Despite some non-promising-looking construction and nearly getting crunched by a semi coming off the Pike, I got over in decent order and not too long before the bands started. It was getting towards the end of a long day that had started earlier than anticipated, so I was a little ground down, but this rapidly took care of itself as the venue started to fill up in earnest and the first bands went on.
Krakatoa [5/7]
Someone is going to have to eventually make up a real word for this band's style of modern-God Dethroned black/melodeath mix, as the conventional ones are running a little short, and there's no shortage of modern bands playing around with the style. "Extreme metal" gets kicked around, but I refuse to redefine a term this general to the stuff in that subclass that isn't strictly black, death, or grind...and a lot of the bands claiming the label are not exactly extreme in any real sense. This was a decent set of decent music, if a little handicapped by technical difficulties. Most of those, though, arose from the PA trying to manage Steve's borgbass; hopefully, they'll be back with demos, where this won't be an issue.
Borgbass in action -- YOUR KEYBOARDS WILL BE ASSIMILATED!
Avernus Ortus [6/7]
They were more matched to the rest of the bill originally, before In Human Form dropped and Seax filled in, but didn't let their accidental odd-duck status stop them from delivering a punishing set of positively slam-hostile technical brutality. Even when it would be easy and consonant to dig in and chug away, Avernus refuse the temptation and do something brain-breakingly hard. It is flat awesome, and if you wish that Hate Eternal was less accessible or that Goreality occasionally played outside New Bedford, this is definitely a band to watch for.
Attendees agreed; at the conclusion of A.O's set, there was a short and sharp run on their demos -- which were conspicuously absent last time -- so immediate as to suggest Necrophagist at NEMHF '06. Said record is definitely worth it; not quite up to their live presentation, but still a kickass chunk of death metal, promising nothing but good things for whenever they get enough good songs written and perfected to get up to a full-length.
Amadis [6/7]
The amount of black leather on stage was a little over the top, and so many songs about heavy metal was just unnecessary. But Amadis is just so fucking good that this set was never going to end up anywhere else ratingswise. Lightly progressive but mostly traditional, this came out as a straight scream-n-shred-fest that got the floor nice and turbulent for the first time; you'd generally expect more mosh for the preceding death metal band out of a Metal Thursday crowd, but as noted this bill ended up pulling in a more trad audience -- and more importantly, it's very seldom that bands before the third have a drunk enough audience to get major motion. Flat killer all the way around.
No armor, no top hat, but still silly. The highlighted area is either a sporran or a lace-up codpiece.
Seax [6/7]
The power of experience; Seax were able to carry a headlining set of all originals and neither over- nor under-run the allotted slot. The band continues to ride that fine line between clever and stupid; their old-school ideas never coming off as dishonest, but with the band acknowledging that this is a nostalgia trip rather than 1982 itself, and that they might as well have somee fun with it. The trolls who were promoting this gig on New England's premier metal sitesource for dicks and abortions by bamming up the easily-excited Carmine, and anyone else who gave this one a pass, missed not only a pretty killer set of stripped-down old-school speed metal to cap off Avernus' underground fundamentalism and Amadis' Priest channeling, but also said frontman rubbing his spandex-covered dick all over the front row. This may have been the first non-ironic use of spandex pants by a local-level Massachusetts metal band in the last 20 years, but as long as Seax carry on, it's not likely to be the last.
Matt, not wearing spandex and not rubbing his dingus on people, but still "Living Above The Law".
It felt a little early leaving, but exhaustion kicked in hard despite getting back a little before 2 AM. That pushed this writeup out from Friday -- and then four discs' worth of Party.San history arrived on Saturday and delayed it further. I can has foreshadowing?
No comments:
Post a Comment