We know and you know that metal is not just a music genre, but an entire galaxy of genres, subgenres and subtypes. They all have a place on the Mystic Festival stages. You know also that we invite to the Shipyard artists who do not play metal but have a metal spirit. Today, we welcome onboard Carpenter Brut, A.A. Williams, Priest, and Kent Osborne.
Carpenter Brut
Franck Hueso didn’t name his project Carpenter Brut just because – on the one hand, it’s a homage to John Carpenter, a cult horror filmmaker and a composer of equally spooky soundtracks; on the other, it’s a reference to champagne, a regal and refined beverage. Of course, of French origin, as Carpenter Brut is a clear descendant of synthwave and electronic music as played by the Seine, a gloomier brother of Justice. Metal, however, is also an integral element of this original creation, its sound as well as visual and cultural aesthetics. It makes quite a lot of sense then why it is in metalheads that Carpenter Brut has found his most loyal fans and tireless dancers. You heard right, the metal code not only allows dancing during Carpenter Brut’s concerts – visually spectacular events – but also harshly punishes those who only stand and watch.
A.A. Williams
After releasing her debut album, Forever Blue, in 2020, A.A. Williams might have been compared to the likes of Chelsea Wolfe and PJ Harvey, but there was no doubt that the London artist was carving her own way through sadness and darkness. And at her own sweet pace, as ballads piercing even the hardest of hearts are her speciality. Williams, on the one hand, draws from rock and metal, on the other, there’s a tangible classical sensibility of form and deep-cutting honesty of folk. One of her songs is titled “Alone in the Deep” and that’s exactly how you’ll feel during her concert – lonesome, floating in the abyss… but you won’t want the feeling to end either.
Priest
The gothic electronic music of Priest aims to make more pleasant the nightmarish yet inevitable journey of humanity to the next stage of evolution – our anastomosis with machines. Don’t ask then who dons the masks, for you’ll always find underneath them your own aspirations and anxieties. The Swedish band was formed by the former bandmembers of Ghost and sounds like its cyberpunk kin. You can clearly hear a similar grandiosity, a knack for writing hooks that in the 80s would have stormed the charts and dancefloors, but also a pervasive allure of the dark. Dark Pulse is not only the title of Priest’s latest album, but also the best description of their music.
Kent Osborne
In the title of his debut album, Kent Osborne proclaims the death of music genres, and he does indeed treat them mercilessly. On a trap metal chassis, he mounted an armoured car made of slabs of punk, metal, rap and industrial with which he drove out of his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Where to? Like in Mad Max, he’s speeding straight ahead into the abyss, laughing his heart out.