This was a local benefit show for a friend of the bands who is in a tough situation in Texas, and needing money to get herself and her young kid out, and back to the North Shore. As such, especially given the need to get turnout before anything else, I wasn't expecting that this would be a show that would need writing up. The first band led to some wavering, and then the next two sets sealed the deal; this was still a well-attended benefit show that spun what hopefully was a very decent amount of money from the cover and various raffles, but it was also a decently metal show and a reminder that, since I live down the block from this place, I really owe it to myself to go over when they get bands in playing originals, at the least.
Snake Piss [4/7]
This is not the same as the thrashcore band from Nevada. These guys are a grungy rock band from Georgetown, metal, to the extent it's applicable, in much the same way that Alice In Chains was metal, putting out a set of blasting, overdriven material that occasionally succeeded in getting people to pay attention to them rather than to the unholy beatdown that the Celtics were putting on the Magic over on the TVs over the bar. As alluded to above, this was probably the least metal set of the night, and in an environment with other rock bands, this wouldn't really be enough to justify writing either them or the gig up. However, it's not completely certain what I would be doing actually going to see this band with other similar rock bands rather than local metal; the playing was good enough, but the material wasn't really on a level to pique my interest.
Obsidian Divide [4/7]
This is why you follow DIY music: to have the experience of going out to a bar to support your friends and randomly seeing a prog-metal band play decidedly weird music. Obsidian Divide, individually, had skill in spades, and I could watch their bassist riff all week, but not all of the material came together as songs. This is a problem you get at this level, and also a problem with prog-metal in general; the potential is definitely there, but rather incompletely developed as yet. I got a copy of their demo, which may shed some further light on things, but in all likelihood, this is just a fair representation of a developing prog-metal band caught too early by someone whose taste generally is a bit farther out on the "makes you want to hit things" axis.
Autumn Above [6/7]
Hier stehen wir. Wir kennen nix anders. So might as well be written around the angel/gunsight logo on Autumn Above's current material (if, of course, anyone in the band spoke German and if anyone besides me in their potential audience had an appreciation for obscurantist puns in said language), such has been their continuing struggle, for the past two years, with their metal roots and their desire to write music that is not just metal, and that people will listen to and get into who would not show up to a metal gig. Results at this point are still a little mixed, but this outing, a killer set marred only by Tone busting a string and Chris's vocals coming in too low in the mix, was at the same time one of the least and the most metal performances that I've seen from the band.
When you have stuff like "Heaven Without", "Till Paradise" and "Skydiver" in your set, you obviously aren't totally a metal band; these are pop songs built around pop sensibilities, but this was also a set studded with the borderline apocalyptic: "The Beginning", "Trail of Roses", and a newer one whose name I keep forgetting that is a legitimate contender to outdo both of these for darkness and blasting. It seems like this comes up every single goddamned time that I write about this band, but there is an absolute and definite reason behind it: the defining attribute of Autumn Above, and why they are so good and capture the imagination of so many, is this unique ability to transition between metal and pop styles, to play metal on nontraditional instruments (sure, metal bands use acoustic guitars every now and then, but you don't see other bands using them on every single non-percussionist, to the complete exclusion of electrics) without defining themselves rigidly as a metal band, either internally or to their audience, and to play music that has both aggression and undeniable crossover appeal without seeming insincere.
These guys deserve to be bigger than they are; to the extent that 4/5 of this band was once in Endless Ruin at some point and that the influences involved there shaped their musical development gets in the way of that, it is a crying shame. The world, as gigs like this prove every time this band steps out in front of an audience where the metalheads keep themselves on the downlow, IS eminently ready for Opeth breaks, slashing leads, heavy lyrics, and Gothenburg composition in the right context, but getting people to realize this before they hear the band is a little difficult. Support Music, Not Rumors, as a great man once said, so support this band up to your less-metal or non-metal friends, even if you have to jam the headphones on them yourself.
And so eventually "Trail of Roses" ended amidst screaming of indeterminate genre origin, and the raffle was quickly done up before people got thrown out, and then I stumped my way back down the street. This week is an on-call stand, and future shows are up in the air, but I've started to get festival plan finalized and there's no shortage of gigs in the intervening two months before I go take my chances with the sea and the volcano.
Showing posts with label autumn above. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autumn above. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, October 12, 2009
Overtime, under budget
The town I live in has a ridiculous surplus of bars, licensed restaurants, and other places to get a drink, nearly all of which are within easy walking distance of my apartment. It also has about two bars that regularly have live music in, but in each case, the music is consistently terrible and ruins the atmosphere in what would otherwise be a nice Irish bar. In particular, there are too many sports bars; these three factors, though, have led the newest of the sports bars to branch out, put in a Club Hell-style semi-stage, and let local bands play.
