Happy New Year’s Eve 2020

I don’t have to tell you about 2020 – you were there, too. Usually, at the end of the year, I spend December choosing some photos to repost for good vibes and great memories, but this year I didn’t take a single photograph of a live show. Yeah. So, I am going to post a few photos from 2019 that did not see that light of day then, just for fun. I am keeping the cameras warm for 2021 because hope springs eternal.

There was a lot of excellent music released this year. We published 188 reviews in 2020, a lot more than we thought we would. There are so many “Best of 2020” lists out there that I decided not to do one for FFMB. Instead, I am throwing up a couple of covers from albums we didn’t review this year that were really good – just couldn’t get to everything. We’ll try to do better in 2021.

Thanks to everybody involved with Flying Fiddlesticks Music Blog and the Shardik Media Cabal. Deep gratitude and thanks to all the bands, record labels, venues, publicists, and promoters keeping music alive for all of us.

We’re still here and we are carrying on in 2021. See you out there.

All live performance photos by Wayne Edwards.

Aftershock

Heavy Montreal

Clubs

Albums

© Wayne Edwards.

Happy New Year’s Eve 2020

The Day Of Doom (Magnetic Eye Records 2020)

The tenth anniversary celebration of Magnetic Eye Records was captured live and is available now in a deluxe package.

In November 2019, Magnetic Eye Records held a concert to honor ten years of music with nine of their roster artists performing. The four headliners – Elephant Tree, Summoner, Horsehunter, and Domkraft – were recorded for posterity and that music has now been released. You can get the full sets separately, but I recommend the big hardcover art book version that includes four CDs, one for each set. Here are some tech specs: Elephant Tree, seven songs, 40 minutes; Summoner, seven songs, 38 minutes; Domkraft, six songs, 45 minutes; Horsehunter, four songs, 45 minutes.

It is a colossal amount of Doom and all four performances are exceptional. I have not seen any of these bands live, but I am a big Elephant Tree fan from their studio work so that is what drew me to this set initially. I have listened to all of them twice now and they are going to be spinning again in the office here before too long. Highly recommended.

Bandcamp links are below for each separate band. The art book version is available directly from Magnetic Eye. Some versions might be out of stock or sold out, but you can always get the digital. And these sets are also on streaming services (I know Spotify has them for sure) so you can listen there first if you want to get a better idea of what it is all about before dropping some coin.

Links.

Magnetic Eye, https://us.merhq.spkr.media/artists/various-artists/various-artists-day-of-doom-live-book-4-cd.html

Horsehunter, https://magneticeyerecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-day-of-doom

Summoner, https://summonerboston.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-day-of-doom

Domkraft, https://domkraft.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-day-of-doom

Elephant Tree, https://elephanttreeband.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-day-of-doom

The Day Of Doom (Magnetic Eye Records 2020)