Nocuous with Closed Casket, Scourge, and Necris [Ralph's, Worcester, 4/18/2013]

This is hopelessly late due to work- and terrorism-related stuffs; between one and the other I was nonfunctional for about a week after the show, and then I spent most of the next two weeks in Canada working 12-hour days.  I didn't write anything in that time, so this is going on old impressions and what sketchy information survives.  Turnaround should be faster for any shows between now and Russia, but I can't promise anything.

Necris [5/7]
I hadn't heard Necris before, but came away somewhat favorably impressed.  The ceaseless Infowars-driven lyrical topics will put a lot of people in mind of Vile, but what the band's actually doing musically is a lot more along the lines of Immolation's technical and brutal but melodically-structured death metal, while still flavored with the slammish tropes that you expect out of New Bedford in the wake of Goreality and Anoxia.  Necris isn't at that level quite yet, but they've got decent chops and the potential for further development, so long as they can stay out of the FEMA camps and keep gigging out.

Necris slamming the audience.

Scourge [5/7]
These guys I also hadn't heard before, and for most of their largely pedestrian set I was pretty ok with that.  They improved a little at the end, but Scourge ultimately is the very definition of a replacement-level death metal band, the kind you can pick up on an afternoon's notice to fill a cancellation slot in the same way sports statistics uses the term to talk about street free agents.  They're not bad, really, but there is very little compelling here, and not a lot of promising seeds.

Scourge, filling their slot.

Closed Casket [5/7]
Closed Casket remains as difficult to categorize now as when I've seen them before, though a little more developed in their mix of death metal and classic heavy metal elements.  This was a decent set, if a little too dependent on Alex' bass for a band with four other musicians on stage, but while they've developed, they still haven't really unified their sound enough to present something really coherent.  Clever observers will cite this as a noted criticism of Barren Oak as well, so there may be a common thread there, but Closed Casket is more traditionally-classifiable and a lot more unambiguously metal than the former project, so they have that going for them on a fairly straight-ahead bill.

Closed Casket open up.

With the vocalist actually on stage.

A new mascot for Nocuous, hopefully acquired for less than $3000.

Nocuous [6/7]
This set saw some of the most ridiculous hair-floating ever not captured by DIY digital images (at least mine, check other people's), but also a lot of quality Nocuous material.  It wasn't the best recent Nocuous set, nor the one with the most new stuff, but the fact remains that this is a quality band who are going to put out a quality set any time someone puts a stage and a couple electric fans under them.  The floor also got moving here, in a way that floors seldom have done since Crazy Dan stopped coming in all the time, ending the night on a firmly positive note.

Nocuous step out.

Metal thrashing mad.


As I came north on 95 from the pike, I saw no fewer than 6 police cars heading south.  I suspected that this had something to do with the hunt for the Marathon bombers, whose pictures had just made the 6:00 news in Boston, but did not realize that there had been a running gun/grenade battle between the suspects and the cops all along the north bank of the Charles, or that I would wake up to a fully militarized "Operation DEATH KRISTJAN" Friday morning.  Of course, that situation resolved itself by the end of the day, at which point I was on call -- and constantly getting calls -- and by the time I was done that, I was prepping to go to Canada.  So, four weeks late -- is what it is.

Nocuous with Demoralizer, Dark Was The Night, and Alcoholicaust [Ralph's, Worcester, 11/29/2012]

After a long layoff, I bit down and got back out to Ralph's for this one, despite a bit of surrounding work chaos; from my lookout it wasn't the most appealing bill in the whole entire world, but a decent metal show is a decent metal show, and it was still something.  Due to that layoff, I messed up the timing and got in well before the bands started; I looked over the distro tables and generally hung out and acclimated to the strange new atmosphere.  Ralph's, in the months that I've not been inside, has finished building the wheelhouse-style sound booth at the back, and has demolished the old familiar sound booth with the dishwasher foundry plate on it that was formerly in the middle of the floor.  In terms of renovations, this is not a patch on O'Brien's a couple years ago, but has about the same effect in terms of opening up usable floor space.

