Summer Slaughter 2014 - Dying Fetus with The Faceless, Thy Art Is Murder, Goatwhore, Origin, Decrepit Birth, Within the Ruins, Fallujah, Boreworm and Reborn Divided [Worcester Palladium, 8/9/2014]

Since for once I wasn't on call for a major tour, I bit down on the high door price and the large number of bands I wasn't particularly interested in and headed out for this one; it's no Party.San, and missing Benediction was probably the biggest price I paid for the China thing, but there were still a lot of quality bands on this bill, and it's not like there was much else going on.  Despite the usual midday tie-up on the pike, I got over about half an hour after doors, got in and through, and did some merch and got a beer while waiting for the bands to start.

Reborn Divided [3.5/7]
I could have waited a little longer.  These guys opened up the downstairs with a preschool-level set of My First Deathcore, about five songs with two compositional ideas at one (pointlessly slow) tempo.  This is not the worst band I've seen in this room, and the score improved a little when the drummer showed in the last song that yes, he was capable of playing a blastbeat, but it was pretty fucking bad -- like "a bad version of ten-year-old Acacia Strain B-sides" bad.  I tried for most of their set to find something else redeeming, or that would indicate that there was some potential for improvement, but...just...nothing.  No key changes.  No tempo changes outside of a couple ten-second blast sections.  No special technical competence from the instrumentalists, and no particularly appealing breakdowns: you don't need to do either or both, especially in deathcore, but if you can't solo, you better have some good breakdowns, and vice versa.  Nothing.  Whether due to excessive self-satisfaction or simple lack of ability, this band is probably at their ceiling and can be safely disregarded until such time as they can find professionals to say nice things about them.

Feeling fairly confirmed about what kind of things can be expected to happen when I go to larger tours, I went back, grabbed another beer, and got down in time for the next band up.  I could probably have tried harder to see the upstairs as well, but there wasn't, like, a fairly obvious running order posted anywhere -- one sheet with times on it taped in a forest of posters next to each of the staircases from the lobby to the downstairs, that's it -- and I wasn't really looking out for any of the local openers.  The good ones, I'll see at some point on a local show; the less good ones, I won't waste time and the chance of missing Decrepit Birth on.

Boreworm [5/7]
The other Battle-for-Summer-Slaughter winner on the bill (Reborn Divided placed between first and third at the first round of regionals in Trenton back in February, which is a hell of a thing to have to put in your press kit, and an additional reminder that the "wisdom of crowds" depends pretty heavily on the composition of those crowds), Boreworm won the final to go from southeast Michigan to the whole national tour, and to their credit held their end up with a pretty good set of brutal death metal flavored with post-metal bits.  Though the next time they come around, they're more likely to be at Ralph's, they commanded the large stage well and gave the audience a good time; you can ask more from openers, but not realistically expect much more.

Fallujah [6/7]
I had low to no expectations of this band, based on mostly national press and the fact that most of the bands who play Summer Slaughter, I tend not to like too much.  They completely blew those expectations away with a solid, crushing set of quality brutal death metal leavened with space-influenced tech breaks; more Obscura than Decrepit Birth, but Decrepit Birth was kind of already playing this show also, and Obscura wasn't -- and in any case, more quality death metal never goes amiss.  If you're also an old crank who tends to give new bands a miss for no real reason, this tour -- loaded with old known-good bands -- is an excellent opportunity to remind yourself that newer music does not necessarily suck, and that some of this stuff is pretty damn good.

Afterwards, I tried to buy their new record off the merch stand, but rather than pay for vinyl to get snapped in half during the coming Decrepit Birth/Origin rail stand, I ended up with the old one, which I didn't have yet either.  Retail is still a thing occasionally, right?  I can just go to a store and get physical music, right?  Maybe not; only about three bands had records on their merch tables, a clear sign that digital delivery is dominating physical music generally and CD format in particular straight out of existence.  Whether bought on Itunes or boosted on bittorrent, the assumption is that the audience here is pulling the music out of the ether, and lugging physical copes around is wasted van space that can't be used for shirts, which people are going to buy.

Within the FlamesRuins [5/7]
As an old North Shore head, it is good to see that Gothenchusetts is still a thing.  It is less good to see that it is this silly of a thing, loaded with decade-old tropes and rounded out with electro shadings that make it seem like this band should be opening the Crossfaith tour in a couple months, but I'm not really the audience for this band.  People who are still in the age bracket that I was in when Life In Vain was the greatest thing to ever happen to a VFW will find these guys less silly, less cheesy, and a whole lot more fun to get in the pit for, which is kind of the point of this music.  This is not old-dude-in-armored-jacket music, but it is an enjoyable way to pass the time between heavier bands.

