as i already told you last year, i live only a short hop away from the small village called wacken, which is the host of the annual wacken open air festival. it's one of the biggest metal festivals in the world with over eighty thousand participants. i wasn't planning to go this year. the tickets were pretty pricey and, again, sold out within one day on pre-order in 2015. when the time came, friends of mine were telling me they got tickets via ebay a week before the festival started. as iron maiden were headlining wacken and i wanted to see them before they will be gone one day, i sat down on my comp and seeked the bay for a ticket.
four days before the first band hit the stage, i won an auction for only a fraction of the actual price. the line-up wasn't that strong this year but maiden killed it and closing act arch enemy were a very pleasant surprise, plus there were a few nice bands in between like clutch, ektomorf or red fang. the only thing that sucked was the rain and the endless fields of mud again. just like last year the gumboots were my saviour. when it came to record shopping, prey was limited this year. no big metal market tent anymore, just a few small tents with loads of shirts and patches and few cd's and even fewer vinyl records.
the only bigger tent was the hot shot records tent. hot shot is a record store from bremen and last year i bought aborted's "coronary reconstruction" mini-lp at their tent. when i was flicking through the racks on the last festival day on saturday, i didn't come across much but then i pulled this ion dissonance album out of the bunch. i knew vaguely that they were from canada and good friends with the guys from despised icon. this connection, the coloured vinyl and the five euro price tag were enough to convince me. beside a death baseball longsleeve, a mastodon and a gojira patch there wasn't any more vinyl to get, unfortunately.
back home, when i dropped the needle on this monster for the first time, i didn't feel unfortunate anymore. "minus the herd" is one hell of a heavy and dark mathcore album. if you are into stuff like war from a harlots mouth, despised icon or meshuggah, these guys have got you covered. i heard the chaps recorded new material recently, so probably there is a new release in air. my copy is used and the cover doesn't look like the pre-owner stored it in a plastic sleeve but the vinyl is in great condition. 200 made on 180gr silver vinyl. garden of exile records under liscence of abacus records.
