Seax with Amadis, Avernus Ortus, and Krakatoa [Ralph's, Worcester, 3/29/2012]

Despite some non-promising-looking construction and nearly getting crunched by a semi coming off the Pike, I got over in decent order and not too long before the bands started. It was getting towards the end of a long day that had started earlier than anticipated, so I was a little ground down, but this rapidly took care of itself as the venue started to fill up in earnest and the first bands went on.

Krakatoa [5/7]

Someone is going to have to eventually make up a real word for this band's style of modern-God Dethroned black/melodeath mix, as the conventional ones are running a little short, and there's no shortage of modern bands playing around with the style. "Extreme metal" gets kicked around, but I refuse to redefine a term this general to the stuff in that subclass that isn't strictly black, death, or grind...and a lot of the bands claiming the label are not exactly extreme in any real sense. This was a decent set of decent music, if a little handicapped by technical difficulties. Most of those, though, arose from the PA trying to manage Steve's borgbass; hopefully, they'll be back with demos, where this won't be an issue.

Borgbass in action -- YOUR KEYBOARDS WILL BE ASSIMILATED!

Avernus Ortus [6/7]

They were more matched to the rest of the bill originally, before In Human Form dropped and Seax filled in, but didn't let their accidental odd-duck status stop them from delivering a punishing set of positively slam-hostile technical brutality. Even when it would be easy and consonant to dig in and chug away, Avernus refuse the temptation and do something brain-breakingly hard. It is flat awesome, and if you wish that Hate Eternal was less accessible or that Goreality occasionally played outside New Bedford, this is definitely a band to watch for.

Attendees agreed; at the conclusion of A.O's set, there was a short and sharp run on their demos -- which were conspicuously absent last time -- so immediate as to suggest Necrophagist at NEMHF '06. Said record is definitely worth it; not quite up to their live presentation, but still a kickass chunk of death metal, promising nothing but good things for whenever they get enough good songs written and perfected to get up to a full-length.

Amadis [6/7]

The amount of black leather on stage was a little over the top, and so many songs about heavy metal was just unnecessary. But Amadis is just so fucking good that this set was never going to end up anywhere else ratingswise. Lightly progressive but mostly traditional, this came out as a straight scream-n-shred-fest that got the floor nice and turbulent for the first time; you'd generally expect more mosh for the preceding death metal band out of a Metal Thursday crowd, but as noted this bill ended up pulling in a more trad audience -- and more importantly, it's very seldom that bands before the third have a drunk enough audience to get major motion. Flat killer all the way around.

No armor, no top hat, but still silly. The highlighted area is either a sporran or a lace-up codpiece.

Seax [6/7]

The power of experience; Seax were able to carry a headlining set of all originals and neither over- nor under-run the allotted slot. The band continues to ride that fine line between clever and stupid; their old-school ideas never coming off as dishonest, but with the band acknowledging that this is a nostalgia trip rather than 1982 itself, and that they might as well have somee fun with it. The trolls who were promoting this gig on New England's premier metal sitesource for dicks and abortions by bamming up the easily-excited Carmine, and anyone else who gave this one a pass, missed not only a pretty killer set of stripped-down old-school speed metal to cap off Avernus' underground fundamentalism and Amadis' Priest channeling, but also said frontman rubbing his spandex-covered dick all over the front row. This may have been the first non-ironic use of spandex pants by a local-level Massachusetts metal band in the last 20 years, but as long as Seax carry on, it's not likely to be the last.

Matt, not wearing spandex and not rubbing his dingus on people, but still "Living Above The Law".

It felt a little early leaving, but exhaustion kicked in hard despite getting back a little before 2 AM. That pushed this writeup out from Friday -- and then four discs' worth of Party.San history arrived on Saturday and delayed it further. I can has foreshadowing?

Ravage with Armory, Amadis, and Zero Point [Ralph's, Worcester, 4/16/2009]

Due to Metalfest and the way that this show played into that, I went on down to this gig directly from work, and got over, after unpacking all my crap at the hotel and getting some eats, shortly after Zero Point started.