While I've been skeptical of this venue in the past -- previous bills have included a lot of tribute bands and more Scarecrow Hill than is really warranted on the North Shore -- this weekend was a critical point: two shows back to back, one of which featuring a surprisingly underground lineup for a sports bar just getting its feet wet. If the Overtime starts to put on more shows and become the venue between Boston and Manchester that this slice of the scene has been looking for, in the future, this is the weekend that will be pointed back to as when it started.
I - when the lights go out
Autumn Above [Overtime, Beverly, 10/10/2009]
I got a) lazy and b) bogged down in other stuff, and wasn't able to make it out to Worcester for Todesbonden and Gwynbleidd, but the night wasn't going to be a total loss musically, as Autumn Above was playing a block and a half from my living quarters. Accordingly, I stumped up the street, got some beers, watched the end of the Bruins game, and waited for the band to start. Then, unexpectedly, between their soundcheck and actually taking the stage, the power went out.
Not just the venue, blocks on blocks in every direction. It was good for the ability to stand outside with a beer and cool off without getting hassled by police, but not so hot for sitting in a very dark bar trying to see a band. There was a bit of a kickup while they decided to play on completely acoustic -- turning off the amps to prevent their loss in case of a power surge, everyone popping the mutes out of their guitars, and the bouncer digging up a conga drum from somewhere for Sean to play so his kit wouldn't kill everyone else's sound -- and as soon as the Bruins game went final, Ryan was back to lead the band out.
Autumn Above [6/7]
You'd think that an acoustic-guitar-playing band with significant pop tendencies would play a less metal show when deprived of electricity, but this turned out not to be the case. For the most part, this was the same general kind of highly aggressive Autumn Above set that audiences normally get, and if some of the leads were practically inaudible due to the difficulties of hearing a single-picked acoustic guitar when two others are being strummed really loud and people are stamping on the floor, that was the price to be paid for an energetic set in which the guys tried to the limits of their ability to project volume and keep people's attention. Ryan, Chris, and Jim (when he wasn't standing on or jumping off speakers) took advantage of being untethered to do extended tours through the crowd, and though he couldn't use his electric bass after blowing his D string, Tone did a field repair on the acoustic and came back in time to reprise his Aura of Aquila days in the later parts of "The Hanging Ghost" -- with Ryan and Chris out in front of the monitors, the 3/5 of Autumn Above left on stage also covered 2/3 of a very good Aura of Aquila lineup, screaming their lungs out, stamping on the floor, and generally channeling thequintessence of Satanpure dark spirit of black metal. All in all, this set wasn't as long as originally planned, and there's no saying that it wouldn't've been as good or better with the power on, but for what it was, it was pretty cool, and definitely one of the most memorable shows of the year.
Unfortunately, though the power came back before their set, the next band, The Bitch and the Bastards, was not really ratable in the sense that they played only covers, and no metal at that. Decent '90s radio rock reprised, and several people dancing around to their Paramore closer that may not want that fact revealed to the great wide internets, but not really comparable to the experience that came before, nor really germane to being written up here. I finished my last beer and walked back down the street to my place.
II - even more in the dark
Rohirrim with Old Code Faith and Lethal Design [Overtime, Beverly, 10/11/2009]
So the next night rolled around and after most of the football finished, it was time to head back up to OT for, debatably, the first real metal show at the place and likely the first metal show at a licensed establishment in this town in the current scene's memory. I was a little uncertain about this; there's a fair number of metalheads in the region, but it doesn't take a lot of extremeness to have a sports bar decide to stick with their regular clientele. On the other hand, Rohirrim was active again, and I'd heard a lot of good stuff about Old Code Faith, so I wasn't going to miss this, and hopefully, a good attendance and a fair share of drinking would encourage the bar to keep going with occaional metal nights.
So I got in, met up with my NEET brother who I'd dragged out here to discourage his hikkikomori tendencies, got a beer, and waited a bit. There were a fair number of people in costume, as this had been sold as a Halloween show -- it'd make the metal go down a little easier to the normals, and as a plus Rohirrim got to come out in corpsepaint without anyone blinking at it. There was a brief delay while Pete (guitars, Rohirrim) fixed one of the stage lights; someone else was bringing over a barstool to get up at it, but Pete, being like seven feet tall, had no need of this and got it wired up correct just standing feet-on-the-floor like a normal person. Fuck chairs!
