Jacob Bannon's Picks For Roadburn 2018

Roadburn – the annual festival held every April in Tilburg, Netherlands – kicks off next Thursday. As is tradition, this year sees part of the bill curated by one of its headlining artists. Following in the footsteps of previous band pickers Electric Wizard, Enslaved, Neurosis and many others, this year’s edition has been given over to Jacob Bannon, frontman with headliners Converge. As a man of excellent taste, as well as having an ear to the ground for new stuff, Jacob has unsurprisingly put together a line-up of genuinely brilliant, occasionally off-the-wall artists. He tells us about five that you definitely have to see if you’re there. And if you’re not, you still need to check them out anyway…

Stomach Earth

Prolong the Death Watch

Stomach Earth is my pal and musical cohort Mike McKenzie, who plays in Wear Your Wounds with me, and was also in The Red Chord. He’s a really prolific and interesting songwriter and probably one of the best guitarists that I know, and he put out the first Stomach Earth record in 2013. It’s primarily a really dark doom record that he played everything on, and it’s a real opus that you can get so lost in. He played a couple of shows and not much since, and when I was making a list of some quite unknown New England based artists I could bring to Roadburn he was one of the first I thought of. He has so many gifts that he could share in that setting, and he’ll be joined on stage by [The Red Chord’s] Greg Weeks. It’ll be pretty powerful stuff, and I’m excited for that.

Zola Jesus

Siphon

Zola is an artist named Nicole Hummel, and she’s incredible. She’s been putting out records since around 2009, and she writes really powerful somber but infectious songs. It’s tough to really describe what she does, it’s like it falls somewhere between [80s pop band] Eurythmics and [avant-garde soprano] Diamanda Galás, it’s super dark with a ton of depth but there’s still this strong sense of melody and a lyrical power that shines through. She put out an EP that really blew me away called Stridulum in 2010, which is the record I’d recommend to anyone who wanted to get into what she’s doing. It totally crushed me, and since then I’ve been following her. Live, she’s such a presence, a little person but with a huge voice and charisma, and her band’s aggression is incredible, reminding me of a metal or hardcore band but with deeper chops.

Greenmachine

D.A.M.N

They’re a band from Japan who started out in the mid-90s, and they put out a record on Man’s Ruin Records, which at the time was the label to be on if you were a stoner rock or sort of doom-y band, putting out Kyuss and early High On Fire, stuff like that. I was first exposed to Greenmachine thanks to that label, and they’re a monster of a band. They’re super doom-y, almost like a Japanese version of Eyehategod, or like that. They reactivated a couple of years ago, and put out a cool split with Hangman’s Chair, and they’re such a cult band I thought they’d make for a really cool addition to Roadburn this year. They’re incredibly powerful, and they’re going to be playing the D.A.M.N record in its entirety, which is such an unforgiving experience it’ll be awesome to hear there.

Forgotten Tomb

We Owe You Nothing

They’re a really interesting band. I’m a sucker for sad music, and the whole world of what people would call ‘depressive black metal’ has always been interesting to me. Some of it is really powerful, and Forgotten Tomb were one of the first bands to be doing that, and they’ve been such a unique force to follow since I discovered them in the early 2000s. They’ve evolved quite a bit from the super sad, slow black metal band, and they put out We Owe You Nothing in 2017, which was actually mixed by Zeuss, who produces bands like Hatebreed and Killswitch Engage. It made for an interesting fit, and to me, it sounds like if [90s sludgy noise-thrashers] Buzzov*en were playing contemporary metallic hardcore, but lyrically it’s still super dark and opinionated. It’ll be cool to have a true cult black metal band at Roadburn.

Motorpsycho

Intrepid Explorer

They’re a really interesting band, and they’re so prolific it’s hard to keep up with them! There was a point where they were putting out a record - or even two - every year. Every record was different, every record was good, and while some stuff would be rock rooted, some would be kind of Mogwai-sounding, while other stuff would have a Pink Floyd vibe, or even almost a country vibe. I thought they would be a perfect fit for Roadburn, and when it worked out that they would be available it was fantastic to be able to lock that down. We’ve got them opening one of the nights at the festival, but they’re essentially going to be playing a headlining set. There’s a lot that goes into their live show, and we wanted them to have the time to set up and give a full presentation of what they’re capable of.