Knotfest this year in Japan had a really inviting lineup. The first day was rather short for me (making me wonder if it was worth at all). I started the weekend with Disturbed, and they didn’t fail my expectations (so yeah, it was worth). SiM was up next, and it was much better than I thought it’d be. Deftones, on the other hand, wasn’t very impressive for me. I don’t have Deftones in my library and that’s not gonna change. I guess it was good by its own standards, but I wasn’t converted to be a fanboy.

Day 2 was a much longer ride with more bands I actually know. While Anthrax isn’t one of those, they still put up a fantastic show. Good old heavy metal, and they played all the songs I knew from them. The Gazette was pretty nice too, though I wasn’t paying much attention to them until the second half of their set. In Flames were In Flames. I’ve seen them live a few times before, and it was no letdown. The same goes for Crossfaith and Man With a Mission too, who did a great job representing Japan among the headliners. Lamb of God, on the other hand, was much less fun live than I hoped. I don’t know if it was some problem with the sound or I simply wasn’t in the mood, but their show wasn’t exactly overwhelming. Oh and Manson. He did all his great hits, but I guess I’m too old to enjoy seeing a huge middle-aged guy throw tantrums on stage like a little emo girl. Let’s hope little emo girls enjoyed it more.

Slipknot was amazing. The crowd was of course huge, but I’d say it was much better than the last time. The sound was great and they played good old and fresh new songs as well. Their set had a huge screen where they played shots from their music videos, and if you know Slipknot music videos, you know how gorey they are. It was really funny when on the train home I heard some boys complain about how it made them feel sick. Or rather: sic. The show was fantastic.

This year’s Loud Park came with a lineup that I just couldn’t ignore.

I found Heaven & Earth’s 2013 album Dig by accident, but I still decided to give it a try. The band is a group of rock lovers, who’ve set the goal of bringing the ’80s rock sound to the people of the 2010s. That they sure manage to do.

I don’t know for sure where I first heard about Transatlantic. It was either on Portnoy’s twitter, or in relation to Neal Morse’s departure from Spock’s Beard. Either way, considering I was familiar from the collaboration of the two from Morse’s solo Christian rock albums, I kinda knew what to expect.

One certain song is the reason I care about Anathema at all: Pulled Under from their album A Natural Disaster. In general the band’s music isn’t something I could listen to for extended periods. It’s what I call “sad music” (for lack of a better term) – it’s great for evenings spent thinking about life, the universe and everything (and I can totally imagine it as the OST of some drama movie).

At first I had no idea what was I supposed to think about Haken’s The Mountain. It was mostly slow, just way too slow even for a progressive rock album. Then I realized where the trick was: just consider it avant-garde.