Tool performs at the Aftershock Festival on Oct. 13, 2019. Courtesy of Aftershock. SACRAMENTO — Northern California’s annual hard rock festival, Aftershock, continued its upward trajectory as one of the premiere national events for heavy music. What began back in 2012 as a one-day and one-stage event has ballooned…

 Everyone manages stress differently. Some people use guided meditation, some people go with binge drinking and an underground fight club. There are as many coping strategies as there are people. Similarly, some people go for some mellow, soothing music. Most people really. But that’s not how I roll.…

To be fair, no one could expect Slipknot’s sixth album to reach Iowa levels of heavy. Iowa, released in 2001, began with DJ Sid Wilson having a nervous breakdown and ended with frontman Corey Taylor stripping naked and cutting himself with broken glass—a headspace the Midwestern band left behind…

Slipknot performs at Knotfest at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View on July 26, 2019. Photos: Alessio Neri. MOUNTAIN VIEW — Back in 1999 it would seem insane to predict that nine jumpsuit-wearing maniacs from Iowa would tour America with Denmark’s groove metal export, French ultra-heavy environmentalists and Poland’s…

They didn’t know it yet, but only Beyonce could pay their auto-mo-bills. We’re still in that dark time between album rock and YouTube. Record company executives had almost all the power to decide what we got to hear. Worse, what they decided we wanted to hear was still boy…