Now this sound good, Hemiptera are a rather hopeful rather raw band from Brighton blending dark moody cello with some doom and and a touch of thrashing punky crust, they play Helgi’s Bar here in East London this coming Sunday May 26th in the middle of a bill with headliners Plague to Pyres and openers Aeir. Right now that Hemiptera demo is beautifully raw, raw is good, a proper demo, we like proper, old school, it is where we started. There’s something good kicking off here, sounds like it might be worth jumping on this ride and seeing where it goes….

The gig is free entry, alway my favourite price for a gig what with the cost of beer these days – “FREE ENTRY but we will be accepting donations for a local anarchist social centre” they say, not sure who said it, someone did, and hey, we know, we’ve been there, running a band and getting to gigs or putting on gigs doesn’t come cheap, buy some merch if you can or at least find me and buy me a beer for telling you all this, mine is a pint of Roadcrew and I’m the one in the corner in the black t-shirt with some band logo or other that’s cooler than yours (and probably splattered with paint). Seriously, merch tables and t-shirt sales, sales at gigs kept us alive and organgrinding for many years.

The headliners Plague to Pyres are delightfully heavy, (can you call this kind of thing delightful?), they do it in a dark mean kind of way, they proclaim themselves to be a “Norwegian/British Noise Metal band”, they certainly make a noise, lot more than just a noise though, there’s depth here, soul, something to dig into…

Opening the bill we have Aeir, here’s their 2022 album, kind of hints you should get there early don’t you think? Dark, moody, bear with a toothache vocals, colourful yelling in the background, heavy moody doomy riffs…

Previous coverage from our local bar that is Helgi‘s – this is my Helgi’s highlight of the year so far – ORGAN THING: The Naked Grace Missionaries at Helgi’s, Hackney, East London. Curiosity never really killed the cat, it just took her to a higher plane…

And while were here, some old school metal and a playlist, who doesn’t love a playlist, here’s some things you might hear in Helgi’s on any given Sunny Thursday afternoon although we’re yet to hear Lautrec and if you ask me, Mean Gasoline is peak Heavy Metal. It was just before the Venom revolution when Tank were about the only thing heavier than Motorhead unless you dug into the punk crossover bands like Discharge that were just kicking in. Lautrec’s Mean Gasoline has everything metal needs, a throbbing bass line, proper riffs, a mean motorcycle, a red Chevrolet (everyone loves a Chevy, a 68 Chevy with pipes on the side, come on Chevy burn the night away!). There Lautrec were, racing with devil at the break of the day, pure metal, peak metal, proper metal, the Bristol band were damn fine live as well… I know exactly where I was when I first heard that first Venom single, that was a good day…