Oneiric Realm with Katahdin, Vaitarna, and Sarcomancy [Champions', Everett, 7/10/2010]

Hideously late, but here goes, as I clean up two weeks' worth of shows so that it won't be past all hope by the time I get back from Europe.


I came in by a different route for this time than I did last time due to the Saturday slot (so I wasn't coming from work, just from putting my Germany shirt away after the victory), which resulted in getting lost and taking some minor detours around the back streets of Revere and Everett in order to get back on line and over to the venue. Nevertheless, I made it in good time and was able to stand outside for a bit, and also get some beers drunk before the bands started.

Sarcomancy [5/7]
A new band featuring several scene stalwarts, this was their first show, and while they didn't have a lot of material prepared, it was good stuff all the way through. The sound was very heavily and obviously Immortal-influenced, but there was more than a little early Enslaved in there as well. Four songs isn't a whole lot to judge any band on, but they executed well, and with this kind of lineup, they've definitely got the potential to build on the stuff they presented here and develop it further. One to watch out for, provided that the members' other-band commitments don't ride roughshod over this project.

The blessing and curse of this show was that, to avoid policing requirements, the organizers had to move a table to block the bar off from the stage area. This meant that you could not get a beer and then just go in to watch the band, glass in hand (the Everett PD would have wanted a detail officer in the bar in that case, the expense of which was the reason for the table jammed into the doorway), but it did induce people to go outside as much as possible, getting the audience fresh air and venting out the venue every so often, keeping it from getting too hot inside. A decent tradeoff, but it would've worked better if in this country like most others, it was not a problem to take a beer out onto the sidewalk. Plastic cups + trashcan (+ organizers giving aggro if people tossed their cups in the street) = sorted.

Vaitarna [5/7]
Up from Connecticut, these guys had a decent traveling support and some good, solid riffs, but the connections between the riffs, and the overall songwriting structure left a little to be desired. Without either vocals or the sense of structured repetition, this set felt at times like a mostly-black-metal extended jam session; musically good stuff, but still needing more in the way of song structure to bring everything together. This is kind of a problem in general with this sort of instrumental post-metal, really, and these guys definitely did have good chops, so the set, all in all, was still pretty decent and still a good time.

Katahdin [6/7]
Though for whatever reason they didn't bring their bassist up, Katahdin still put on a kickass set of solid black metal with pagan leanings reminiscent of the eastern-European sound (potentially due to the way the sound was balanced without the bass, but still). Unfortunately, they didn't have their new record with them, as it came out the following week; oh well, but if the quality of this performance and the quality of the response it earned is any indication, they'll be back in greater Boston soon enough, and this won't be an issue.

I did however, get a shirt, because I wanted to support the band and because the design (just the bandlogo) was pretty cool. Unfortunately, they didn't have change for my $20, so this turned into a shirt and a round for the band, and me being more skint than I expected faster. It's still a frickin nice shirt, though.

Oneiric Realm [6/7]
Capping off the night (since Anticosm, who would have played after them, pushing Sarcomancy off at the front, had to drop due to vehicle problems), these guys closed in style with a nice set of melodic black metal that still retained enough of an edge to keep it out of post-black territory. Though, really, the bands don't sound terribly much alike, and nobody actually has Wait Me At Dusk, a good point of comparison in what they're doing with the general black metal sound might be Solar Signs -- hopefully, they won't fall off the map like those guys did, as this is music that deserves a wider hearing. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything recorded available, so that dimension is going to have to wait for a bit.

Things having concluded, I headed home; the next day, between a friend's housewarming, the World Cup final, and another cool show, was going to be pretty eventful.