Eventually, Alcoholicaust corralled their drummer and got set up, so I could give up on the architectural criticism and go watch bands.

Alcoholicaust [4.5/7]
Up from Connecticut, I'd heard of these guys before, but not seen them live; what they brought, despite or maybe because of the lack of a live drummer, was a mixture of death and black metal reminiscent of old God Dethroned -- or maybe Enthroned at Obituary's tempos and compositional reach.  The density of the programmed drum tracks and the lack of anything really expansive in the music made for a restrictive and kind of rote impression, but at least there weren't a lot of desynchs, which is a continual risk whenever one of the members is an audio file that can't react to what the other guys are playing.  All in all, ok, and certainly better than Neldoreth, but should they come back, I'm pretty sure the band is also hoping to come back with a live drummer and some more developed material.

Alcoholicaust roaring about zombies.  Drummers are apparently an endangered species in Bristol.

Dark Was The Night [5/7]
I didn't know initially, but this is the band that Seth, ex of Ascendancy, Summoning Hate, Hekseri, and many other Boston-area bands is now drumming for; as such I was definitely interested in what they were going to present.  What they presented was, in some ways, a band with a thoroughly split personality over two songs: the first two were muddled, overly-dense, self-satisfying, intellectually-sterile prog-thrash of the worst sort that the end of the '90s could offer, and then they switch to "When The World Breaks Down" and "Dawn" (the latter using a pair of 8-string guitars to great effect), and it's like a whole other band, one that is awesome and progressive rather than progressive and annoyingly tiresome.  If they can continue to follow on in the latter vein, mixing dynamics, melodics, and varied tempos into their fusillade of technicality, this is going to be a band that a lot of people will have to pay attention to, and even this restricted sample was pretty damn cool.

DWTN rip down a wall of riffage.

It should be apparent that, like Alcoholicaust, DWTN was short a member from their desired setup; the bands were joking around a little later about swapping the one's bassist for the other's drummer.

DWTN equip their 8s for "Dawn".

Demoralizer [5.5/7]
Demoralizer, of course, I had seen somewhat recently, and they delivered pretty much exact to expectations, with a fifteen-song set of mile-a-minute grindcore interspersed with a couple of slam chugs.  It had, as usual, all the subtlety of an out-of-control gravel truck, but the ruinous speed and complete abandon that they approached the performance with was a definite blast of fresh air after the relative restraint of the bands preceding.  The floor did not see a whole lot of motion -- maybe people are still adjusting to the booth move and haven't got full moshpit prioproception yet -- but it was a little more than immediately previous, and the floor was pretty near full up.

Demoralizer get cranked up to start their barrage.

In this break, I checked Demoralizer's CD offerings and found out I'd picked up the demo they had back earlier in the year, so I hit the distro stand.  In addition to the still-requisite new Borknagar and cult reissues from CNV and Graveland, I also picked up some interesting scuttlebutt in relation to potential tours coming into the area from further reaches....but with Josh waiting on routing confirmation and still locking down details on venues (and presumably guarantees) with the bands, I'm not going to leak anything before confirmation.  That's a matter for another night.

Nocuous [6/7]
Looking back, I've seen this band a lot less often than I thought I had, which is probably due to how often End comes up in my CD rotation, and how the title track and "Wash All The Corpses Away" seem to get into every mp3 collection I make for travel or whatever.  We got the former as an encore, but not the latter, in a still of-course strong, crunchy, and diverse set that pulled in a lot of stuff off the forthcoming Prophecy -- and if your ears didn't perk up immediately at the idea of a new, presumably full-length, Nocuous record, you weren't at this show, and you haven't been paying attention to the band generally.  The rockstarishness of using stage fans (albeit a little more democratically than Coffin Birth) and the silly things they did to Reuben's hair were quickly plastered over by Nocuous' classic mix of punch and crunch, which was a little further evolved here than on prior samples.  The basic idea, of doing Witchery's meld of black, death, and Slayer elements with a completely different selection of stuff from black metal, death metal, and Slayer (Nocuous is still the only band doing Show No Mercy screams, which reflects poorly on every other band claiming to be influenced by Slayer), remains the same, but time and possibly member change have put a different spin on it.  Regardless, the band completely killed it, got an encore due to popular acclaim, and left approximately everyone there unsatisfied that the new record wasn't out yet.

