• Mastodon w/ Bad Breeding @ Ulster Hall, Belfast

    June 30, 2015 - By 

    Treating tonight more like a pilgrimage into the dark heart of sludge-laden, conceptual metal than your typical jaunt to a gig, we’re joined giddily by the sizeable crowd of Mastodon T-shirt wearing fans as we enter the baroque surroundings of the Ulster Hall.  The air, thick with beard and brew, seemingly creates its own atmospherics ahead of any performance so far, but, safe in the knowledge that we’ll be banging our heads soon we file in and stand our ground.  It’s not exactly filled to the brim, but it’s not nearly empty either and the consensus thus far is that…

  • Mastodon w/ Bad Breeding @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    The night begins with a small clan of bemused faces. On the stage is Bad Breeding (frontman, Chris Dodd, below), throwing out fuzzy, mashed agro punk. Clever without being innovative it’s reminiscent of Black Flag, Crass and the noise-rock elements of bands like The Horrors. Not a bad thing, in and of itself, but elements of the crowd are as disinterested as the distortion is unrelenting. This simply seems to be a case of bad booking. So the majority of the crowd hole up in The Olympia’s wonderfully anachronistic bar. The black t-shirts are adorned with tonight’s headliner and the…