Lethal Design [5.5/7]
I'd never heard these guys before, but that wasn't the last of the "never heard"s that went into their set. Though the balance wasn't super great where I was standing -- an occupational hazard of going to DIY shows where everything but the vocals and maybe some of the drums are just coming right out of the cabs -- Lethal Design did a nice, solid power/thrash set of three good originals and three rare covers; you don't normally pull "Invaders" out of the hat when covering Iron Maiden, but their take on "Fast As A Shark" was the first time I've heard Accept covered on this continent, and this may be the only time that anyone in attendance hears "Trapped Under Ice" live at all. They've definitely got some potential, and I'll be watching out for them in the future, but as indicated above, there's not a lot of venues in this area that bands can start out at before moving on to Ralph's and O'Brien's.
Old Code Faith [6/7]
I'd heard of these guys before, but not actually seen them; they've cropped up on a couple bills around the region that I wasn't able to make for one reason or another, so having them play for free on my own street was an excellent inducement to get out for this one. They backed up the good press that they've been getting lately with a powerful thrash/death set, including (despite my whinings in other fora to the effect of it being a lost art) a fair amount of NWOSDM, with a great and monstrous sound that really should have gotten more people moving for their large number of really good originals. The most, though, came on their covers of Pantera ("Strength Beyond Strength", neither typical nor deliberately obscurantist) and Testament, but these were also delivered with pretty much the same power and fire as their originals, even if their treatment of "D.N.R." wasn't quite to Method's standard. Hell of a good set, all around, and those into brutal thrash metal could do a lot worse than continue to watch out for this band.
Rohirrim [6/7]
This was the acid test: while the other bands on this bill are fairly accessible by normal standards, Rohirrim normally isn't; founded on fundamental black and death metal principles and stirring in folkic elements in a way that isn't usually done in this country, nor appreciated by many outside the true black hordes. The bar was full almost to Metal-Thursday standard, though, and not many left during their set, which even despite the prevalence of covers has to be deemed a success. While there was more of other people's music than I'd've ideally liked to have seen, they did play a bunch of originals (if not "A Greivous Gift", which was a shame), and they were both knocking the rust off after nearly a year of inactivity and bringing Jim (Aura of Aquila, Autumn Above; normal-sized-person-guitar) up to speed.....and playing a show in a sports bar to a bunch of people who were nearly as pasted as they were -- and you've got tae be pretty fuckin' pasted, as the band admitted, to fuck up "Last Caress". Plenty of good music, a lot of it relentlessly true, and even if there were some fuckups, it's probably the first time that Manowar and Type O have ever been covered within the same set by the same band.
Soundwise, this was a great Rohirrim set, and even though there wasn't anything really wrong with Rohirrim's four-piece setup, adding Jim is, from this sample, a good step in the right direction. He's a quality lead player and good songwriter with a style that complements Pete's without cutting against it, and his presence in the band -- and contacts elsewhere -- may help them get out of the North Shore rut.
On the other hand, if Overtime emerges as a legit venue -- to be defined as when they, like O'Brien's, have bands in six to seven nights a week, between varied genres -- it's quite possible that said "North Shore rut", primarily a problem due to an absurd lack of venues that will bring in DIY music, may become a thing of the past, and that, arguably, is a clearly better outcome for metal as a whole. We'll see; at any rate, it's good to live down the street from even an occasional music bar, and having more bands in this area being more aggressive about gigging -- and more importantly, actually getting shows -- is always a positive.
While I've been skeptical of this venue in the past -- previous bills have included a lot of tribute bands and more Scarecrow Hill than is really warranted on the North Shore -- this weekend was a critical point: two shows back to back, one of which featuring a surprisingly underground lineup for a sports bar just getting its feet wet. If the Overtime starts to put on more shows and become the venue between Boston and Manchester that this slice of the scene has been looking for, in the future, this is the weekend that will be pointed back to as when it started.
I - when the lights go out
Autumn Above [Overtime, Beverly, 10/10/2009]
I got a) lazy and b) bogged down in other stuff, and wasn't able to make it out to Worcester for Todesbonden and Gwynbleidd, but the night wasn't going to be a total loss musically, as Autumn Above was playing a block and a half from my living quarters. Accordingly, I stumped up the street, got some beers, watched the end of the Bruins game, and waited for the band to start. Then, unexpectedly, between their soundcheck and actually taking the stage, the power went out.
