Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based avant/technical metal outfit Cleric will team up with Aarhus, Denmark’s caustic metallic hardcore technicians Oxx for a Fall European tour. The trek begins on November 12th and hits cities in Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Denmark through November 26th.
See the current routing below and watch for the remaining dates to be finalized in the coming days. Anybody interested in booking a show on one of the TBA dates, please click here.
European Tour Dates 2022:
11/12/2022 KulturA. – Liège, BE
11/13/2022 Halle am Rhein – Mulheim, DE
11/14/2022 TBA – Leipzig, DE
11/15/2022 TBA – Prague, CZ
11/16/2022 Frankie Rock Club – Nitra, SK
11/17/2022 Nyolcas Muhely – Szekesfehervar, HU
11/18/2022 Riff Club – Budapest, HU
11/19/2022 TBA – Krakow, PL
11/20/2022 Metal Cave Club – Warszaw, PL
11/21/2022 TBA – Berlin, DE
11/22/2022 Råhuset – Copenhagen, DK
11/23/2022 Brolandingerne – Aalborg, DK
11/24/2022 Kontrast – Herning, DK
11/25/2022 Radar – Aarhus, DK
11/26/2022 TBA – DK
Founded in Philadelphia in 2003, Cleric’s avant-garde composition is marked by dark, cinematic atmospheres and free jazz-informed forays, bursting through a base of highly technical, mathy shred. Residing within the upper echelon of experimental metal acts such as The Dillinger Escape Plan and Car Bomb and influenced as much by metal pioneers Meshuggah, Converge, Fantômas, and Neurosis, as they are by avant-garde jazz luminaries John Zorn and Cecil Taylor, the quartet’s music zeroes in on a level of brutality and experimentation that a single band rarely maintains even for a few seconds.
Since their inception, Cleric has released a number of EPs, a 12″ picture disk through Sound Devastation Records (UK), two highly acclaimed full-length albums on Trey Spruance’s label Web Of Mimicry, and several Tzadik releases including arrangements of John Zorn’s Masada project. Additionally, guitarist Matt Hollenberg has appeared on over fifteen Tzadik releases since 2015 as one of Zorn’s inner circle.
“… through-composed avant-garde metal that renders most ambitious technical metalcore albums moot. If you’ve ever had even a cursory appreciation for joints like Irony Is A Dead Scene or wanted a wilder Breathing Is Irrelevant that owned a more diverse record collection, log some months with Retrocausal… Total, blissful sensory overload. Like staring into the sun…for your ears” – Stereogum
“A jazz-spiked dispatch from the Philly underground that’s one of the sickest avant-garde metal albums we’ve seen all year” – Revolver
“Cleric offers an almost medical-like examination on each section they deliver, one stacked on top the other: never settling for the ultimate moment. The jazz dimension is crucial to this space. It offers the chance to sculpt dissonant riffs and harness the extremeness that heavy metal can offer. The sculpture created is a lighting-rod of math. There’s no escape: this is a religion led by a free-thinking, all-encompassing leader; you’re sucked in, and for once, you enjoy the sermon. Thanks Cleric” – Invisible Oranges
Aarhus-based trio Oxx was born at the junction of metal, modern composition, and improvised music within the Danish metal and avant-garde scene. The group’s raw, spontaneous sound resembles an unfiltered, feverish stream of thought — bits and pieces of novels, obscure cinema, video games, and more, all rushing by in a maelstrom of impressions of existence filtered through the eyes of the thoroughly unstable.
In 2019, Oxx was able to bring their glorious belligerence to US audiences for the first time with a sprawling month-long trek in support of their Nefarious Industries-released LP The Skeleton Is Just A Coat Hanger; These Are The Black Strings That Make You Dance, an album that pushes the band’s genre schizophrenia to its painstaking limits, offering a cathartic, organic explosion bereft of glossy production and studio fuckery.
“…some of the craziest avant-extreme metallic hardcore in recent memory” – Decibel Magazine
“…math-rock guitar noodling and chaotic, dissonant hardcore scrapes that fans of KEN Mode and Gaza will enjoy, just as much as the fans of Clutch might enjoy the dirty southern-friend groove that closes the track. It’s a mess, but it’s fantastic… It’s the most wonderful bedlam you could imagine, and then some” – Heavy Blog Is Heavy
“Wild and unpredictable, but oh so charmingly deranged. Music created in the spur of an eternal moment. Twisted riffs fight their way through weird effects of undefined origin and blaring saxophones while following lyrics that are cluttered with random paraphernalia rather than meaning. Tempo and rhythm changes abound. But there is always sense in this nonsense” – PopMatters
Weblinks:
www.facebook.com/iamcleric
oxxmusic.com
