Abnormality with Naegleria, Soul Remnants, and Soul Annihilation [Ralph's, Worcester, 6/7/2012]

It was a short cycle time to come off the Tuesday gig and head out for another midweek show, but this night had the choice of two release shows.  The bill here was a little more compelling, overall, than Sonic Pulse's shindig at O'Brien's, and not only was this probably my one chance to see Abnormality before going overseas (since they were dragging out to LVDF over the next two weeks, and long tours generally have a negative effect on frequency of local shows immediately afterwards), it also didn't involve the characteristic hike.  I screwed up and left my gear at home when I went to work, but managed to get things sorted in time to buzz north, grab my rig and a bite to eat, then head south and west, arriving with a couple minutes to spare and grab a beer before the bands started up.

Soul Annihilation [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band yet, and the name resemblance to Soul Remnants, also on this bill, had caused a few raised eyebrows going in.  They were pretty good, though, putting out a decent set of functional, competently-delivered black-death metal somewhere between Belphegor and Sacramentum, but of course like all my analogies, this one runs out of steam on a lack of explicit touch points to either band.  There is definitely room for further development, to make some of the riffs stick more, but Soul Annihilation is still a fairly young band (Kunjan turned 21 on this gig), and if they continue to stick around, there's no reason that they wouldn't be able to make that step up.

Sean is 3/6 in black metal's T1.  This reference would drop me down the bottomless abyss of nerdery if I wasn't in the depths already.

Soul Remnants [6/7]
This was, to some degree, the set that Soul Remnants has been getting around to delivering for the last six months.  Whether it was the occasion or just the natural development of playing with and writing and recording a new record with the members who weren't in Chopwork, this performance really took what they've been doing lately to that next level, showing off their reinvention of NWOSDM from first principles.  The idea of blending melodics and themes from hardcore and grind into first-wave Swedish death inheriting from Carcass has been done before (most prominently, 20 years ago in Gothenburg), but the way that Soul Remnants is doing it, not so much; over the whole course of this tight, diverse set, there was very little that explicitly echoed other bands.  That new record is definitely going to be one to look out for, especially as it's still not done yet, and the band has shown pretty consistent improvement throughout the process.

Tom swirls his leads together on a vintage neon Ibanez.

It was probably in here that I did most of my merch; two CDs from Abnormality (the shirt came later) and a CD and a bunch of stickers from Naegleria for export.  I was going to try and take some stuff off Abnormality as well, but you don't do that to a band just about to hit the road; as much good as I think I can do passing out stuff overseas, more good is done when people see a band, get into a band, and take free stickers home to paste on their friends' stuff.  Once that's worked itself out over the 6000 or so total road miles between here and Vegas, I'll see what I'm able to do with what little may be left.

Naegleria [5.5/7]
As before, Naegleria continues to be all about slams.  Said slams remain huge, though still not quite at the level of Dysentery or Composted, even if Joel's shirt choices and some of the less serious lyrical topics seem to have the band with one eye on the latter's throne.  Even without that consideration, this was an intense and highly enjoyable set of pounding death metal, and the assembled crowd definitely started to get into it, even if the amount of movement wasn't quite up to what the band would've liked to see.

When as big as Joel you are, rock a pink unicorn shirt at metal shows you can also.

Abnormality [6.5/7]

Ogle bait.  Not Malika, you fucking perverts, Ben's Kramer 7x36. :drool:

Abnormality had a few tech issues on this one, and in a few spots let the intensity fall between songs, but in some ways this is a natural consequence of playing this kind of music, with all the demands it puts on musicians mentally and both them and their gear physically.  The other side of this is that the band certainly got that intensity punched back up in a hurry when they hit into the next song, and the material on offer was flat stunning.  Most of this set was pulled from ...Hive Mind, and on track after track, the band slayed with the same tightness, precision and ceaseless violence live as they do on disc.  On the road over the next weeks, they'll either tighten this up for foreign audiences, who will get hit even harder, or they won't, and scene heads across the Route 66 stripe will just have to be satisfied with being floored by a performance merely as good as this rather awesome offering.  The floor got extremely turbulent and stayed that way throughout most of the set, but most of the violence, even so, was pouring down out of the cabs.