Nocuous lay it down -- with Reuben's hair laying remarkably flat, for a ginger standing over an electric fan set on high.

Eventually, as noted, Nocuous had to close up, and I hit the road immediately, as I had a bunch of stuff to do for work in the morning, and even getting home at two, as I did, was going to be cutting it close.  Those work obstructions and close-cutting will feature next week as well; I should be able to escape my work holiday do in time to catch Abnormality, even if I miss Weregild or Witch King, but between work, class, and baking commitments Sonata Arctica and their keytar trolling on Friday is probably a bridge too far.  Sorry Gennaro, maybe next time.

Humanity Falls with Scaphism, Untombed, Blood of the Gods, and Nocuous [Champions', Everett, 7/8/2011]

Since I'd missed the Metal Thursday gig the day before due to getting out of work at 10PM as an exhausted and overcaffinated wreck, the onus was doubly on me to get to this one: in addition to the potential stuff to pick up, I really wanted to see Humanity Falls again, and the local part of the bill was pretty damn killer as well. Congestion on 93 made things a little dicey, and I nearly got lost once or twice on the way in (took 28, because no way was I going all the way down to the 60 interchange), but ultimately ended up at the bar with plenty of time to spare, but enough after doors that I was able to get right in and nab a beer, and another, before the bands started.

Nocuous [5/7]
This was supposed to be Nocuous' last show with their current bassist, but he bailed at the last minute, so it turned out to be their first without him. The sound suffered a little without the low-end contribution rounding things out, but even with just the three members, they were able to put out a fairly decent set of Scandinavian fusion. Maybe there was a little much feedback in the guitar -- or particlarly exposed without the bass -- but it's not like the likes of At The Gates or Edge of Sanity never used feedback for extra distortion, and it was cool in places here as well. Hopefully, they'll get a new bassist in and worked up quickly, but the strength of this performance might lead them to think about taking opening slots like this one in the meantime regardless.

A little later on, I got a CD from Reuben outside, and with it a very large pile of stickers. This is more good stuff; Nocuous' sound should appeal to just about goddamn everyone that I'm likely to meet in the course of the festival tour, and the few it might not will almost certainly, just by process of elimination, take something from the slammier or grindier contents of the merchpack.

Blood of the Gods [5.5/7]
I'm not sure how much of the difference can be put down just to the sound here rather than at Church -- I've seen this band three times now, with three different general sounds -- but on this outing, BotG came off as a little less grind, a little more death and a little more doom. I ran into one of the guitarists the next night at Hate Eternal, and he mentioned that they'd substantially reworked their lineup, so this may have been a factor as well. Regardless, a cool set, and stuff that we didn't get from the other bands on this bill.

Untombed [6/7]
This was the slot that Humanity Falls was originally supposed to be going on in, before they got wedged up in traffic -- far from unusual, to get the touring band in and out quickly so they aren't driving around at five in the morning -- and Untombed swapped to keep things flowing. However, because of that swap and because of the changes they've made to their lineup -- which is now, if I recall correctly, pretty much a functional superset of Summoning Hate back when they were Downfall -- I got a little confused about who was going on, exactly. Natural reaction; you see Milo Avila coming in with his bass over his shoulder, and you think "wait, is Summoning Hate playing?" Despite the member overlap, this of course wasn't the case; Untombed draws from many of the same old-school brutal death influences, but in this set was a little slammier and a little grindier than you'd usually get from the new bassist and guitarist's main band. Dave and Juan's vocal styles are different enough to justify two full-time vocalists, and they also pulled it off well as regards structures, working the lines with and against each other, which is where bands with two lead vocalists usually fall down. This may not have been the best performance I've ever seen from Untombed, but it was a hell of a good start for this lineup, and the crowd got into it as well, with the first really significant motion of the night.

