Cold Years & Planet of Zeus & Employed To Serve

Die neue Talenteschmiede von Mind Over Matter presented bei Rock Antenne Österreich, Stark!Strom und Addicted To Rock.

Wir bringen die neo-angesagtesten Heavy-, Punk-, Hardcore- und was auch immer Bands in eure Lieblingslocations.

Den Anfang machen Cold Years & Planet of Zeus.

Bleibt dran für besondere Aktionen rund um das Konzert. Vielleicht verwandelt sich euer MOM – NT Ticket schon bald in das eine oder andere Goodie!

Cold Years:

It doesn’t come much more grim than life in a gritty, remote Scottish city like Aberdeen. So says northeast native Ross Gordon, anyway, vocalist with rising, heart-on-sleeve rock four-piece, Cold Years. If you want a sense of the true sound of youth disaffection in post-Brexit Britain, look no further. This summer, the band will finally release their highly anticipated debut album Paradise ­– a title bearing more than a suggestion of sarcastic snarl to go along with the considerable bite found on the music contained within. „Our hometown is a shithole,“ Ross spits, with characteristically direct candour. „The album is called Paradise because Aberdeen is not a paradise. It’s horrible, it’s grey, and it’s cold all the time. We all live and work here, and it’s not very happy. It’s quite morbid when you stop to think about it. But at the same time, it’s home.“ Echoing the infamous, despairing, „it’s shite being Scottish“ rant made by protagonist Renton in Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel, Trainspotting, Ross‘ near-nihilistic take on the town where he was born goes further still, almost three decades and a generation later. Rather than succumb to the pitfalls that laid waste to previous generations, however, he poured all of his frustration and all of his anger into the 13 songs that represent his band’s first foray into full-length recording.

Planet Of Zeus:

“How was the heavy rock scene in Greece” you ask, before Planet of Zeus made their debut at the dawn of the third millennium? A band that needs no introduction, for its enviable success and indisputable chemistry on stage are nothing short of becoming part of Greek Mythology.

Having one sold-out gig after another, in every city and every venue, Planet of Zeus have gone beyond the narrow bounds of their country’s music scene, playing their heavy groove riffs around the world.

With their wicked five albums—“Eleven the Hard Way” (2008), “Macho Libre” (2011), “Vigilante” (2014), “Loyal to the Pack” (2016), Faith in Physics” (2019)—and their breathtaking gigs in Greece and across the earth, the band managed to wed on stage Lynyrd Skynyrd to Mastodon and Allman Brothers to Clutch, and to carry us away with dance, hope, and a pathway to a better future.

Planet of Zeus’ last album “Faith in Physics” is the ideal soundtrack for the dystopian state of our planet, a heavy rock outburst, with socio-politically engaged lyrics and a charged atmosphere, “in a world dominated by irrationalism, where far-right politics and fundamentalism are gaining ground, while freedom of speech is in jeopardy.”

Digitization, religion, pseudo-revolution on social media, addiction of all kinds are topics that the quartet inject into their new breed of nostalgic rock proceedings.

Employed To Serve:

Employed To Serve’s latest release, Conquering, is a fully realised metamorphosis into the band they’ve always wanted to be. Drawing influence from the music of their youth and a new perspective on how to nurture the positive aspects of humanity and individual growth, Conquering is a celebration and acknowledgement of triumph in the face of a world that can be relentlessly adversarial.

Album highlights, Exist, Mark of the Grave and Twist the Blade best encapsulate Employed To Serve’s rebirth, with an emphasis on groove and a penchant for colossal hooks that wouldn’t be out of place on Lamb of God or Machine Head’s respective catalogues. Frontwoman Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin (guitar / vocals) trade vocal duties throughout, confidently flitting between whiplash inducing screams and swaggering melodicism, as the rhythm section of recent additions Nathan Pryor (bass) and Casey McHale (drums) provide towering sonic weight to proceedings in the vein of Sepultura at their most defiant. The most enduring qualities of Employed To Serve’s established identity remain intact, as Conquering harnesses the bands signature technical prowess alongside their growing knack for stadium built battle-cries for a new generation of metal and hardcore fans.

Conquering presents a powerful statement from a band continuing to fire on all cylinders after the best part of a decade, without losing sight of their humble beginnings, and the hard work it’s taken to attain the reverence they hold both within and beyond genre confines. Where previous efforts explored the darker aspects of human emotion, this latest chapter in the band’s storied history acknowledges their past and offers a way forward with them through inner power and an unbridled encouragement of self-worth.

Four albums in, and a steady stream of critical acclaim and awards in tow, Employed To Serve’s meteoric rise from genre hopefuls to becoming one of UK metal’s most consistently captivating bastions is indisputable.