A last beer, and I hit the front; Decrepit Birth into Origin was kind of mostly why I came out for this, and if I can't do two sets' worth of rail stand, I should really stop going to shows altogether.

Decrepit Birth setting up.

Decrepit Birth [6.5/7]
You can pick points with this set.  The only one that matters is that it was on a super-package tour, and thus had to stop at some point.  When Decrepit Birth is on like this, there is not ever really enough Decrepit Birth, only varying degrees of "not enough"; this was "not enough", true, but it was a good, long deep toke of "not enough", technical, melodic, floor-churning, brutal, and mind-expanding in the way that the best death metal is.  With the short set time as a constraint, the band kept the pedal down all the way through, and the results were pretty fucking impressive, holding the entire hall rapt straight on to the end.  Excellent.

Bill roaring away; the clouds of smoky haze are exactly what you think they are.  There were technically some other pictures, but they came out even less than these did.

Origin [7/7]
As they've been in the past, Origin set off an explosion of brutal, hyperblasting death metal that made no compromises and barely stopped over the full runtime.  With the larger stage and larger floor, there was also enough room for Jason to bust out a couple of the old Skinless Stupid Mosh Tricks; they needed more time for actual music, so there was no Tsunami or Zombie Wall, but Jason remains the one guy who can plausibly get people to do a silent Wall of Death, and Origin one of the few bands where this is a better idea than trying to go on the music.  As expected, the floor was a sea of violence for most of the set, contested only by the even less inhibited violence coming out of the PA.  Surgical precision, devastating results: death metal does not really get much better.

At this point I was done for a while -- until Dying Fetus and the decision whether or not to stick for Morbid Angel -- so I got some food and moved back a ways to see the next couple bands.

Goatwhore [5/7]
Exactly as expected, Goatwhore continues to be as they have been since they succeeded Krisiun as the default opening band on every show: attempting, with intermediate success, to follow up "...Black Sun Cult".  They played this song second, but might as well have played it in every other slot as well, since it is quite literally all they have, a conclusion that grows more and more obvious with every passing year.  It's a good song.  Copying it on every other song has gotten them to be an acceptable 1349 ersatz.  But there's still nothing in this set to indicate this band is ever going to do anything different, or ever get any better than "good enough".

I got another beer, and since the lower hall was getting fuller, changed sides before the next band.

Thy Art Is Murder [5.5/7]
For a poing-by-numbers deathcore band, these guys were all right, and kept a pretty good sense of humor through the set.  Their music's well-executed, but not really memorable, the point of it being mostly to have something going on audially so dudes can jump up and down in time.  There are better bands from Australia, but not many that are both better and so perfectly pitched to this tour's expected audience.

One last beer -- it was becoming clearer that I probably wasn't going to stick around for Morbid Angel, and I needed to dry out a little -- and it was back down, getting a decent place that I could also keep for Dying Fetus.

The Faceless [5.5/7]
This was a pretty good outing from a band that I habitually ignore; good, but not disruptively so to the degree that I'd actually develop an interest.  Their take on death metal is well-worked and usually interesting, but a lot of their more melodic or prog parts are a lot better in conception than in execution -- especially the ones that call for clean vocals from the guitarist, who either is really not capable of doing them at all, or needs to invest in a working in-ear monitor ASAP, rather than soldier on with one that's obviously broken.  They're still a good time overall, though, and still continuing to develop and do different things while keeping a good baseline of brutality, so I'm going to continue to make sure to see them when they're inevitably on another festival/tour that I'm going to see other bands at.

Dying Fetus [6.5/7]
This is probably not the best set I've seen from Dying Fetus; that honor will probably end up going to the gig a couple years back with Carcass, but it was pretty damn close.  Ceaselessly explosive and exactly on point for a good, full, set that could easily have gone on like half an hour longer without any complaints, they pounded the crowd into small pieces and kept on hitting.  For those who, like me, were going to end up bailing rather than sticking around to see how much Illuderp material Morbid Angel was going to try to get away with, this was an excellent headlining set from an excellent band.  For those who were going to stick around and hope that the headliners were going to pretend that the twenty years since Domination didn't actually happen, this was a hell of a mark for them to come up to.