Scaphism [6/7]
This was a mightily awesome set that may well overtop the last two times that I've seen Scaphism recently as the best outing I've gotten from the band. There's not that much more that needs to be said: you know what you're getting with Scaphism, and the only variation is how well the sound presents them, how much violence that particular crowd is up for, and if anyone throws back any unexpected bon mots for Tony to riff off of between songs in addition to his normal banter selection. In this case, the crowd was turbulent but not injurious, someone said something about "assholes" to provoke a digression paraphrasing Pete Steele's "fifteen American dollars" bit, and most importantly, the venue sound was tuned about perfectly for Scaphism's barrage of slamming death metal. This was, as noted, a killer set from front to back, but they closed especially strong with "Slowly Digesting..." and "Tower Deflower", and it's going to be really cool to watch these guys continue to go from strength to strength.

During Scaphism's set, Humanity Falls finally finished getting through the 93-enabled tangle and to the venue, and they got set up right quick to make sure they were able to get their full set in before the cutoff.

Humanity Falls [6.5/7]
As indicated last year, the low stage, small room, and Boston-area crowd all worked to the band's advantage, as did bringing in a bass player -- and this was still one of Umar's first shows with the band. Ammo's skullwreckingly twisted mix of grooves, riffs, and leads still drives their annihilating death grind forward, but the low end adds more power to the foundations, as well as hints of additional complexity -- as might be expected given his other band -- that, as they can be worked in on new material, will drive the band's music even further into insanity. Not all of the audience that was flying around for Scaphism got into the unrepentant technicality, but most did, and if Eston seemed to get frustrated, at times, with the relative lack of violence, it's hard to match up with him in the madman stakes on a normal gig, let alone one with the band fresh off spending five+ hours threading through the mess of idiots that covers New England highways on summer weekends. I'm just glad that I was able to see a set this good, standing for most of the night right by Aaron Hivesmasher, and make it out with all my limbs in their right places.

After Humanity Falls closed up, I picked up a burn of TBC's newish EP and what turned out to be the last of the Humanity Falls shirts, at least in XL. Good for me, good for the band -- always better to run out early than have boxes of unsold merch left over -- bad for other folk on this mini-tour or at least this stop, as they were off to Jersey next and might have been able to pick up any extras from their homebase that they didn't lug out initially. I also tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up an Untombed shirt -- their new design is fuckin' sick -- but they were also out of XL, and this isn't as much of a deal, as I see the band or at least the members semi-regularly at shows. After this, some nebulous talk about additional organization potentially coming to the metal scene in Boston, and a couple minutes trying to get the other side of a staff argument before I got tossed out for being a non-band-member in after closing, I got out, through the rain, and back home in decent order. Of course, this didn't lead to this getting done any faster -- there was still Hate Eternal coming up the next night.

Scaphism with Ipsissimus, Ravage, and Nocuous [Ralph's, Worcester, 5/5/2011]

Having narrowly avoided getting stuck on a difficult production ticket, I got out of work in decent time to get out to Worcester, aided by the fact that the roads were empty and I was on the correct side of 93. Time saved, and gas saved too, especially since I'm going to be doing this again tonight; as tasty as Goreality + Composted looks, the onramps to 93 were already closed at the end of last night, making getting in to Boston, for the rest of the summer, an exercise in insanity and overloaded back roads.

That aside, I got in with plenty of time before the bands started; enough time to get some beer down, read up on the print version of the anniversary article, and check out the merch set up. Unfortunately, Ipsissimus' Metal Blade debut isn't out yet (and I've had Three Secrets... since buying it off Ryan opening for Watain with his leg in a cast), and Ravage didn't have their Metal Blade record with them; I eventually got a Ravage patch and missed on the new Ipsissimus shirt, leaving chagrined at not supporting bands.

Nocuous [6/7]
These guys have taken a significant step forward since December; their sound's now a lot more developed if still not super cleanly-fused, and the excellent venue sound -- consistent across bands, where this hasn't always been the case lately -- really helped them showcase this to the full extent. I wasn't able to pick up their demo, but strongly advise doing so for anyone who's better at cornering band members than I am; as soon as they grind and fill the joints in their sound smooth, this is music that Nuclear Blast will eat up like candy.