Not just the venue, blocks on blocks in every direction. It was good for the ability to stand outside with a beer and cool off without getting hassled by police, but not so hot for sitting in a very dark bar trying to see a band. There was a bit of a kickup while they decided to play on completely acoustic -- turning off the amps to prevent their loss in case of a power surge, everyone popping the mutes out of their guitars, and the bouncer digging up a conga drum from somewhere for Sean to play so his kit wouldn't kill everyone else's sound -- and as soon as the Bruins game went final, Ryan was back to lead the band out.
Autumn Above [6/7]
You'd think that an acoustic-guitar-playing band with significant pop tendencies would play a less metal show when deprived of electricity, but this turned out not to be the case. For the most part, this was the same general kind of highly aggressive Autumn Above set that audiences normally get, and if some of the leads were practically inaudible due to the difficulties of hearing a single-picked acoustic guitar when two others are being strummed really loud and people are stamping on the floor, that was the price to be paid for an energetic set in which the guys tried to the limits of their ability to project volume and keep people's attention. Ryan, Chris, and Jim (when he wasn't standing on or jumping off speakers) took advantage of being untethered to do extended tours through the crowd, and though he couldn't use his electric bass after blowing his D string, Tone did a field repair on the acoustic and came back in time to reprise his Aura of Aquila days in the later parts of "The Hanging Ghost" -- with Ryan and Chris out in front of the monitors, the 3/5 of Autumn Above left on stage also covered 2/3 of a very good Aura of Aquila lineup, screaming their lungs out, stamping on the floor, and generally channeling the
Unfortunately, though the power came back before their set, the next band, The Bitch and the Bastards, was not really ratable in the sense that they played only covers, and no metal at that. Decent '90s radio rock reprised, and several people dancing around to their Paramore closer that may not want that fact revealed to the great wide internets, but not really comparable to the experience that came before, nor really germane to being written up here. I finished my last beer and walked back down the street to my place.
II - even more in the dark
Rohirrim with Old Code Faith and Lethal Design [Overtime, Beverly, 10/11/2009]
So the next night rolled around and after most of the football finished, it was time to head back up to OT for, debatably, the first real metal show at the place and likely the first metal show at a licensed establishment in this town in the current scene's memory. I was a little uncertain about this; there's a fair number of metalheads in the region, but it doesn't take a lot of extremeness to have a sports bar decide to stick with their regular clientele. On the other hand, Rohirrim was active again, and I'd heard a lot of good stuff about Old Code Faith, so I wasn't going to miss this, and hopefully, a good attendance and a fair share of drinking would encourage the bar to keep going with occaional metal nights.
So I got in, met up with my NEET brother who I'd dragged out here to discourage his hikkikomori tendencies, got a beer, and waited a bit. There were a fair number of people in costume, as this had been sold as a Halloween show -- it'd make the metal go down a little easier to the normals, and as a plus Rohirrim got to come out in corpsepaint without anyone blinking at it. There was a brief delay while Pete (guitars, Rohirrim) fixed one of the stage lights; someone else was bringing over a barstool to get up at it, but Pete, being like seven feet tall, had no need of this and got it wired up correct just standing feet-on-the-floor like a normal person. Fuck chairs!
Lethal Design [5.5/7]
I'd never heard these guys before, but that wasn't the last of the "never heard"s that went into their set. Though the balance wasn't super great where I was standing -- an occupational hazard of going to DIY shows where everything but the vocals and maybe some of the drums are just coming right out of the cabs -- Lethal Design did a nice, solid power/thrash set of three good originals and three rare covers; you don't normally pull "Invaders" out of the hat when covering Iron Maiden, but their take on "Fast As A Shark" was the first time I've heard Accept covered on this continent, and this may be the only time that anyone in attendance hears "Trapped Under Ice" live at all. They've definitely got some potential, and I'll be watching out for them in the future, but as indicated above, there's not a lot of venues in this area that bands can start out at before moving on to Ralph's and O'Brien's.
Old Code Faith [6/7]
I'd heard of these guys before, but not actually seen them; they've cropped up on a couple bills around the region that I wasn't able to make for one reason or another, so having them play for free on my own street was an excellent inducement to get out for this one. They backed up the good press that they've been getting lately with a powerful thrash/death set, including (despite my whinings in other fora to the effect of it being a lost art) a fair amount of NWOSDM, with a great and monstrous sound that really should have gotten more people moving for their large number of really good originals. The most, though, came on their covers of Pantera ("Strength Beyond Strength", neither typical nor deliberately obscurantist) and Testament, but these were also delivered with pretty much the same power and fire as their originals, even if their treatment of "D.N.R." wasn't quite to Method's standard. Hell of a good set, all around, and those into brutal thrash metal could do a lot worse than continue to watch out for this band.
