Rob Wright delves deep into the world of lank-haired, parent-hating, bat-munching to mourn the loss of some local greats and mosh about for the picks of 2008. For those of you about to Raaaaawk, we salute you…

Interviewing White Boys For Gay Jesus at the beginning of this year rekindled an ember in me which previously I had thought was smothered by a new found interest in indie and math rock – my love of metal. Ah, metal, or Met-Al as it should be pronounced (with your fingers held thus and thus to represent the warts of Lemmy).

What a year of mixed fortunes it has been for us in Leeds! Fortunately, Peter Wright, ex-White Boy and current Vessel was on hand to chew the fat re: all that has been heavy and heeeavy for the last twelve months.

Before talking to him, I thought we’d suffered a few heavy losses, but it appears there has been what amounts to a rock-cull in West Yorkshire. First off, Nerve Engine decided to call it a day – hair was cut, tears were shed – Imposters bit the bullet and Eiger peaked and departed. Then, as the year wore on, Concentration Champ and Narcosis raised the digitus impudicus and turned up their toes. But the most surprising folds of the year go to zombiecoresters Send More Paramedics, due to advanced necrosis, and ‘so good they named it thrice’ Whores Whores Whores. Having seen those two in action, resignation came as a bit of a shock – where am I gonna get my onstage zombie action now? It’s an ill wind that blows some good, because though White Boys have lost Peter, they’ve gained Eiger’s Matt, now renamed coy boy – does this herald a cover of ‘Too Shy?’

It’s not all been doom and gloom though, as there have been some fairly major releases and events to put a smile on the face of the melancholy mosher. Humanfly released their second album, conveniently titled ‘II’ and displaying aspects of post-metal maturity, Red Stars Parade pulled their fingers out and got around to recording something, White Boys For Gay Jesus put the finishing touches to ‘White Boys For Black Lizzy’ and Whores x3 released a split with Omerta (they hate everything, doncha know?) before, ironically, splitting. Eventswise, the Brudenell as ever proved to be an epicentre of heavy happenings. St Patrick’s day was marked by members of White Boys, Los Bastardos and Part-Time Renegades playing tribute to Rage Against The Machine, Primus and Meshugga – it’s what the ol’ snake-chasing Welshman would have wanted – Shutfest, courtesy of Shut magazine, added a bit of much-needed heat to August with sets from Narcosis, Red Stars Parade, Year Of The Man and EDT, to mention but a few – just a quick mention about EDT: their sets are approximately 5 minutes long, so this year they have played about half an hour – and Rocktoberfest added a bit of autumnal agitation, headlined by Mishkin and Tangaroa. As an aside, Mishkin went the other side of the wall and toured China this year, while Humanfly got funny on Sangria and anarcho-communist pipedreams in Spain and Portugal. I guess you can have too much Brude…

Contrary to reports that Leeds hasn’t got the venues to host the biggies, 2007 had seen visits from such notaries as Down I Go, Take A Worm For A Walk Week, Locust and the cataclysmic Unsane. Not only that, but Bossk have decided to up sticks and move here. If that’s not voting with your feet… oh, it is.

So that’s about it – apart from Rio’s moving from Bradford to Leeds. That’s pretty metal. At time of writing, 2007 is all over bar the shouting – and there’ll have been plenty of that at Paul Graham’s end of year metal party on the fifteenth. Now, let’s look forward to 2008. Town and Country, anyone?