After Dying Fetus, as alluded to, I headed up and out, accompanied by more people than I was really expecting.  I don't think it's the wheels coming off for Morbid Angel, not really, but this was a pretty good tour from about 1600 to 2100, dudes were exhausted, the kids who came for the metalcore had a curfew, the diehards all saw Morbid in Boston back in November under better circumstances, and their last album is a steaming turd.  I've seen enough Morbid Angel festival sets, and don't really need more, until such time as they get their shit together and put out something new and non-horrible.  Missing them in November sucked, but they weren't going to play that set on this date anyway.

Owing to the relatively early start (seriously, it was like 10, on a Saturday night in the summer -- the hell, Palladium), I got back in good order, did not get too soused watching the Community Shield on Sunday, and turned this thing around in decent time.  Next up should be King Parrot and some death metal bands in Worcester; the surprise that they're back from Australia is overshadowed by the relief that they're appearing with appropriate touring partners, rather than whatever nominally-metal bands their tour agency could scrounge up.


It was because of this show that I didn't go out to RPM Fest; there were several bands on that bill that I was interested to see, and the festival experience is always a good thing to support.  From the latest iterations in the thread of ceaseless screaming drama, it looks like the fest went ok: neither such a failure that the trolls could claim victory, nor such a success that they would be shut up and left to slink off with their tails between their legs.  Regardless, the success or failure of a festival isn't decided on the internet the week after, but by the organizers in the month or so to come, when they decide if they do a second.  At a minimum, they fulfilled the requirements I mentioned a couple years back, and depending on which pictures from which angle and what time you trust, may have gotten up to the 200 headcount point that previous examples in Germany have established as a baseline for something that's not going to immediately collapse in on itself.  However, they did a bunch of stuff wrong that made it difficult to support going in, and eventually made me decide against going out.

The first was bad scheduling around the fest.  When you announce a festival two months in advance, you should maybe make sure that is not booked against the one date of the big summer tour in the area.  Putting Saturday night against Summer Slaughter was just stupid, and unnecessarily locked out, um, everyone in New England who was interested in seeing Dying Fetus or Morbid Angel.  This is kind of a large slice of the metalheads who you'd want to show up for a DIY festival on its first run out, and this fest could have gotten them back easily by booking just two weeks later, which would conflict with neither Summer Slaughter nor Pray For Death.

The second was the scheduling internal to the fest.  If you look at any other multi-day camp-in festival, anywhere else in the world, you will never see bands going this late into a Sunday, the reason being that it is a lot easier to take off, or take off a couple hours earlier, on Friday than it is to take off Monday.  Sunday morning is for pack-up, Sunday afternoon for travel back to wherever the hell you came from.  It'd've been a lot more friendly for people outside the immediate catchment area -- western Massachusetts is not well served by highways, and most of the population centers are at a pretty fair distance -- to open the gates at 5 PM Friday, with bands starting at 7 or so, and either push later on Friday and Saturday or just cut some of the fat from the schedule.

The third is the unnecessarily bloated schedule.  There ended up being 32 bands on this thing, and many of them were (by investigation in advance) pretty bad.  You do not need the best bands in the world on your fest -- seriously, check the Party.San bills for the first five years, and see if you can avoid the conclusion "this is all late-90s unlistenable garbage" -- but you do need to avoid the impression, prominent here, that the music is going to be a dump truck's worth of suck.  This bill could easily have been trimmed back to 15 or 20 bands without trimming the audience, giving more of them better sets and eliminating the need to play all Sunday to fit them all in.

Provided that they do a second, and that it's not booked against stuff that will take precedence -- even with China, it was a close-run thing to not spend this past weekend in Schlotheim -- it's likely that I'll be out for it, despite the road miles involved, to take in the experience for myself.  But seriously, smarter scheduling and a more selective filter on who plays will make that decision a lot easier for others who might be on the fence about the camp-in idea.

Vader with Decrepit Birth, Warbringer, The Amenta, Augury, and Swashbuckle [Worcester Palladium, 11/5/2009]

The great dilemma: work prevents you from seeing the shows you want to, but if you don't work, you don't have the money to go to them and get in the door. I had to take a pass on the first large, ill-matched tour at the Palladium this week, and cut this night's excursion short rather than go the few streets over to see Metal Thursday, but it was a good night of metal all told, despite some extraneous stuff, and the rest of the winter touring season is looking to be shaping up pretty well.