Rohirrim [6/7]
This was the acid test: while the other bands on this bill are fairly accessible by normal standards, Rohirrim normally isn't; founded on fundamental black and death metal principles and stirring in folkic elements in a way that isn't usually done in this country, nor appreciated by many outside the true black hordes. The bar was full almost to Metal-Thursday standard, though, and not many left during their set, which even despite the prevalence of covers has to be deemed a success. While there was more of other people's music than I'd've ideally liked to have seen, they did play a bunch of originals (if not "A Greivous Gift", which was a shame), and they were both knocking the rust off after nearly a year of inactivity and bringing Jim (Aura of Aquila, Autumn Above; normal-sized-person-guitar) up to speed.....and playing a show in a sports bar to a bunch of people who were nearly as pasted as they were -- and you've got tae be pretty fuckin' pasted, as the band admitted, to fuck up "Last Caress". Plenty of good music, a lot of it relentlessly true, and even if there were some fuckups, it's probably the first time that Manowar and Type O have ever been covered within the same set by the same band.
Soundwise, this was a great Rohirrim set, and even though there wasn't anything really wrong with Rohirrim's four-piece setup, adding Jim is, from this sample, a good step in the right direction. He's a quality lead player and good songwriter with a style that complements Pete's without cutting against it, and his presence in the band -- and contacts elsewhere -- may help them get out of the North Shore rut.
On the other hand, if Overtime emerges as a legit venue -- to be defined as when they, like O'Brien's, have bands in six to seven nights a week, between varied genres -- it's quite possible that said "North Shore rut", primarily a problem due to an absurd lack of venues that will bring in DIY music, may become a thing of the past, and that, arguably, is a clearly better outcome for metal as a whole. We'll see; at any rate, it's good to live down the street from even an occasional music bar, and having more bands in this area being more aggressive about gigging -- and more importantly, actually getting shows -- is always a positive.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Every Shirt CII: Autumn Above
shirt: Autumn Above
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band
It's been a while since a shirt came up in this round where there could be a legitimate debate as to whether the band involved is metal or not. In this case, though, the definitional boundaries are wide enough to bring Autumn Above in, especially since there's no pre-established heaviness filter or anything. For now, at least, their Jester Race-era In-Flames-borrowings, tendency to write an Opeth break whenever songs need bridging together, Sentenced-styled lyrics and concepts, and occasional hxc backing vocals make them metal enough to get listed here; for broader purposes, the question will remain open as to whether they are a pop-rock band with Opeth breaks and a headbanging mania, or a metal band with acoustic guitars and pop vocal hooks.
As noted above, you should go listen to them, and despite the short notice you could find a hell of a lot worse things to do, if you're on the North Shore, than go see them open Witchstock this afternoon.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Autumn Above with Drunken Above and The Real Smokin' Power [Dodge Street, Salem, 10/31/2008]
In Which I Discover I Should Have Budged My Lazy Ass Up And Caught The Goddamned Train, And Am Colossally Bad At Figuring Out Alternative Ways To Go Generally North Or East From Salem, But Get A Bonus Eyefull Of Downtown Lynn And Revere.
The headline above basically says it all: when your friend's band is playing in Salem on Halloween, get there early or on public transit. Of course, had I come on the train, I would have gotten stuck thanks to sticking for the Misfits set, but as others have demonstrated, there's more than one way to get out of Salem without motor transport....though for some of those, you may need both a bicycle and a banana costume. (Don't ask. Seriously.)
So I left too later and had to drive over, which had me crunching around through the disordered mess of Salem streets with a bunch of people who didn't know where they were going, around police barricades and through hordes of drunks who believe that Halloween costumes include a force field that wards off cars. Both the railyard and downtown were kind of hopeless, and I parked off 114 on the other side from the Point, then had a way to leg back to the gig. There was allegedly another opener, but by the time I got to the venue and waited out the entry line (the one day a year that you're going to see a lineup at Dodge Street), there was basically just the one band with three faces left.