Eventually, Abnormality had to close up and hit the road, and I headed out in the other direction, making a decently smooth ride before getting jammed up in a pea-soup fog going through Danvers.  Somehow, I didn't run into anything, and I was able to cycle up relatively quick for work the next day...and then the Euros and "WDF" on the weekend to push this writeup further out.

Abnormality with Scaphism, Boarcorpse, and Forced Asphyxiation [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/16/2011]

Friday night, I got a call from my brother, wanting to see if I wanted to go out. I begged off; it was like 9:30 and I was dead from three hours between Truckfighters and work, and I had to rest up for two back to back shows with significant other stuff in the mix. Festivals are different, but it's getting tougher to go out to all hours four nights in a row and still go to work. Getting old sucks.

Fortunately, because I did sacrifice love on the altar of war, I was able to scout the location for the Ash Borer show (incorrectly, as it turned out), take a nice long nap, and head back out to Worcester again for this gig. Though this was a weekend, and 93 is still tore up, putting more cars on 95 longer, travel was a nonissue, and I got in with plenty of time to get a beer while Forced Asphyxiation was setting up.

Forced Asphyxiation [5.5/7]
Other long-suffering members of the Bassists' Mutual Benefit Society, so often pointed and laughed at when even our more famous members can't get their roadie to heist oxies for them (incredibly common comment: "Of course he can't tell someone else to get him drugs. He's the bass player. He should be glad they let him eat."), take heart: this was probably the best set I've seen from FA, and the cause is pretty much down to significantly upgrading the bass position. Some of it is the natural improvement curve that any band that sticks together and takes their craft seriously is going to follow, but what's thickened out and filled in the sound is the contribution from the bass. Forced Asphyxiation is still not the most complicated band in the entire world, and they're still building on old-school roots while solidifying their sound, but the development of that basic brutal death metal sound here is plenty promising.

While drinking my second beer of the night, Brian came over and set me up with a bunch of demos to take over, as well as the news that FA is working on a potential split with Human Infection, who were originally supposed to be on this show as well. Definitely one to watch out for, and good in a scene-development sense as well: between Manchester, NH and about Springfield, VA lies the largest contiguous extent of US territory populated enough to support a metal environment comparable to that found in continental Europe. When people moan about how the US sucks because we're not as metal as Europe, this is why: we're a decided minority in both territories, but more people per square mile means more metalheads within travel distance of venue X. More Virginian bands becoming more prominent in New England, and more NE bands becoming more prominent in VA means more likelihood of more, better, tours along the 95 corridor getting better supported, which is better for touring bands, locals, and the general audience alike.

Boarcorpse [6/7]
It had been a while since I'd seen Boarcorpse, so I'm not sure that they had a second guitarist before, but whether or not they've played as a 5-piece in my previous experience, this was definitely a flip to expectations in that Terrence was (back? did they play any shows with Mark singing?) on vocals. Strike all that transience crap, at least for now. Anyway, this was as rambunctious, hammering, and weird a set as expected from this band, generating a fair amount of movement on the floor, but also rewarding those who just wanted to stand and listen. Boarcorpse isn't just a weird band, but they're not "just" any variety of death metal band either; there aren't many bands in Boston that are more diverse, and very few of those can claim to have anywhere near their technical chops or raw hitting power.

Here or maybe a little later, I bought a ticket for Vital Remains' Middle East all-dayer off Eric; it's hard to call it a "fest", but despite on-call potentially throwing a wrench into things, it's worth getting a ticket off the band rather than dealing with door aggro or door prices. I also picked up some immense stickers for overseas distribution, 1) because they are, as will be seen in the trip report, far too big for most people to put on most stuff, and potentially doomed to languish in the merch bucket, and 2) because due to the size, I can re-brand them as tent repair kits and guarantee that they will get picked up. If you saw something on a picnic table claiming to be a band-branded official tent repair kit, wouldn't you take one?