This was another direct-out-from work special, but I timed it right to get through the bullshit on the Pike and up to the venue right about at doors. I also remembered to bung the knife in the car before leaving it, but this was not enough for the security. Twits stole my fucking pen again. It's fucking ridiculous, first that they do this and second that they don't do it frequently enough that I know to grundle it in advance. It was in the process of dying, sure, but stealing people's pens isn't fucking cricket. Not cool; however, they did let me take my phone in to make digital notes with at the price of looking like a lamer. And I still could have easily brought a knife or chisel in undetected to do much more serious vandalism, if that was the point. Paying customers unreasonably inconvenienced, nothing actually blocked or averted; security theater at its finest.

Cussing about this under my breath in a mix of four or five languages, I bought my ticket, got banded, and got in to browse the merch while the bands were setting up. This turned into a Warbringer patch -- which I have serious reservations about actually putting on anything, see below -- as well as their new record to make the change come out, a trip to the bar to break up my bills so as not to inconvenience Vader's merch stand, Necropolis and two special-edition Decapitated patches (to raise money for Covan's medical bills, not just because Vogg's playing in Vader now), and the latest cool shirt design from Decrepit Birth. These guys have mastered the "lots of t-shirts" model allegedly required by the new paradigms in digital music distro, but it'd also be awesome to see this art (and the art on the "Living Doorway" shirt) done up for a 10" pic-disc or something (maybe the song that inspired it, a couple live tracks, a random fuckaround jam...like Out of the Dark..., I don't know, just throwing shit out there). T-shirts fade when used for their intended purpose, pic-discs don't.

Eventually, though, I decided I had to stop buying shit if I wanted to go to Metal Thursday or, for that matter, be able to pay the tolls to get home, and Swashbuckle was starting up anyway. Downstairs for music.

Swashbuckle [5.5/7]
I can't really see Running Wild ever coming out to "I'm On A Boat". However, this just goes to demonstrate that Swashbuckle aren't Running Wild (or, for that matter, Alestorm, who played here Tuesday and may feel put upon by their fans to take themselves a smidge more seriously than that), and that their attack on the pirate trope is their own. They smashed out a decently long set balanced towards the new record to a pretty good reaction, though I'm not sure what other people's reaction to the people in parrot and shark costumes thrashing about in the pit was. If they'd run out from backstage and stagedove, it'd've been as clear as it was in Germany that they were band-affiliated rather than (as some might have concluded) random hipsters in leftover Halloween costumes, causing the ultra-true to become unnecessarily SO FULL OF HATE. On the whole, about on the level of the last time I saw them here, downstairs; not serious enough for the death metal portion of the bill and significantly heavier than Warbringer (who probably got the most heads in the door), they still got a good reaction out of the half-full floor and less negativity than the other thrash band in the lineup.

If you want a different perspective on shows like this one, or just a general idea of what it's like on the other side of the front monitors at this level, you might want to take a look at Commodore Redrum's tour diary; this gig doesn't get its own entry, but the return match in December when they come back with Ensiferum and Hypocrisy might.

Augury [6/7]
The Forest Lapointe Show [7/7]
I don't pay nearly as much attention to new developments in metal as I could or really should. This means that when I haven't seen or heard a band before, especially on a large, weirdly packaged tour like this one, I wait around in general trepidation, expecting that they, like a lot of bands these days, will suck. (This is because I'm an old stick-in-the-mud almost as much as because a lot of newer bands that are just getting national tour exposure do suck.) This was the baseline for Augury, and fortunately, they blew that expectation out of the water. Their set was a little short, but packed top to bottom with a perfect mix of the technical and brutal schools of Quebecois death metal. Stellar all the way across, even the drummer, who landed from Australia in Montreal (their old drummer quit, and the guy from The Amenta was sitting in) days before and learned the material in a matter of hours, but Forest's bass playing was in a class by itself. The guy annihilated so hard on the first song that when Patrick announced before the second that we'd get a bass solo later on if the crowd reaction was good enough, the whole place erupted, even before he strapped on his fretless to take things to another level, even from those who'd never heard the band before. The solo came two songs later, and was as massive as anticipated. Not a perfect set -- time as much as anything else to do with this -- but impeccably delivered, and probably quite well enough to convince anyone who showed up to keep their eyes peeled for these guys the next time they come back south.

