#Album or cover tank force of nature full

It has big, nasty riffs, and it has shredding. Ascension has Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe showing up on guest vocals and songs that break the five-minute barrier. This is a vast oversimplification, but one of the big reasons that Ascension rules so hard is that Mutually Assured Destruction are hardcore dudes playing metal. Herding dozens of bands isn’t how I would choose to celebrate my birthday, but that’s why I’m me and he’s him. The first of those nights happened two days after Ace’s band Mutually Assured Destruction released Ascension, an absolute motherfucker of a debut album, and it also happened on Ace’s birthday. Big Takeover happened in three venues across two nights. Even though he moved across the country in the months before the fest, Ace still got together with Sam Yarmuth, founder of Triple B Records, to put together a weekend that was very different from United Blood in both scope and personality. Big Takeover is what stepped in to fill it.īig Takeover is the brainchild of Ace Stallings, a Richmond scene linchpin who helped book the last few United Bloods and who no longer lives in Richmond. Richmond is one of America’s great hardcore cities, and the end of United Blood left a vacuum. (I was like: “It’s capitalism’s fault!” Don’t ask me to reconstruct that logic.) After that whole thing, the organizers of United Blood decided that they’d had enough, and the festival was no more. The show was scheduled for a few weeks after COVID swept in and shut everything down, and in those disorienting early days, this cancellation was the thing that pissed me off the most. In 2020, Converge and Cold World were set to headline, and I’d decided that I was going to stop fucking around and jump into this thing with both feet. The last-ever United Blood went down in 2019, and Floorpunch and Merauder, two foundational East Coast tough-guy bands from the ’90s, were the headliners. That’s what happened last month in Richmond, when the first-ever Big Takeover festival came to town.Ī post shared by Richmond Hardcore Shows more than a decade, Richmond was home to United Blood, an important annual event in the world of down-the-middle mosh-it-up hardcore. And it happens, in a different sort of way, at punk festivals, where 19 different bands are supposed to play 15-minute sets on a single stage in a single day. That happens at the giant festivals, when baby bands get their first taste of something resembling fame, even if they’re playing at noon to mostly empty fields. One of the things that I love about music festivals is getting to see acts playing on much bigger stages, to much larger crowds, than they’re used to seeing. For just this one day, though, they’re at home, and so are you.

This club is not Protocol’s natural habitat. It’s disorienting to see a band like that on an actual stage, with lights that flash different colors and everything. You walk in, and you’re immediately greeted by the sound of Protocol, a Tallahassee band that seems to exist mostly to play in grimy, mildewy punk-house basements. It’s got real air conditioning and sleek concrete floors and an impressive array of beers on tap, and it’s not usually open this time of day. You come across a relatively large and clean and well-appointed nightclub - the place where I took my daughter to see Beach Bunny last year, the place where the Mountain Goats will play the next time they’re in town.

#Album or cover tank force of nature full

You’re walking down the street in a heavily gentrified neighborhood full of nice restaurants and apartments that you probably couldn’t afford. Here’s a situation that I wish everyone could experience at least once: It’s a sunny day in Richmond, Virginia, and the heat is unrelenting.