Scaphism [6/7]
This was a good weekend for good death metal sets, and this was probably or potentially the best set that I've seen from Scaphism yet. Get used to that phrase going forward; on recent evidence, this band just keeps getting better and better, and there's not, as far as I can tell, a ceiling on that combination of appeal and ability. The sound here was particularly killer -- Scaphism's musical M.O. is basically to go for the crowd with a sledgehammer made out of death metal, and they can survive bad or mediocre sound, but good sound as is as beneficial to straight-ahead slamming as it is to more intricate sounds. The floor, of course, went nuts; this is Ralph's, so this is Metal Thursday come on a Saturday, and if Dan wasn't breakdancing, the pit was no less riotous for it.

Abnormality [6/7]
Despite a bunch of technical difficulties, from broken strings to untracked drummers, Abnormality still powered through a crushing set of high-velocity, practically-unreproducible death metal. With any other band, a 7-string lead guitar packing 30+ frets might seem like overkill, but the guy got full use out of it, whether to keep up with Mike's parts on the old stuff or to put his own drive on the new -- and to jam on a tech-death take on "Kickstart My Heart" with Josh while the other guitarist changed the aforementioned broken string. With the interruptions, the audience response was maybe flatter than it could have been, but as long as Abnormality was actually playing, there were no complaints that could be had. Killer set, worth the headlining slot, and that even perhaps without the flat-out obliterating performance of "Visions" to close.

This one also ran a little late, but I got home without issue, and prepared to sleep in; no festival mode yet, and I had another show the next day.

Composted with Dysentery, Scaphism, Boarcorpse, and Abnormality [Church, Boston, 10/3/2010]

Because I was a little late coming down, I bit the bullet and actually drove-in-Boston enough to park by the venue for this one. With baseball season over, this was almost surprisingly easy and cut out what would have been a bastard-long hike, which came in useful later on.

Anyway, I got in with time and spots behind the restaurant to spare, got some beers, and was ready when the bands started ahead of the announced schedule, in order to fit in everyone before the hard midnight curfew.

Abnormality [5.5/7]
In some ways Abnormality seemed almost like a new band in this outing, though I hadn't really seen enough of them in the previous four years to make that assessment with any degree of confidence. I was concerned that Mike leaving might take them down a peg, but this hasn't really happened; Abnormality is still just as technical, maybe a little more riff-focused and a little more melodic, but still crunching out kickass brutal death metal. It's still a little weird, almost, to see them with a bassist after so long without one, but Josh fills out and solidifies the sound, allowing the guitarists to concentrate on other things while he puts in the low end. (This has been your promotional message from the Bass Players' Mutual Benefit Society for the day.) The set was a little short -- the first four bands had to shoehorn themselves into 30-minute sets to make the timing work, so this is going to be pretty consistent across bands on this gig -- but pulled heavily from their upcoming EP, which is really looking like one to watch out for.

I was talking with Juan Untombed and some other people in here, and he mentioned that Boarcorpse had a new song built on black metal. I was a little skeptical about this -- even for Boarcorpse, that's a little out there -- but lo and behold, in the middle of said band's set, a song that comes out with straight-up Emperor riffs before blending them back into more typical weird tech-death. This is the last time I doubt Juan on something, provided he's functional enough to say words.

Boarcorpse [6/7]
This was Boarcorpse's last show as Boarcorpse has been, at least as long as they've been Boarcorpse, maybe even a little longer, and what a way to go out. In Terrence's last show out front, they smashed out a heavyweight-champeen performance of odd, challenging, brutal, and generally awesome material, including some new stuff from the forthcoming split with Composted and Scaphism, which is allegedly going to master this week. Perhaps impermanence adds coloring, but a set like this doesn't really need that enhancement; Boarcorpse has killed it like this before, they killed it here, and they will hopefully kill it in the future with Mark out front, who is a talented vocalist and class doer of odd things in his own right. A band this good doesn't often become not-good by amicably swapping one good musician for another, but they do change; if you missed this set, you missed the closing of a chapter, but there's no reason not to get onboard with the next iteration of this band as well.