Following this, I went up and immediately forked for their record. I haven't gotten a chance to listen yet, but given that the board was kind of inconsistent on the night, it's likely to be even better than what we got out of the band -- and if nothing else, at least more.

The Amenta [4.5/7]
I was in the way back for these guys because there was a shortage of places to stand further forward, and that turned out to be for the better. They were in most ways decent, but I remember a band called Meridian, and if you have qualms about that score, you probably don't, or just haven't listened to The Seventh Sun in a while. "But they came all the way from Australia! And Meridian isn't even together any more, much less touring!" Sure, but that makes the hurdles for The Amenta taller, not shorter. The performance here was ok, and most people probably won't recognize it as being firmly in the shadow of another and better band, but that doesn't mean that they really did anything to get out of this shadow, and you don't cross oceans to play "ok" gigs.

At this point I went up and got a Swashbuckle shirt ("Splashzone", a little more topically unified than their "The Trooper" parody, and it had the tourdates besides) from Pat; I'd been ambivalent about this first due to the possible need to support The Amenta and then pay the door charge at MT, but both of those issues kind of resolved themselves for various reasons about here. Shirt in the belt, it was back down again, now absolutely skint and somewhat foreclosed from drinking the rest of the night.

Warbringer [5/7]
I can now firmly say that I've seen Warbringer, and the impressions from before with their limited lineup and with their first record are pretty much accurate. Warbringer are a good thrash revival band, but somewhat allergic to doing anything new with the style. They turn out good, crunchy, Bay-Area thrash metal, but I still haven't heard anything out of them that I can indelibly stamp as the "Warbringer sound". There are Exodus parts and Kreator parts, but this is an empty foundation without a house on top of it. The guys are talented enough to build said house, but they need to do so ASAP -- does anyone remember when Reanimator was in the pole position of the thrash revival? Anyone remember how bands like Faith or Fear sank without a trace in the '80s because they didn't differentiate themselves? True, Denial, Realm, and Devastation also fell off the map despite being awesome, but obscurity happens faster to bands that can't carve their own name into the listener's brain.

There were a few thumbs down passed out during the performance, mostly by a dude of no small standing in the thrash millieu of this part of New England, but the band shouldn't be too dismayed, as they weren't going to get this guy, or those like him, anyways. As mentioned before, thrash fans who were into thrash before the revival started tend to have a rather simple and brutal means of classifying bands, which likely corresponds in this case to something like the following chart:



















Band goodness is easily seen to be a dependent variable, and Warbringer of course sounds nothing like Sodom, so they get pelters. I have a very similar chart for personal use, but it usually says "sounds like Kreator" at the bottom, so Warbringer gets slightly more of a break on that one.

In here I went more forward, aided by the fact that a suspicious number of people seemed to go back and then not come back to the front for Decrepit Birth, nor noticeably swell the numbers upstairs. If you actually left in this timeframe you are a lamer, and Devin Townsend will come to your house to take back your metal points, cut up any jacket you have attempted to build so far, and force you to watch while he commits indecent acts on any domestic animals you may have lying around. If you're not scared of Devin Townsend raping your pets, that's fine with me; your loser cred is established and there are fewer people standing between me and respectively Matt Sotelo and Waclaw "Vogg" Kieltyka.

Decrepit Birth [6.5/7]
Seeing Augury's set -- and, depending on your perspective, the two bands that played after them -- it might have been reasonable to suspect that they might steal the show. Nope. Decrepit Birth came out and demonstrated that they are still Decrepit Birth, and still on the leading edge of amazing technical things that can be done in death metal. They played a nice balanced selection of material from both records so far, and teased an upcoming new one though (if I recall correctly) they didn't have anything off it at this one. I don't know if Bill actually believes all his weird inter-song banter, but it fits with the music and lyrical topics, and, hey, California. Ferociously good music, easily on a par with Vader, and quite possibly the best (and definitely longest) performance I've seen from them in this building.

Despite the relative length of the set, there was a strong demand for the band to do more, which they of course couldn't without running into Vader's timeslot, who would themselves end up relatively pinched for time. This show didn't exactly get out early, either, so the problem here is probably trying to shoehorn six bands into just under 4 hours. Like the last Maurizio-put-up tour that I saw in this building, backlining was used to good effect for most of the bands, but this time around there was just too much good music.

