When Alice’s Miazma came up to Darwin for TerrorFest IV in December 2010, no-one really had much idea what to expect. Their myspace page was (sensibly) abandoned, the old recordings left on it only giving the vaguest impression of what they were like as a band. Everyone who witnessed them that night was blown away by their intensity. For a band who had never played outside of their home town, they had a stunning stage presence, and played absolutely phenomenally. Their songs were well-composed riff-fests of the highest order, totally up to the standard of some of Australia’s best touring acts, and no-one had seen it coming.

Top End Terror decided we had to head down to Alice and take a few Darwin bands along for the ride to see what the scene was like down there. The DESCENT show was co-organised between us and a couple of the Miazma lads for Easter Saturday and we hit the road in a minibus with Vicious Apathy, FEMA and Abysm and a trailer full of gear. We played with Alice bands The Horror and SCUM, who both performed for the first time that night, and of course Miazma, who headlined. The quality of all the Alice bands were astonishing and blew us Darwin bands off the stage.

Reminiscing and praise aside, the Alice Springs metal scene now has something else going for it, besides awesome bands: The Black Wreath.

The Black Wreath is a collective, a collaboration between 3 of Alice’s extreme metal acts, and some creative individuals. Miazma, The Horror and Uncreation have banded together, along with photographers, videographers and designers, to create a collective group with which to achieve their goals. They have built a studio together; amongst their ranks they have all the necessary skills to engineer and produce recordings of one-another’s bands. They have launched a record label; on the 11/11/11 they held the launch event, which they also streamed live to a variety of pub and clubs around Australia. And to celebrate said launch, they produced a 6-track teaser EP – 2 tracks from each of the bands involved.

The teaser EP can be downloaded from their website, or directly from here.

We can expect to hear more about Alice in the coming months, with the completion of individual band EP’s nearing, and a strong likelihood of tours in the new year…

Follow them on Facebook: The Black Wreath | Miazma | The Horror | Uncreation