for the Sun and fest-headliners Garganjua.

That’s a packed lineup for a show that according to the poster starts at 7PM (multiple stages? all-nighter?), but with Garganjua at the top of the bill, due heft is assured. The Leicestershire, UK, doomers issued their four-song A Voyage in Solitude full-length in Jan. 2017 and brought together extreme sludge, post-YOB rollout, Paradise Lost and Pallbearer-style woefulness and flourish of Electric Wizard melody for good measure, making a home for themselves in in-between spaces nonetheless marked out by an engrossing and dark atmosphere.

If you didn’t hear it, that album is streaming in full at the bottom of this post. Plain Living Promotions, founded by Elder Druid guitarist Jake Wallace, posted the event info for Crypt of the Riff 2018 as follows:

Plain Living Promotions presents: CRYPT OF THE RIFF FESTIVAL 2018

The lineup is finally complete for Plain Living Promotions presents Crypt of the Riff Festival 2018. On Friday 18th May some of the finest purveyors of heavy music from this country and beyond lay waste to the subterranean Crypt of the Riff.

So stoked to announce Garganjua (Leicestershire) as headliners. Still 5 months to go but that leaves plenty of time to invest in worthwhile ear protection and/or get tickets.

Full lineup:
Garganjua
Hornets
Elder Druid
zhOra
MOLARBEAR
Two Tales of Woe
So Much For The Sun
Goatschlager

Date: Friday 18th May 2018
Venue: Bar Sub, Mandela Hall, Belfast
Tickets: £8 online / £10 on the door
18+

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1780384045329089/
Ticket link: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/422378

https://www.facebook.com/plainlivingpromotions/

Garganjua, A Voyage in Solitude (2017)