The coherence of Decrepit Birth and the backstage presence during their set of the NEDF organizers/New England Green Thumb horticultural society members, though, might argue that they would not have played longer had they had the opportunity, choosing rather to undertake other activities as a preparation for Vader. ;) Nothing implied......

Vader [6.5/7]
Decrepit Birth set a really high standard, but Vader definitely matched the mark, though to a crowd that was shamefully diminished from the night's high point. For crying out loud, you idiots, bands from Poland don't just wash in every day -- and most of the time when they do show it's fucking Behemoth, so exult, as those of us who stayed true and stayed in did, that you get a good one for a change. There was a lot of new material in this set, which still ripped and popped with as much power as the old. It's Vader -- did anyone expect differently? People were running out of energy by the end, but even if the band were a little let down, they didn't let it affect the music, and both we and they got a good finish out of the night by the time the venue turned the lights back on and foreclosed any further encore.

Unfortunately, this really was the finish to the night; it was late and I was tired as well as dead skint, which cut Metal Thursday out of the plans to continue. No Morgirion, no Mythology, no Kathadin -- well, I'd missed two out of those already just by virtue of what time it was; time to just bear up the pain and get to work in an normal fashion in the morning. This may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise, too, as I didn't have to go in the legendary shambles of the Ralph's parking lot and further aggravate the damage to the tire that ended up dying on the way home from work Friday rather than on the way home from this show. That dead tire may also have bricked any chance of going to Deceased on Saturday, but at that point, I was probably already sick enough that I wouldn't've made the trip back in.

Future shows are up in the air; I've got to finish being sick first, then see what's coming up, and where.

Every Shirt LIV: Decrepit Birth - Diminishing Between Worlds

shirt: Decrepit Birth - Diminishing Between Worlds
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

This one dates back to just about the first show of '08, or at least the first major one; they opened up for BDM on a bill that, at least per my excessively undergroundized perspective, seemed to be playing in reverse. I'm not sure if they had the record that this design is from at that gig yet, or if I legitimized my internet copy later, but I do recall that Bill was kinda confused at some points of the process that resulted in the shirt purchase. I stuck on, though, and made sure I only got back the change I was due; bands can get bent around however they like, but it's up to us to be conscientious when this might interfere with them getting the props and/or business that they deserve.

Of course, he might just be bad at math...but then again, even a singer in Decrepit Birth will probably get acquainted with various ways to split up 13- and 17-counts into 4/4, and with messing with how numbers fit together.

Every Shirt XXIII: Decrepit Birth

shirt: Decrepit Birth - The Living Doorway
size: 2XL (US)
vintage: 2009
provenance: festival

Because I actually ended up missing these guys at NEMHF '09 (despite getting the shirt), I was initially concerned that I'd missed a release or something. Nope, I just hadn't listened to Diminishing Between Worlds in forever and had forgotten the name of the first fucking song on the record. This is the inspiration for this rather cool art piece, and a strong argument that I need to listen to more Decrepit Birth more regularly.

And yes, as noted, and as will be further detailed when I get around to transcribing those notes (probably come the weekend), I missed Decrepit Birth in favor of Toxic Holocaust. The short version is that DB tours and Toxic doesn't, generally, and the worst part is that it was only because the running order got fucked up, and by that point it was sufficiently un-fucked-up that I probably could have seen both, but did not in the rather unnecessary chaos. Someone buy Scott Lee a pair of greaseboards, and promise to store them in your living room or basement 51 weekends a year so he doesn't have to do a damned thing except get some runner to write on them when the order changes.

The Black Dahlia Murder with 3 Inches of Blood, Hate Eternal, and Decrepit Birth [Worcester Palladium, 1/19/2008]

When I got in to the venue, there was something or other going on at the DCU center, and parking was hard to come by; I parked in the usual lot, but it took two passes through the lot to find somewhere that wasn't occupied. The only comfort in it was that this looked like a kid-type event, and would thus be over when the show got out.

Inside, the merch stand was six rows deep and the bar was empty. I shook my head at the Kindermenge, got a beer, and headed down for the front; my primary interest at this one was in the first two bands, and if the people who are concentrating on the headliner are standing in line waiting to buy gear, they're not camping the front row. I did get up pretty close, about where I usually end up when I decide to go down front at Palladium gigs.