Scaphism [5.5/7]
A good, solid, if a little short, set of meat-and-potatoes death metal from greater Worcester's favorite band of RAEP RAEP RAEP fetishists; this is about their metier, as far as I've seen them to date. Their brand of crushing, chunky death metal may not lend itself to the sort of performance that I'm likely to pick out as a particular high, but if they continue to keep up the quality and the consistency, people will continue to pack in for their sets and continue to respond well to the music. Over the sample space that I've seen from them, this was about an average Scaphism performance; it's just that the average outing you get from Scaphism is wicked good.

Dysentery [6/7]
Solid music, violent floor. So let it ever be. On the musical side, the band continued the trend of the past couple shows, unifying in the new material off the forthcoming-in-the-indefinite-future new record with stuff going back as far as the Excruciatingly Euphoric Torment split; the balance on this one was about 1/3 "old", 1/3 "new", and 1/3 ...Past Suffering..., all strongly integrated. Whenever the new one's out, it's going to be a hell of a crusher. The floor, though, didn't hit maximum violence; some people may have been intimidated by those who were throwing themselves around, some people may have been saving themselves for Composted, and the standards used may just be unrealistic. Is it even possible to make a pit that Will is going to be scared of? I've seen the guy in action, and don't believe that he'd be scared of any floor action that wasn't also indistinguishable from an armed gang fight. As pointed up before, though, this may be the problem; appropriately-violent pits scare people off, which leads to an empty front, which leads to people jumping around more, which eventually hits the local maximum of violence again. Local maxima are just rare.

Composted [6/7]
Some people, on seeing the relative decrease in antics and corresponding increase in ballistics-grade slam, might be motivated to shed a bloody little tear, with a sniffle, in the belief that Composted is growing up. Other people who are paying more attention will note that Mark still did this entire set in a banana suit. The current state of Composted can be most easily likened to the intro to "Sausage Cathedral": direct and to the point, but still relentlessly weird to the point of dada. There will be more antics, in other places that will mind the strewing of baked goods and inflatables less; what should be taken away from this set is that what's been true since the beginning of Composted is if anything even more true now: if you strip off the antics, you still have a very good and very funny slamming death metal band. The audience was up for it, with Aaron Hivesmasher (who's owned up to it under his own name elsewhere, so I can go ahead and be specific here) filling the air with empty pint cans, and a full, active pit that was at times almost as weird as the band on stage. With tanking the dudes and ladies flying around, and with trying to flip the glass shards back out of the killzone (unfortunately, not all of them or not in time to keep the dude who was moshing in his bare feet, having kicked off his flipflops, from stepping on them), there was never a dull moment for me in this set.

Glass shards? Yes, glass shards:





**********************************
SPECIAL REPORT: OSHA INVESTIGATES THE FLYING PINTGLASS INCIDENT
**********************************

Way back, when I was working in a line of business that made products that could kill people in any number of disruptive ways by accident, the EHS (Environmental Health & Safety) folks continually drummed it into everyone who had direct contact with a tool that accidents always have priors. This isn't strictly true, but it is most of the time: more accurately, because accidents are a combination of random chance and an unsafe environment, it is overwhelmingly likely that if you look at an accident, you're going to find a distinct pattern of unsafe situations and near-misses that in hindsight should have warned people that something bad was going to happen. Because I was stuck in traffic coming home (DPW can GTF, closing down 93 to one lane, even at midnight), I had time to go over the night mentally and work out the priors.

What happened: a little after midway through Composted's set, a particularly active mosher threw or swiped an empty pint glass off a table at the edge of the pit. The glass flew through the air about 10 feet without hitting anyone and crashed on the floor, where it shattered. The active ingredients in this one are a violent pit and the presence of glassware.