A really good indicator that a band's doing something at least really original is that nobody can decide who they mostly sound like. Other people noted Opeth or Carcass as main points of comparison, and I'm about to disagree with them and introduce a ridiculous influence stew below. Nocuous is basically a Witchery-type band, despite not really sounding anything like Witchery at all: they bolt together elements of thrash, black, and death metal and make it sound consistently cool. They do first-wave Swedish-death melodics and structures in the vein of late-'90s Hypocrisy, they drop in Slayer and Immortal breaks, and they do occasional breakdowns. It's not as finished as Witchery yet, but if you like that band's first two records and thought that what they were doing was a super awesome idea 10 years ago, Nocuous will have good results for you when they eventually put out a full-length and demonstrate that true full-fusion extreme metal is still a good idea in the present day.

Ravage [6/7]
While this was the "local" night of the five-year-anniversary show complex (tonight features multiple bands from over a thousand miles away), it still bears noting that half the bill was nationally signed. Ravage's had some difficulties since getting signed to Metal Blade (like getting stuck in Oregon when their van essentially fell apart like the cop cars in the intro to Castle of Cagliostro), but didn't show it in this performance, which was as good as they've done in a long while. Fitting in with the anniversary theme, they brought out some real old ones, as well as some off the new disc that they hadn't done live before -- and as usual they ignored the twit yelling about "Wyvern".

While tonight is pretty much all doom -- albeit different species of doom, to be sure, and that involves partially reclassifying Woods and maybe also Gwynbleidd -- this gig went fusionthrash->power->black->death, really showing off the diversity, not just the top-class performances, that have made this series great and contributed significantly to its success and popularity. Normal Metal Thursdays don't really sort out like this; you'll usually get "mostly thrash, but different kinds of thrash", "mostly death, but different kinds of death", or "black, but different kinds of black" nights, but what's important is that Chris never gets into a rut where it's, say, all death metal for three months straight. Part of it is a deliberate decision by the organizers to not book the same bands too often, but part of it is also the diversity in styles and sheer numbers of heavy local bands in New England that the series can range all over the map stylistically and still draw well two and three weeks a month.

Ipsissimus [6.5/7]
Because I missed the Black Anvil show this past weekend (due to a sudden attack of utter motivation deficit), it has been literally years (well, two of them) since I saw this band last. For context, here are some bands I saw at least twice in the intervening time: Psycroptic (Australia), Moonsorrow (Finland), Korpiklaani (also Finland), Kreator (Germany), Voivod (Canada), Vader (Poland), Exodus (California), Napalm Death (England), Woods of Ypres (boondocks Canada). Connecticut is apparently wicked far away. They more than made up for it, though, with a howling, hammering performance of jamming true black metal that, for those who have not participated in the mysteries and are waiting for Metal Blade to get off their duffs, approximates what FSBM (Former Soviet Black Metal, so I can lump Drudkh in with Old Wainds) might sound like if the lands between the Dneister and the Volga were more like Vermont. There was a high bar at this show due to every single band bringing their A-game, as the narrow range of large arbitrary numbers pasted after their names suggests, but Ipsissimus edged out the rest, and will, if Metal Blade sees fit to kit them out with a van not entirely composed of compressed rust despite their previous for same, likely be evolving similar satanisms in more places around the United States soon enough.

Whether Chris intended it or not, Crazy Dan was up on stage MCing the event (and why not, since he was on the flyer?), which provided nearly as many laughs as the bands and stage crew got the set changes going as he passed out critical collisions in the pit. In a night of many speeches, Chris' was probably the best considered and most complete, Adam's the most philosophical, trenchant, and suitable for rebroadcast (if someone actually videoed this, gies the youtube link so I can spam it), but Dan had probably the most minutes, and definitely the most lols per minute. Happy St. Pedro's Day!

