The comment's been made before, but aside from being out in goddamned Worcester, Ralph's is an awesome, awesome venue, and with spectacularly few exceptions, Metal Thursdays there boast an awesome lineup. This time was certainly par for the course; kickass metal, Sam Adams under 4 bucks, The New Devil In Miss Jones and some kung fu movie starring a thalidomide-dude on the big screen, moshing, camaraderie, more cool records in Jeremy's boxes than I could afford....and then a long dark drive on roads filled with trucks moving at relativistic speeds back home while totally exhausted, and less than three hours of sleep before going in to work today. We've got to take over, like, River City Billiards in Haverhill or pick up one of those dead function-hall restaurants on 114 in Middleton so that people from the North Shore and the Seacoast can get cool shit like this without having to put up with all the bad parts.
As it is, though, even with the bad parts, for an experience like this, it's still worth it. I got in just about doors and had time to waste piling up new records -- partly because the Oak Knoll table always has cool stuff, and partly because the bands were not that great on getting merch set up. It sucks not supporting the bands directly, but if there isn't anything out where doods can check it out, it's kind of tough. All four bands on this bill have new records coming out shortly, though, so perhaps next time.
Eventually, I finished my beer and Legion of the Dying went on, with remarks to the effect that they had gotten a ride at least part of the way with the police. There's doubtless a story in that, but it's for them to tell, especially since I don't know it.
Legion of the Dying [4.5/7]
I think this was a small step up from last time, but they got kind of a raw deal from the sound, so I can't be certain. In contrast to the clear sound and proper balance that everyone else had, theirs was heavily trebled out to the point of obscuring what they were doing. This is unfortunate, but perhaps symptomatic of the band; they did some cool things, but didn't present a really cohesive idea of how it all fit together. The likeness to Bifrost is still strong, which may be a bad thing as well as good; Bifrost did create some great music, but the countervailing directions in their sound probably contributed strongly to why they never made another record after Mythistory. Legion of the Dying is being pulled in two directions by their heavy metal and extreme-metal elements, and it's somewhat disheartening to realize that they haven't really made much progress on harmonizing the two since January. The potential is definitely there, both to create a working fusion and to do something really cool with it, but the band (in the opinion of this goober, of course) needs to take another look at their arrangements and make sure that everything's really developing the way they want it to.
Ravage [6/7]
This set started out a little rough - Al's mic was apparently off or something - but Ravage quickly pulled it together and laid out another killer set that improved as it progressed. While they did a fair share of new material from DamnNation - which is allegedly going to be out soon, and hopefully available in this country as well as in Europe - there was also a lot of old stuff in the setlist. No "Wyvern", though, despite some goombah in a ridiculous jacket who was giving the band guff about it. :roll: In the middle of their last song, they took a bit of a break to crank through "Nightcrawler", one of my favorite Priest tunes and also one that more people ought to be more baffled as to why it isn't covered more often. On both the originals and the cover, the execution was top-notch, and though the mix could have brought Al's vocals a little further forward, there isn't that much better that could be asked for.
Unless my memory is totally deceiving me, Jay, the 'new' bass player, was previously in Ravage a couple years ago, which may explain why they did relatively more old stuff than new. Of course, I could also be completely wrong, which would not be a first.
Graveheart [6/7]
This is the band for Legion of the Dying to look to as they try to refine and balance the traditional and extreme elements in their sound. Graveheart's smashing blend of thrash and melodic death metal pulls in a lot of traditional HM elements, especially in their lead-swapping guitar pyrotechnics, but there wasn't ever any tension in the direction of the sound, just singleminded domination. Of course, this band has plenty of experience -- they cracked out an old tune from their Blistered Earth days, which was just absolutely razor-sharp -- and LotD is just starting out, so a similar flowering could well be in the cards. If I were to be really picky, I'd give this the edge as the best set of the night, but by a narrow margin. They closed up by bringing up Al Ravage to guest on two Priest songs -- well, more like one, but he did sing over "The Hellion" as well as on "Electric Eye" where there are actually lyrics. More cool times.
Candy Striper Death Orgy [6/7]
I have seldom been more sorry to be without knee braces than during this set; CSDO's Slayer-driven thrash creates the inevitable lust for destruction, but I couldn't go throwing myself around and running the risk of snapping one or both pegs. I did what I could to keep those who were moshing moving around, but it frustrates me to no end that I wasn't able to get things circled up and moving oldschool-style. While CSDO is not exactly the most original band in the world, they're rock-solid technically and compositionally, and use that perfect thrash lock-in to kick extreme amounts of ass; one has to wonder why they're only just now putting out their debut full-length; maybe they weren't this practiced back when Meliah Rage and Wargasm were the core of the scene, but thrash has been 'back' for a while now, and they gig enough that somebody should have noticed them. I'm currently slotted to see them opening for Testament in the middle of next month, and the kickass set they laid out here in Worcester definitely makes me more likely to drive down to friggin Southbridge and catch that one.
After CSDO closed up, there came the announcement that due to continuously outstanding turnouts -- due both to the venue's attractions and the awesomeness of the bills -- Metal Thursday is going to start going bi-monthly, with the first "second show" in two weeks. This is what happens when people support shows; more of them happen and we all see more bands, who have more opportunities to practice their craft and get better. Everyone benefits; hopefully, we'll be able to see those benefits in Boston and get some non-Sunday shows at the Skybar by patronizing the hell out of the Sunday gigs.
Next show is Doro (kickass) at Mark's (blech) on Saturday, then Skybar on Sunday. I'm trying to pull people along for these from the North Shore, but haven't had much luck so far...gotta try harder, both to get people in other regions into our native bands, and to try and overcome this damned blight.
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