Near misses: I was pretty certain at the time -- before the glass actually hit the floor here -- that I'd heard another glass bite the dust in between two songs immediately before the break incident. It didn't appear to be in the pit area, but I'm pretty sure I heard breakage somewhere. More concretely, during Scaphism, a girl in the pit (which was not real violent) got knocked into, spilling her drink out of its glass vessel and all over her. No glass hit the floor here, but that's why it's a near miss, not an accident.

Environment generally: There was a lot of glassware on small and high tables near the pit at this gig. With the pits being as violent as Dysentery and Composted pits can get, people likely didn't want to keep holding onto their drinks after finishing them, and it's a hell of a lot shorter to duck back and put the glass on a table rather than lugging it back to the bar. Glass in the pit is always going to be a risk, but a glass that's sitting on a table is a lot more likely to hit the floor than one that's in someone's hand or pocket.

Does any of this exculpate the person who ultimately put the glass on the floor? No, not at all; at the minimum this was a reckless move that could have for real killed somebody, which if intentional makes it even worse. However, looking at this situation and realizing that we'll never be able to completely stop crazy people at the door, it's possible to try to reduce potential injury risk just by moving the bar tables back behind or at least level with the sound desk on shows like this where there's going to be a lot of crowd movement. Even if glass piles up on tables, if they're not on the edge of the pit, it's less likely that they'll end up in the middle of it. And even if people carry pint glasses into the pit, it's less likely, if they're holding onto them, that they'll get swiped/snatched away and end up on the floor.

We'll see how and if this gets implemented; a response of "no metal shows" or "no glass drinking vessels" is not warranted and is complete overkill even from the basic EHS perspective.


Amazingly, this writeup isn't completely late; hopefully, this trend continues over the coming five-day block of shows, where, circumstances permitting, I'm out at four venues over each of the five nights Thursday to Monday seeing bands. Hopefully that comes together; a nice block of music before I go on call, then transition into prepping for Hong Kong.

Mortal Decay with Goreality, Abnormality, and Summoning Hate [O'Brien's, Allston, 11/29/2008]

I'd skipped two shows due to work commitments (part of the reason that this review is so colossally late) -- and depression at Celtic crashing out of Europe -- earlier in this week, so this one was pretty much de riguer. It didn't hurt that it also packed a hell of a lineup, and allowed me to avoid going out locally and running into people back in town for Thanksgiving and/or reunions that I had little interest in seeing.

I left a little late due to working on some other junk, but managed to get in to Boston and stumped over to O'Brien's while the bands were still setting up. It was fairly crowded; Saturday show with a lot of good bands will do that, and there was a decent amount of time to hang out, stretch out, and drink chemicals.

Summoning Hate [6/7]
There are a lot of people who complain about NEDM being all slam these days, and far too many of them just sit on their asses and whine, instead of going out and supporting this band. Summoning Hate's old-school attack may not be as complicated as the other bands on this bill, but holy crap is it heavy, and you're not a fan of the likes of Obituary and Master, you really need to take a look at yourself and try to figure out exactly why you're in death metal, anyway. The songs that they pull Juan back in for may be borrowed finery, but they do a good job with them, and their original material is pretty killer as well. The night did only get better from here, but listening to this set, that wouldn't've been a rational expectation.

David later promised me that they'd have patches out sometime in the nebulous future, but we'll see if this materializes; there was a fair amount of Milwaukee's Purest Biotropic Reactant in play at that point, but doing patches would be in-character for the band, and their logo is pretty freakin badass.

Abnormality [6.5/7]
I thought they'd added a bass player recently, but I was wrong; fortunately, Abnormality proved that they still don't need one, with probably the best set that I've seen from them. Their low end sounded stronger, and the riffs were still ridiculously complex, for a killer total effect that set the stage for the bands to come. This would have been a killer headlining set in any other circumstance, but here it was just the second of four -- we have an embarrasment of riches as far as death metal goes in Boston, so go to local gigs and enjoy it.

