Two of New Zealand's most prominent extreme metal bands are hitting Whanganui next week.
Depths and Organectomy will play at Lucky Bar on January 15 as part of their "Decades of Death" nationwide tour, bringing with them sludge-metal band Swamp Dweller from Owaka Valley in South Otago and Whanganui's ownPull Down the Sun.
Pull Down the Sun frontman Koert Wegman said his band would be joining the tour for the Palmerston North and Wellington shows as well.
"I don't think Lucky has ever seen the like of Depths and Organectomy before," Wegman said.
"When you throw in Swamp Dweller, it's a really eclectic lineup. With our album [2020's Of Valleys And Mountains] there's a bit of everything as well. We can play music that suits the other bands or we could just mess the crowd up and only play mellow stuff.
Wegman said the band would be embarking on a tour of all the country's "nooks and crannies" in March and April, and that work had already begun on a new album.
It's fair to say that Wellington/Palmerston North five-piece Depths won't be playing much "mellow stuff" next Friday.
The death metal band are 10 years and four albums into their career, with a fifth currently in the works.
Frontman Josh Bain said they hadn't played any shows in 2020, instead spending most of the year writing the follow-up to 2018's "Endless", an album that was inspired in part by Meshuggah's "Catch Thirtythree".
"That whole album [Endless] is essentially just one song continually, which was a completely different style of writing than we were used to," Bain said.
"That process brought in new creative stuff and stopped us getting too pidgeon-holed.
"What's the point in making the same album every time, you know? We like to keep things fresh for ourselves, otherwise it gets a bit boring playing the same s**t all the time.
"Thankfully, whenever we've done something that's a bit out of our comfort zone, people have grabbed on to it. We've been lucky."
Bain said the band were "itching to get back" into playing live.
'Writing and stuff is all good, but there's something about a live show that really fires you up.
"Whanganui always goes off, and last time we came through we had a blast. We're looking forward to it."
Whanganui prog-metallers Pull Down The Sun will be first onstage at the upcoming "Decades of Death" show in Whanganui. Photo / Amanda Hodge
The Decades of Death tour will give slamming death metal band Organectomy, who hail from Christchurch, the chance to play in the central North Island for the first time.
Guitarist Sam McRobert said the band had "only just recovered" from their first show of the year, at Twisted Frequency Festival in Takaka on January 2.
"That's a big old electronic music festival, and we were thrown in there," McRobert said.
"We played to a few hundred people who seemed to love it, so it's all good."
The band released their first album, "Domain of the Wretched" in 2017 and were signed to American extreme metal label Unique Leader Records soon after.
Their sophomore release, "Existential Disconnect", came out in 2019, and McRobert said the band had planned on spending a large part of last year touring it overseas.
"We were booked to go back to the US last year, along with Europe and the UK, but obviously that couldn't go ahead."
Like Depths, McRobert said the Organectomy had spent much of 2020 writing new material.
"We've got about an album's worth of stuff ready to go, and the plan is to get serious about a new album when this tour finishes.
"We all have influences that go outside of the death metal genre, but there's definitely a wave of slamming, brutal, death metal around the world at the moment. That's what a lot of people kind of put our band under.
"I wouldn't say we're just a slam band', but there are definitely some of those elements in there, especially the guttural-style vocals which are pretty constant throughout all our stuff."
McRobert said the band were looking forward to their first show in Whanganui.
"For Organectomy, it's our first time playing anywhere between Auckland and Wellington, so we're really excited. We've heard some really good things about the venue [Lucky Bar] as well."
• Depths, Organectomy, Swamp Dweller and Pull Down The Sun are playing at Lucky Bar (53 Wilson St) on January 15.