Scaphism [6/7]
Scaphism also benefited from the thick, dense venue sound; it's either that, potentially changing guitarists, or just not seeing them in six months, but they've definitely taken it up a level and provided a class set of less complicated but absolutely slammerific death metal that saw, if not the first, at least one of the very few crowdsurfers I've seen at Ralph's, in addition to the absolute and total pit chaos that's pretty much expected for a mosh-friendly band at the end of a very good night. Via more new material, time taken for Chris's speech, and Exhumed's "Coffin Crusher", there was less in the set about rape than there's been in the past, and nobody got kicked in the balls. Of course, they may have misjudged their audience, vice Tony introducing "Slowly Digesting...": "It's a sad commentary on modern society that we get a more positive response for rape than for Star Wars." "Slowly Digesting..." of course, was absolutely pulverizing, and saw no worse response (if not better) than any of the other songs in a very good set; even if Scaphism is going from Oor Raep Band to Oor Crêpe Band (Composted may have something to say about that, though), they're going to continue to see this kind of good response as long as they continue with the top-class aural brutalization.

By the time things wrapped up, it was pushing 2 AM, and I still had to work in the morning. Futile half-assed attempts to pick up Nocuous' demo failed, and I got moving back onto the roads; hell of a night, and do it again the next day. I got into Metal Thursday long after it'd been established, but I've been about fairly consistently, modulo actually being in the state, for much of the last four years, and the experiences I've had have been thoroughly worth the valediction. Hails to Chris, Sam, Kate, Steve, the bar staff, and all the other ragers and bands who've made it so; part 2 comes tonight, or, if I end up locked out without a ticket, it'll go without me and I'll go up the long roads to Haverhill and try to catch Vattnet and Astronomer.

[Scaphism] with Led To The Grave, Coffin Birth, Nachzehrer, Untombed, Forced Asphyxiation, Nocuous, and Sauriel [Midway, J.P., 12/12/2010]

This is stupidly late due to end-of-year congestion, me working on other stuff, and general laziness. With effort, it's not going to happen again.


The first show at the renovated Midway since they finished expanding it, there was a little uncertainty surrounding this going in, since it was set up as a nine-band show, eventually dropping to eight. There was a fair bit of snark floating around in advance about this -- for why, look back at the days of Mark's Show Place -- but things stayed mostly on schedule, the bands were good, and the crowd was decent despite the rain, go date (Sunday afternoon-evening), and the small venue; apart from Tony the Yeti's baws, there won't be many who were at this who'll have cause for complaint.

If I recall correctly, it wasn't long after settling in, watching the Pats plug away at the Bears -- oh halycon days where the good team in this matchup was still on course to a conference final -- and getting a beer or two in at the new wraparound bar, that the bands started up, as they kind of had to given the size of the bill.

Sauriel [5/7]
A newer band featuring guys who've been around for a while (most prominently in The Accursed and Withered Sun/Graves Over Autumn, but older heads will remember Inflicted as well), this was a departure for those who, based on antecedents, might have been expecting Gothenchusetts-styled material. While black metal was an important contributing influence to NWOSDM, this was a more straightforward black metal performance; a little formula maybe, but not totally, and well-delivered regardless. "At the Heart of the Nightside Eclipse" isn't completely unfair, but the emphasis should be on the quality of the execution.

I picked up their demo, which was pretty much of a piece with their live performance: good, solid music, well-delivered, but not completely differentiated yet. It's going to be interesting to see how this band develops; the members may not have the kvltest credentials in the world, but they do have a good track record in delivering quality music.

Nocuous [5/7]
I hadn't heard or seen this band before; they're apparently mostly a studio project, so this is not super surprising, but more active bands is always better than the alternative, especially more active decent bands. They had a really, really, weird turn at the start, with most of their first song eerily evocative of old Heaven Shall Burn (think Whatever It May Take, not the demo with the Bolt Thrower ripoff title where they were an actual hardcore band). I actually like HSB (ohnoes, skelp aff my Black Witchery and Holocauso patches), so this was cool, especially in application, and whatever the actual intention or influences, it definitely set up the rest of the set, a solid outing of nice lead-driven thrashy black metal, really well. Definitely a band to watch out for, even considering the plethora of newish and newly-active black metal bands in eastern New England lately.