Those not in the Boston area can check out Abnormality via their song "Visions" on Rock Band 2 -- and if you like torturing yourself, you can actually try to play it. The track is generally rated "impossible", which is the way technical death metal should be in a rhythm game, and cleverly positioned (Malika, the vocalist, works for Activision) to achieve maximum exposure from the band via YouTube videos of people killing themselves to beat it on Expert.

Goreality [7/7]
This must have been Leave Your Bassist Home Day; I swear that Abnormality announced that they'd got one, and then Goreality, who normally do have a four-stringer in the lineup, came out without theirs. I was initially concerned about this, as what really drives Goreality is the mixture of that absolutely punishing low end with the ridiculous technicality of the guitar lines, but Steve and Mark stepped it up here, and if the rhythm section wasn't as thick and overpowering, the sound wasn't any thinner for it. I'd rather see this band with a bassist than without, but they fully earned this mark even as a four-piece, and that they're able to do such a great set with an integral part of their sound removed is truly mind-blowing. They set a high bar for Mortal Decay to follow, and if they got the exposure that they deserve, they'd be setting that bar for the death metal scene as a whole.

Unfortunately, the number of people who stuck around for their set was a little diminished. Part of it may be people getting into Abnormality from the game, then not wanting to stick around late, but part of it was people leaving to catch the last train to wherever. Part of this is fail on the part of Boston, which needs to keep its public transit open later, but part of it is people needing to buck up and buckle down -- seriously, you go to a DIY bar show and miss Goreality and Mortal Decay? Sure, the first two bands are plenty of value for your seven bucks, but this was some of the best death metal of the year, and missing out on it would've sucked.

Mortal Decay [7/7]
From New Jersey, but frequent visitors to this region, Mortal Decay demonstrated why Boston loves them (and hence, why they love Boston). This was a ripping set of technical brutal death metal that united a lot of elements present in the three bands that had opened up, but also did take it to a higher level, as hard as that is to believe given how good the bands had been to this point. Shit also got brewed up in the crowd as well; Malika and Juan, along with a few others, finally managed to get people moving enough to start a classic O'Brien's pit (one with a pole in the middle), and only a few containers got broken, and nobody injured. Things were running a touch late, so the lights were on for curfew when they finally closed up, but I don't think there was a single metalhead left in the building who actually wanted them to pack up. Seriously, it wasn't even one in the morning! On a Saturday! Bogus is what it is.

Of course, the bar had to close, and threw everyone out, so it was time to beat feet back across the bridges, then get lost in Boston because I fucked up the Memorial Drive approach, but one way or another I got home, and one of the better local shows in recent memory went into the books. Next is a bunch of thrash bands at this same place on the 15th, then not too much until the turn of the year.

Abnormality with The Accursed, Revocation, and Do I Exist [Club Aurora/Band Stand Live, Taunton, 9/28/2007]

This is the inaugural Metal Showcase from last night; this could have been a little better, but for a first gig it was pretty damn cool, and the bands definitely kicked ass.


I took off from work right around five, and managed to battle my way down through Boston to the venue in a little under two hours. The roads weren't too rough once I got out the south side of the city, and it was more or less fair sailing once I got off the Southeast Parkinglot. With a less awesome lineup, there would be all manner of reasons for northerners to beg off slogging through the traffic morass to get down.

This is too bad, because Club Aurora is a really good venue with a lot to recommend it, even if it's buried in back roads and at the other end of the populated part of the state. The room is huge, with an easy safe capacity of two or three hundred, clean and witha good stage and PA setup that for the most part treated the bands really well. The parking lot's all gravel, but there's on-site parking, which is all but a mythical beast in the underground, and if there's no alcohol being served, they do have a full-service grill in the building, and South Shore bands who practice there don't have very far to lug their kit. As Anthony (Revocation) mentioned later, this place could play host to some serious gigs if they can build it up. This show will hopefully go a ways in influencing that.