Zero Point [4/7]
I saw about two-thirds of their set, which was strongly populated with covers and somewhat negatively affected by technical issues. They had some decent originals, which, from Maiden, Priest, and Dio Sabbath, provide a fair look-in at their original sound, but the band as a whole needs more finishing to take the next step up. They looked to be in general fairly young, so this is somewhat to be expected; they next time they come back here, they'll probably have taken that step.

Following this band, I got my first drink (Jack and coke, not beer, on the probably fallacious premise that it'd tear up my throat less) and also picked up Ravage's CD offerings; despite following the band since well before finding a review of it in Metal Hammer, I had somehow missed picking up Spectral Rider to date. No idea how that happened, but it's fixed now.

Amadis [5/7]
Not on the same guy, but this band featured Museum Replicas-style lapped leather armor as well as a top hat. Power metal, how we love ye. More relevantly, this band displayed the abilities as well as the trappings of American power metal, pounding out a high-quality set in the vein of Metal Blade's early lineup -- which also reminded me of Ravage a couple years ago. This bodes well for them, especially if they can continue to minimize the parts that were weak points in this set -- mainly prog elements that weren't as tightly integrated into the overall sound as they might have been -- and further develop the epic highs. They didn't have a CD out, as far as I could find, but eventually they'll be back, and hopefully have some recordings with them.

Armory [6/7]
Armory I did get a CD from (more on that later), and they certainly took the performance up a notch or two. Their more clearly Maiden-derived power metal sound was a bit of a change-up in this lineup, and definitely well-received; this is where the floor started moving, to a little consternation from people who may not have expected Metal-Thursday-style moshing at a power metal show. Though the band played through at a high level, they had a total PA dropout for about the last half of their last song, but adjusted to the extent that they could, and things barely slowed down in the audience as people got used to the muted, somewhat shifted sound. Good all around on the band's part; definitely looking forward to seeing them again.

For a long time one of Metal Thursday's big selling points, in addition to the killer atmosphere, was that they had consistently the best DIY-show sound in the area. This has been in doubt since O'Brien's finished their renovation, but it was a neck-and-neck thing; lately, it bears more mention when there's a MT where at least one band doesn't have major issues with the PA. The sound man is still good, but he needs to go through his setup with a multimeter and replace or rebuild what isn't working. The community will keep this show series rolling along, but the more transient crowd for other live band nights may not be as forgiving if the PA gives up on the music.

(Metal Blade Recording Artists) Ravage [6/7]
The first gig for these guys since linking up with Slagel's outfit, this was a worthy outing of the first major-label artist to appear on a Metal Thursday bill, and also a class headlining set. It wasn't the best set that I've seen out here, or the best show I've seen from Ravage, but Armory set the bar mighty high, and Ravage easily met if not topped their standard. They didn't do "Wyvern", despite some jerk yelling for it a lot, but they did do a lot of old-school stuff, which held up well in relation to the new material. The floor got proper turbulent for them; there was no crowdsurfing or people getting flipped, but a few people got helicoptered, and the floor ended up covered in beer as usual. Due to massive demand, they also managed to squeeze out an encore of a couple songs; Metal Blade may be thinking more of selling them to Europe and continuing to push deathcore here, but when their debut comes out later this year, they're going to move more than a few of them here in the Northeast.

Before heading back to try to get more not sick before Metalfest, I picked up a CD from Armory, then congratulated Pete (keys) on a great set; I guess I intimated that I hadn't seen them before, but already had a CD, which caused a little confusion as I'd picked up the disc about 45 seconds before he got over to the merch table. Either that, or one or both of us had our brains and/or ears turned off due to drinking, noise, and/or fluid imbalance. I'd bet on at least me being in that state, much more than anyone in the band.


Time for lunch, a last merch run, and Book of Black Earth; it's looking more like it'll take a while to get the Metalfest comments digested and processed. Some of that will go on before reentry closes tonight, but the writeups are probably going to go in no earlier than next week.