SLAYER & ANTHRAX, Olympia, Dublin, Tuesday, SOLD OUT & Live at the Marquee, Cork, Wednesday, €44
Apart from AC/DC, you won’t see a higher concentration of headline band T-shirts than at a Slayer gig. Slayer are the most consistently revered metal band in history – after Black Sabbath technically lost it in the late 70s.
Equal parts extreme hardcore and heavy metal, Slayer have been the one constant running through the backbone of heavy guitar music for 30-odd years. New album Repentless – their first since losing guitarist Jeff Hanneman – is another bloody rage, with all the blast beats, stop-start riffs and Tom Arya throat lunacy present and correct.
They’ve got fellow thrash masters Anthrax along for the ride, so that’s one half of the 1980s ‘Big Four’ under one roof. But after Metallica’s embarrassing fade from metal grace, and the fact that Megadeth were never any good in the first place, this is as good as it gets for metallers.
CHEMICAL BROTHERS, T13, Belfast, tonight, £38-55
The AVA Festival last weekend broke in the T13 venue for festival season with a day of banging techno, so it’s ready for this audio-visual showcase from the Chemical Brothers.
I’m guessing they’ll be on the same buzz as their Longitude headliner last year and the Glastonbury show everybody lost their mind to even on the TV.
Expect them to condense 20-odd years of techno, breakbeats, chart crossover indie-dance and some serious eyeball-razing visuals.
FAITHLESS, T13, Belfast, tomorrow, £36-53
Anyone over the age of 25 will have seen Faithless about 10 times at a festival already – even by accident going between stages.
The house/trance/trip-hop crew were the ultimate sunset festival band for years, with their huge crossovers God Is a DJ, Insmonia and Salva Mea.
They did an LCD Soundsysyem and ‘split up’ in 2011 before announcing live shows last year, so they’re definitely not getting away with calling this a reunion.
It’ll be interesting to see if they’ll pick up any new house fans in this post-Disclosure era, but they’ll have plenty of diehards losing the plot to their big euphoric trance moments, even if the set drags when they take it mid-tempo and Maxi Jazz gets all introspective.
WORD UP COLLECTIVE #4, Bello Bar, Dublin, tomorrow, 7 & We Bloom Presents Word Up Collective, Workmans Club, Dublin, Monday, FREE
Word Up is one of the most promising new Irish collectives to emerge in recent years, with a dozen or so acts uniting under a loose banner of hip-hop, R&B, soul and leftfield pop.
For their fourth showcase, they’ve got Stay Gold, whose mix of R&B and hip-hop comes off on their Netflix & Chill single, a buzz.ie Tune of the Day in March. They’ll be joined by 17-year-old rapper Sam Ojo and new Collective members Maynooth duo Tebi Rex.
On Monday, Word Up is joining forces with We Bloom, the fortnightly showcase of Irish talent at the Workmans Club. Damola, AikJ and alternative rapper MC Axiom will be flying the flag for the team downstairs.
IT TOOK some balls for De La Soul to come out in the late 80s with positive rhymes and psychedelic beat collages, when Public Enemy and NWA were forging militant protest rap, a call to arms in the era of dumbass hair metal.
But their debut 3 Feet High and Rising from 1989 is still one of the classic hip-hop albums, inspiring more sonically inventive acts like Digable Planets, Outkast, Shabazz Palaces and Mos Def.
Even if their follow-upwas called De La Soul Is Dead, Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo have been been a consistent player in the scene since, with quality control set to high over eight albums, and collaborations with Mos Def, MF Doom, Jungle Brothers, Gorillaz and loads more.
Their new album And the Anomymous Nobody features some heavy-hitters like Damon Albarn, Savid Byrne, 2 Chainz, Little Dragon – but, worryingly, Justin Hawkins of The Darkness.
- Originally published in Irish Star
Moo Kid 