Do I Exist [4/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, but in some ways I had; they played what probably might best be called "modern death metal", especially since it's a lot shorter than "less inspired late Carcass with a lot more breakdowns". The crowd for them was a lot more active than for the later bands, and more or less distinct from those who'd be in later; this is probably because the other bands were a lot more death metal and less moshable, but also potentially because the other bands, without exception, played them off the stage. As demonstrated, with the right crowd these guys get a good reaction, but they didn't match well with the rest of the bands on this lineup.

The next time you see a band like this in a large room, watch the toughguys carefully. I'm not saying that solo hardcore dancing looks just like aerobics, just that you need to watch closely and draw your conclusions from such observations. ;)

There was a bit of down time here, which is coincidentally when Mortis Deveia was supposed to play. Henry showed up a little later, while Revocation was setting up, but I'm not sure I recall seeing anyone else. They ended up not playing, and while most of that is on the band for not getting down in time, there's a share to be handed back to the organizers as well. I can understand Jeremy wanting to put the bands who draw in this area on later, and Mortis Dev earlier, but there's also a practical consideration to be made in that on a weekday, it is next to impossible to get off work at a normal time and drive from the New Hampshire border (in Lawrence) to the Rhode Island border (here) in the two hours that they would have needed to do so in order to get set up on time. There was probably a lack of communication involved, and the band may not have been aware of how time-intensive it can be to get to this place, not having played down in this area much; hopefully, they'll be back for one of these in the future, and everyone involved will have a better idea of the logistics necessary.

Revocation [6.5/7]
I hadn't seen these guys in a while -- they were on tour for most of August and I was in Germany for their kickoff -- but they were just as tight as ever, demonstrating some new stuff as well as new hooks on their old material. They even made Death's "Symbolic" their own, which is no mean feat, but even something as comparatively small as trem-picking doublets out of single notes, if applied in the right places, can have a drastic effect. There were a few rough spots, but others where the effect was as good as any set I've seen from them. It remains to be seen if I'll get down to O'Brien's on Wednesday, but the Advancement of Dudes combine is a virtual cert.

The Accursed [5/7]
They got off to a rough start but improved as the set went on; most of the improvement, though, was not on the band's part, but in the sound. Jon's vocals started off way too far forward, and it seemed like George's bass was buzzing or cutting out or something in parts. Nevertheless, they continued to press on, and eventually the mix got balanced right; the last half of the set ruled, and unlike the first half, it was a lot easier to tell.

It should be noted that the band doesn't pick up any extra points for Tim wearing a DFB Nationaltrikot. People should support good soccer federations, of course, but music does need to be judged as music. ;)

Abnormality [6/7]
It took a while for me to finally get around to seeing a full set from this band, but the wait, to a certain degree, was worth it. "To a certain degree" because, while this was a killer set, I'm not sure of the logic of that construction as applied to local bands. Despite not having a bass player (if I was still playing regularly, I'd, likel, file a union complaint or something (:roll:)), there isn't really anything lacking in Abnormality's brutal death sound, the guitars laying down a thorough barrage of crushing riffs. Unfortunately, there were several long pauses between songs, which did cut down the energy some; at a dry show, things have to keep moving quickly, as there isn't a bar for the crowd to default to, or beers to be concentrated on while the band's tuning or working on monitor balance. When the band was playing, at least, the effect was pretty damn awesome; they may need to work on their stagecraft a little, but the music is definitely there, which is the actually important part.

In sharp contrast to the drive down, the return trip was over largely empty roads and took less than an hour. It was a little tricky getting out of Taunton and back onto the highway, but not every local show can be at the Haverhill Elks or equivalent. In conclusion, more people from north of Boston need to come down to these things, but this will be aided greatly if their travel needs can be more taken into account. Of course, there's no reason to actually do this unless more northerners show up; either the chicken or the egg will have to step up and get it started, and if Jeremy can consistently assemble lineups of this quality, it'll be worth making the trip down regardless of weekday or weekend, whether more northern bands are on the bill or not.


Next show is either on Wednesday in Allston, or the clot at the end of the week after with two in Haverhill or one in Worcester. Midweek shows in Boston are a tough sell, but missing Revocation and Bane of Existence isn't something you like to think about.