Decrepit Birth [6/7]
There was a bit of a wait before the band went on, but when they finally came out, it was well worth the wait. The sound board didn't handle the new material optimally, but given how badly opening bands have been jobbed at this venue in the past, it wasn't all that bad. While their older Suffocation-styled stuff is really strong, the performance of the new stuff is what really sets them apart, and the execution here was excellent. A few places might have been a little tighter, but there's pretty much no one playing this kind of death metal right now, and as good as the fusion of late Death and traditional brutality is on the new album, there's definitely the sense from this performance that they can still develop it further and do something really groundbreaking.

What was most remakable out of this performance was the degree to which Decrepit Birth has the bass double not the rhythm guitar, but the lead. Matt, of course, did all the stringed instruments on the new disc, and he's primarily a guitarist, so it's perhaps not too surprising, but it still is interesting to watch and hear -- because it's a cool effect, and because as a bassist, I'm far too lazy and unskilled to ever pull off something like that.

Hate Eternal [6/7]
This is the second time I've seen this band, on both occasions at this venue, and also the second time that I've seen them get absolutely jobbed by the sound board. For most of the first song, the guitars were so low they might as well not have been there, and Erik's might as well have been unplugged well into the second song for all the sound he was able to get out of it. Fortunately, they overcame this and put up a really good, really intense set that pumped up the crowd and informed those down front who didn't know exactly what is involved in being on the floor at a death metal show: namely, that no one is safe anywhere, ever. A few took advantage of the breaks between songs to go back, but most, including quite a few of these guys, did stand in, and hopefully were better for the experience. Unlike the last time they were around, they did play "Behold Judas", and yes, it was wicked cool.

Following this set, I walked back up to the bar area; the part I came for was done, and now it was time for merch, etc, before the bonus started. I nabbed a bunch of Decrepit Birth stuff, drank some Jager, and ended up back down on the first level above the floor, in what appeared to be kind of the RTTP tier; I ran into three or four people that I knew a lot better by screename than by face, all back up off the floor and entertaining at least a little skepticism about the coming bands.

3 Inches of Blood [5/7]
Once upon a time, this band was a joke, doing the early-80s power-metal deal for the lulz. The last time I saw them, it was uncertain how much it was for real or still a gag; on this go-round, there was very little doubt that this is now about 100% serious, in what has become probably one of the oddest turns in recent musical history. Now, 3 Inches of Blood is a classically styled power metal band in the vein of Saxon and Grim Reaper -- if with occasional decays into hardcore in long sets -- and if they're not terribly original to the ear of an old fart who has a prominent Running Wild patch at the top of his jacket, they're definitely novel to the majority of BDM's audience. It remains to be seen just how many, if any, of the kids in attendance will actually go out and get into, say, Manowar or Grave Digger as a result of this band, but as a reminder of heavy metal history, it's pretty cool and noteworthy.

I did a second swing by the merch table later and picked up a superstrip from these guys; I don't know precisely where it's going to go (on the ultralight, obviously), but I do kind of have a trigger impulse as regards getting patches.

The Black Dahlia Murder [5.5/7]
Yes, split scores suck. However, there isn't really an easy way to address this: in a longer set, they don't have quite enough awesome material to keep up their string of really strong live sets to date, but it was still a good performance. I noticed more of the less-inspired stuff that I remember clogging up their records than I'd seen from them live in the past, but they still had more material that sounded good and original than stuff that came off as tired and recycled from the heyday of the NWOSDM. Outside of the music, there were several injury timeouts in the pit -- a good thing for all those except the people who had to get taken out for medical attention -- and they flavored "Statutory Ape" with a dude in a gorilla suit running out and jumping out into the audience. Good stuff; still not quite my style, but as a bonus to Hate Eternal and Decrepit Birth, it was all right.

What wasn't, quite, was the presence in their merch stall of a certain shirt featuring the band's name done up in the style of At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul. Maybe the band's just poking fun at the critics -- self included -- who still call them out for biting too hard on Gothenburg's best, but I'm not a fan of the whole "write your band name in someone else's logo form" thing. This didn't influence the score above, but it may influence perceptions of anyone who happened to buy one of these shirts.

The drive back was pretty uneventful; the show got out around 11, and the roads were more or less empty -- none of the trucks all over the place that I typically get coming back from Metal Thursdays -- until I got back to 128. It was a little early a night, but still definitely a good time overall. Next gig is up in Manchester at the end of the week; I'm going to have to do that one right from work, and also find my way to a new venue, but it's worth it to try to get up and see Rohirrim again, plus all the good -- if much more grindy/slammy -- bands ahead of them on the bill.