Monolord, Lucifer, Toundra and more confirmed for SonicBlast Moledo 2019

We are already well into the first month of the year – it’s almost February, jeez, time does fly -, and SonicBlast Moledo decided to drop a “Happy New Year” bomb on us. Metaphorically speaking, of course, it’s a new band announcement and a huge one at that, as ten more bands have been added to the festival’s 2019 lineup. Yeah, you read that right. As if the first announcement hadn’t been incredible enough. But enough rambling, let’s get down to business.

Let’s start with arguably the biggest name of the bunch. No strangers to the SonicBlast audience, the Swedish doomster trio Monolord have been worshiping the heavy riff ever since their inception back in 2013. Their third record, Rust, released in 2017, has been named by many as the trio’s best yet and since then, they have been touring almost nonstop. Right now, Monolord have returned to the studio to record their fourth full-length album and hopefully we will get to hear some of their new material when the band returns to Moledo this August. And speaking of worshipping the heavy riff, and more specifically the Sabbathian riff, the presence of Lucifer has also been confirmed. Formed by Johanna Sadonis and Andy Prestige in 2014 after the split of The Oath – a band both formed with Linnéa Olsson, but we’ll get to her in a moment -, Lucifer’s popularity has risen exponentially in recent times, mainly due to their incredible mixing of all the ingredients that make occult rock the beloved genre it is. Their second LP, the aptly named Lucifer II, is a true testament to this and we can’t wait to witness live the heavy magic rock that is Lucifer.

Much like Lucifer, Toundra are a band that has been the center of attention for a while now and for good reasons. Having recently moved to the Sound of Liberation family – which also has names such as Brant Bjork, Colour Haze and Belzebong, among others, in its ranks -, the Spanish instrumental post-metal group thrive on making music that invokes images of nature and legends, taking its listeners through an auditory journey and inspiring them on various levels. On a completely different note, there’s the Herndon, Virginia doomsters Satan’s Satyrs, a group formed back in 2009 by Clayton “Claythanas” Burgess, who was Electric Wizard’s bassist from 2014 to 2018. The mention of Electric Wizard here is not a mere coincidence, as the band rose to moderate fame after being personally invited by the famous English stoners to perform at their curated event in Roadburn 2013. Since then, Satan’s Satyrs have been somewhat active live, touring with bands such as Windhand and releasing hit record after hit record. And since we’re talking about North American stoner bands, we should mention the small San Diego contingent that will invade SonicBlast come August. This small contingent is formed by Sacri Monti, who are returning to Moledo after three years to once again mesmerize everyone present with their psychedelic jams; Harsh Toke, eternal explorers of the cosmic sound bearing no limits, and Petyr, a “petard” of a band influenced by the most iconic occult rock bands of all time and who are, curiously enough, fronted by Riley Hawk, the son of the legendary pro skater Tony Hawk. 

Earlier we mentioned Linnéa Olsson and that is because her own band Maggot Heart is also coming to Moledo. Former guitarist in The Oath and Beastmilk/Grave Pleasures, Linnéa engages vocal duties for the first time with Maggot Heart and proves that she is even more talented than we already knew. First releasing the astonishing EP City Girls in 2017 and then moving to a fully-blown LP entitled Dusk to Dusk, Linnéa reaches her “Killing Hand” out to us, only to bring tidings of doom via her extraordinarily hypnotic voice and guitar stylings. But Maggot Heart isn’t the only hidden gem of this bunch. Kaleidobolt and MaidaVale are the last names in this announcement but they are by no means less important than the rest of it. The former are a Finnish trio that blends psychedelia with hints of progressive rock and jazz, producing a mind-boggling sound that is both insane and brilliant and are returning to Portugal after their tour in 2017 as direct support to Radio Moscow. The latter are a Swedish quartet that fuses psych with experimental rock, creating a sonically diverse and ingenious sound. If you are attending SonicBlast this year, do watch out for both of them. And of course, keep your eyes peeled for future announcements, the festival isn’t done just yet.

SonicBlast Moledo 2019 takes place on August 8th-10th at Centro Cultural de Moledo. Three-day passes are available for 65 euros until April 30th, after which they will change price to 70 euros. They can be purchased online via Bilheteira Online.