Hirudinea with Blessed Offal [O'Brien's, Allston, 6/9/2011]

I was a little later getting out of work than anticipated, and a little later getting over, accordingly, and had fucked up in the morning, barely remembering to bring my kutte, so I didn't have my flag with me to trade over. Weekend; all I need to do is not get completely blasted watching internationals again.

Regardless, I got a couple beers in, enjoyed good company and parts of some '80s action movies, and presently the bands got going.

Blessed Offal [5/7]
This was a little bit of a short set, but still quality, straight-from-the-shoulder American death metal. This may be down from previous scores (though, as always, if you care, you're a mentalist), but most of that is probably down to the sound, which was a little overdriven, at least where I was standing. Some of it, though, it probably down to this being the third completely different lineup that I've seen from this band; Ross has some good musicians in now, but any band, as they get their feet under them, is going to take time to cycle up. Good stuff, though, and both the commitment to keep going and the known quality of the new guys should provide a strong inducement to keep watching out for Blessed Offal.

Neither of the bands had merch out, so I wasn't able to wheedle stuff for export. This is probably ok, though; the musicians and (regrettably, few) general-audience attendees represented a significant chunk of who's generally about the Boston scene, so it should not be difficult for any of the Hirudinea/Blessed Offal/Deathamphetamine/Panzerbastard/Nachzehrer/Composted/otherbandsthatIforgotordidin'tnoticeamemberofbecauseI'maderp guys to find and shove stickers at me over the next six weeks.

Hirudinea [6/7]
This was a short set (I complain about this a lot in regard to this concert series, but then I complain a lot in general), but pure quality, front to back full of sharp and punishing death-grind. All you could reasonably ask for from this set might be MOAR, but the pure vituperation that went into "Just Kill Us" as the closer might even be enough to counterbalance that. Just devastating. This probably would've gone better still with more floor movement, but there weren't really enough people around to sustain such. This is a shame, of course; if you weren't out in Worcester for the first South American band to play Metal Thursday and you missed this, you missed one of the best $5 portions of death and grind you're likely to have served up this year.

Though it was still 15 minutes before midnight when Hirudinea closed up, I headed straight out; it had been pouring earlier and I had no idea if it would come charging back. So it was off over the bridges again, and a fairly quick trip home, even if the holes in the road in Everett and the submerged ramp onto 93 made it more exciting than it really needed to be. This weekend is committed as noted; shows coming up are Excrecor at Metal Thursday and then Summoning Hate next weekend (despite the next-to-last pre-festivals on-call shift) if I can't get into the Composted/Boarcorpse gig.