Castle, NITE, Three Towers
Bottom of the Hill
San Francisco, CA
October 25, 2026
After a crushing Niners loss to the Atlanta Falcons I needed something to make my Sunday not a complete wash. Castle at The Bottom Of The Hill was it!
Starting the night off was a unique band called Three Towers. They describe themselves as “Stoner Thrash” and I must say that moniker is spot on. They play thrashy types of riffs through Stoner Rock instruments and amplification. It’s a weird amalgam that somehow works.
The band had great energy and were fairly tight. They also had a singing drummer so they already get brownie points in my book. However, I would say their vocals need a little work. They weren’t bad but just not as interesting as the music they were cranking out. Good start to the evening though for sure.
In the middle slot was the always awesome Nite. Their style of “Black n’ Roll” totally reminds me of latter era Satyricon. Just think of the album Now, Diabolical with an Occult Rock sheen. They were playing in support of their 2025 release Cult Of The Serpent Sun. A record played regularly at the Hectic Bleeding Priest office. One of my favorite Bay Area releases from last year. Check out the rad video for “Crow (Fear The Night)” directed by Cunnus of Vorlust.
These guys have the Rock Star posturing down which in most cases kinda bugs the shit out of me BUT with Nite it worked…for the most part. It didn’t look forced or planned out. In other words they weren’t “posing” (most of the time) up there. They were in the moment as was I.
Nite had the bulk of the audience as well. This quartet is ready for bigger stages and I can’t quite figure out why they haven’t blown up yet. I’m confident they will.
Next up were headliners Castle. As you may or may not know I have a bit of history with this duo. I did some touring with them around 7 or 8 (I think) years ago. Things started off strong with an AWESOME tour with The Sword. A tour that saw us playing Slim’s in SF and similar venues nationwide. Hell, I think we played two nights at Slim’s if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately subsequent tours weren’t so awesome and things went south fairly quickly. I place the blame on no one. It was a collective, dysfunctional mess by the end. But that is all water under a far away bridge and we’re all friends again and that “ma…ma…ma…makes me happy”. If you don’t get that Tropic Thunder reference then you need to get off your damn phone or computer and watch that movie NOW!!!
I digress, after a five year or so hiatus Castle are back and from what I can tell stronger than ever. They sounded fantastic. Liz and Mat and the new drummer (???) were playing with a confidence and swagger that didn’t exist before. At least not at the level they were displaying this night. Especially Liz, she really put on a show and seemed to be having the time of her life up there.
The show was kind of an unofficial record release for their latest platter Carrie Chains. They played a healthy dose of tunes from said record with the title track being the standout. Super catchy tune.
It wasn’t until the tail end of the show did they play a few songs from my time in the band. The tunes being “Evil Ways” and “Corpse Candles”. I immediately had flashbacks to playing those songs nightly and recalling how fun they were to play, especially the latter. The one old track that really stood out was “Temple Of The Lost”. What a haunting masterpiece of a song, holy hell.
Castle appear to be firing on all cylinders once again and the world is a better place for it.
–Bleeding Priest