Hekseri with Goreality and Abnormality [Skybar, Somerville, 3/18/2007]

This is a little delayed because I had to spend all of yesterday going to Texas, but it still doesn't impede the fact that this was an awesome show. Unfortunately, I got in late due to having to prepare to travel Monday, and missed almost all of Abnormality.

Abnormality [NR]
I hate giving bands a null rating. This isn't because it gives my life some perverse obsessive-compulsive critical meaning to assign relative weights to bands' sets, but because it means that I saw the band, but not enough of them to give a fair assessment. In this case, I got in to the Skybar just at 8 PM, just in time to see Abnormality's last song, which turned out to be just enough to get me disappointed that I couldn't get there sooner. Despite the absence of a bass player (no idea whether this is their normal configuration or not), the death metal sound was nice and thick, not quite as dense or frenetic as Goreality, but still pretty crushing all the same. I've got to try and see a full set from this band sometime.

After their set, I got a beer and hit the Pathos table; as usual, Dwyer had about 87 time more interesting or cool-looking records than I actually had money for, but I was able to pick up some Horn of Valere and Cianide that I didn't have, and he recced me two more cult German albums....none of which I've listened to yet, or will listen to for another week, because I had to keep the weight of my gear for this trip to a minimum.

Hekseri [6/7]
Assuming that Abnormality usually has a bassist instead of using their guitarist's 7th string for the low end, this was the second band of the night to show up without their nominal bass player. However, unlike the last time, I saw Hekseri without Jason, Larissa switched over to bass, presenting yet another version of their sound. It looked like she was mostly just transposing her normal rhythm lines down rather than duplicating Jason's more gymnastic attack, and the result was a slightly simpler sound, but one that in its evolution of folkic melodies out of ripping noise recalled the best of true black metal. The best part, though, is that this is still a band that can evoke Dissection as easily as Darkthrone, and even though recent shows have shown that their sound is still very much under development, they're still creating quality music and putting up kickass sets.

The reason that Hekseri played second, despite setting up the show and nominally having top billing, was that Goreality's singer didn't show up until the end of their soundcheck. The Skybar is a little difficult to get to, but only the Harvard rotary and the turn at Porter Square are technically challenging, and the band has actually played here before (with Godless Rising, back in January). Be that as it may, though; the band did get in place with their full lineup, just in time to start blasting.

Goreality [7/7]
This was not as superlative a performance as the last time I saw them here. However, it was still completely awesome, both in music and in the audience reaction, and so simply well-refined that you really have to wonder how on earth this band is still toiling in such relative obscurity. Of course, ultra-brutal gore-death is never going to get you on the Billboard 200, but people on other continents into this scene should know who this band is; hopefully, their new record will get them over that mark, especially if Dwyer is able to get it out in good distro channels and reviewed by some high-profile sources. The new stuff that they played is just as awesome as the older material; all that remains is to get it out into people's ears.

The audience reaction mentioned above is no joke; the Skybar is not generally a huge moshing venue, but it's also not a no-mosh venue either, and the front got pretty turbulent for Goreality. I did my best to keep people from flying into the tables, and while this wasn't completely successful -- though I was able to catch the two guys who knocked that one table over before they fell down on it and its sharp-cornered metal foot -- it was still fun as hell and a great addition to the music. There were also a good number of people in throughout the show, and hopefully more of them will start coming regularly to Sunday gigs. The genres vary, and some shows are more awesome than others, but it's still always a cool time, and always gets out in plenty of time for people to get home and get enough sleep to face work (or a plane ride to Texas) on Monday.


Next show, presuming I don't get held up here, is on Friday at the Palladium, where I'll finally get to see DT; next underground show is on Saturday up in Haverhill, with Shroud of Bereavement, Hekseri, and probably some other Merrimac Valley bands that I ought to be keeping better tabs on. Of course, I have to complete my mission here and get back out of Texas, but it's some pretty simple stuff that I have to do...as long as things don't go sideways.