Forced Asphyxiation [5/7]
At this point the sound changed up a little, going over to death metal rather than black. Forced Asphyxiation maybe dragged a little in parts, but still provided a lot of quality grooving death metal, and took a step up from the last time I'd seen them back in April. This set also put forward a less generic and more developed sound from them; it's going to be cool to see where this goes once they get something recorded -- or more likely, I bodge up and get ahold of said recording, since it's been like three months since this show.

Untombed [5.5/7]
While not as lightning-in-a-bottle awesome as that April gig, this was still as killer as you'll expect from this band, despite being down to one guitar from two. (Not sure if this is a one-off thing or if it represents an actual lineup change; we'll see how they line up next time out.) The sheer death metal power evolved despite the limited instrumentation was remarkable, overshadowing the fact that Dave (Vicious Insanity, formerly behind the skins for Summoning Hate) spent most/all of the set as a second vocalist. This was a cool wrinkle that isn't seen a lot in death metal around Boston, but while it added to the band, it never distracted from the smashing that the instrumentalists were laying out.

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
The bill swung back over to black metal without dropping quality or missing a beat in this set from Nachzehrer, who were still as raw and thrashing as ever, but mixed in some dual-leads as well. As previously noted, neither black metal nor thrash metal in Boston has any especially active "scene police" (well, that wouldn't get roundly laughed at by this audience, anyway), and if you've got guitarists this good, you might as well use them. The result was good here, and it's going to be cool to see how twists like this make it into the sound of future recordings. Black Thrash Ritual was a good demo, and the new songs they've brought out since have been a solid step up from there.

This is so late that in the interim, Alex (Razormaze) has left the band (amicably, SMNR), been replaced, and his replacement has trained up to the level that the band's able to get out gigging again.

Coffin Birth [5.5/7]
This was, amazingly enough, the first time I'd seen this band, who have been around in New England long enough and prominently enough that the Canucks with the same name don't have name priority. They haven't been super active in the last couple years, but they do play shows; just not, as it's happened, ones that I get to. The fan on the floor seemed more to blow Anthony's hair back than for ventilation (despite being the Midway, this was December, and the larger room meant more air movement and less stiflingness), but you pick up habits like that touring with Belphegor. Silly staging pick points aside, the black metal that these dudes kicked out was nice and grim, and probably, on balance, the best set of the night on what was a really good and balanced bill.

Indeed, if all you look at are the largely arbitrary numbers (done at the show for marginally less arbitrariness), the bill looks even more balanced. This is what happens, though, when you get a lot of good local bands to play on a big bill: the overwhelming likelihood for each and every band is that you'll get a good set rather than a halfassed or epic one. If the highs were lower, so were the lows higher; no wasted time at this gig.

Led To The Grave [5/7]
Making the turn back from black metal towards Scaphism's grind/death was LTTG, still kicking out solid if not spectacular brutal thrash. They've solidified a little since I saw them previously, and they got a lot of good movement on the floor, but the music is pretty much in the same place it's been since February of '09. It's still good thrash metal, and people will still dig it, but they're one of the few bands on this bill who I have multiple data points for that appear to be standing still. As noted, this information's potentially three months out of date, but since they're not on either Bobfest or No Life, another sample is not in the immediate offing.

Unfortunately, while the show had stayed mostly on schedule, there was a certain amount of slippage that had to be expected from DIY. I left before Scaphism, regrettably, as I would have missed my train connections otherwise. This means that I missed their set, and also that I can't comment firsthand on the incident where Tony got kicked in the balls. Didn't see it, unwilling to draw conclusions or make a statement on the politics or logistics of it. Fortunately, no permanent damage appears to have occurred -- either to his organs or to the cohesiveness of the Boston scene. "Alcohol, cause and solution to life's problems" appears to be the watchword, and internally, maybe some Afterschool-Special learning experiences, but being uninvolved, it's not for me to spell those out. SMNR, as above.


This is finally out, and there is one more archaic show review in the pipeline. Then two months of nothing, and then I write up tonight's Born of Fire if I don't die of pneumonia hiking back in the rain. Shit is getting back on track. Also, I'm writing/recording for a new Coelem thing, which when it gets done will get a bandcamp if the new shit turns out to be not absolutely horrible.