The Real Smokin' Power [5/7]
Tone and Sean's art-noise instrumental practical joke has developed further since the last time I saw them, but with the expanded audience mostly there to get drunk and slaver over girls dressed like prostitutes, they may not have gotten through to many of those in attendance. The dancing garden gnome was a nice touch that hearkened back to historical non-instrumental participants in weird North Shore bands, but it remains to be seen if this is going to be a regular feature rather than just a Halloween special. Those who "got" this set got a cool time full of both speaker-ripping distortion and layered grooves; those who were staring slackjawed got a dancing guy with a gnome mask and some thorough confusion before they waded back into the bar area.
Speaking thereof, the drinks wait for real beer was atrocious, but the club wisely put a bucket of four-dollar cans out their pickup window facing the stage room. Budweiser - It's Not Atrocious, And You Don't Have To Stand In Line For It.
Autumn Above [6/7]
The band continues to evolve; this was probably their most progressive and debatably the heaviest outing yet, but given the environment, this may not have been optimal for their prospects. They opened up with "Trail of Roses" and went backwards through To The Inferno, interspersing new material as they've been doing lately, though with the wider general audience, this might have been a good opportunity to play the CD down in order and sucker people in as they did on their early gigs, get the drunks grooving on the smooth acoustic pop-rock and slowly work the changes until they find themselves neck-deep in a morass of metallic despair. Then again, a confused and disturbed lumpenvolk doesn't exactly go over and buy CDs en masse. Regardless, this was a hell of a good set, with the band pushing harder and reaching further than they've done in the past (or are likely to do again -- see Ryan's comments on never playing three songs as one ever again, which is made more strenuous by the fact that most of AA's songs run around six and a half minutes), to good results.
Drunken Above [5/7]
This is an ad-hoc name suggested by Ryan for a merely somewhat ad-hoc band; here we had Autumn Above playing, in various configurations and with some supplemental personnel, fewer Misfits songs than they initially planned to, aided by as many beers as those of us on the floor could scare up. As alluded to, this set was cut short by the club in favor of some live techno crap that few cared about, but fortunately, Misfits songs are wicked short and fast, and we got about eight ot ten or twelve of them before the plug came out, which was enough time for a ton of frantic thrashing, an accidental fist in the head, and someone's elbow to blow up a beer bottle half over my shirt. A nice slice of fast horror punk, violence, and airborne beer; how the hell could you tell this from a 'real' Misfits show, especially since the Misfits today aren't exactly the Misfits Misfits any more? Good stuff, and it should have gone longer, but this is Salem's big Kommerz night, and something had to give.
It was shortly after 12:30 when they finally closed up, so I would have missed the last train, but I took the walk back up to my ride in stride. Unfortunately, I decided not to fight through the city center and everyone else trying to get out of Salem, and ended up going further south and west, eventually cutting through Lynn and Revere to pick up 60 to 93 to 128. I saw a lot of the southern North Shore that I don't normally see, including a closeup of the dog park at Wonderland, but this was a long drive after a late night that, given that I could have probably walked back as fast, was completely unnecessary. Good show -- not such good planning on the peripheral stuff, especially since I live here and ought to know better.
The headline above basically says it all: when your friend's band is playing in Salem on Halloween, get there early or on public transit. Of course, had I come on the train, I would have gotten stuck thanks to sticking for the Misfits set, but as others have demonstrated, there's more than one way to get out of Salem without motor transport....though for some of those, you may need both a bicycle and a banana costume. (Don't ask. Seriously.)
So I left too later and had to drive over, which had me crunching around through the disordered mess of Salem streets with a bunch of people who didn't know where they were going, around police barricades and through hordes of drunks who believe that Halloween costumes include a force field that wards off cars. Both the railyard and downtown were kind of hopeless, and I parked off 114 on the other side from the Point, then had a way to leg back to the gig. There was allegedly another opener, but by the time I got to the venue and waited out the entry line (the one day a year that you're going to see a lineup at Dodge Street), there was basically just the one band with three faces left.
The Real Smokin' Power [5/7]
Tone and Sean's art-noise instrumental practical joke has developed further since the last time I saw them, but with the expanded audience mostly there to get drunk and slaver over girls dressed like prostitutes, they may not have gotten through to many of those in attendance. The dancing garden gnome was a nice touch that hearkened back to historical non-instrumental participants in weird North Shore bands, but it remains to be seen if this is going to be a regular feature rather than just a Halloween special. Those who "got" this set got a cool time full of both speaker-ripping distortion and layered grooves; those who were staring slackjawed got a dancing guy with a gnome mask and some thorough confusion before they waded back into the bar area.
Speaking thereof, the drinks wait for real beer was atrocious, but the club wisely put a bucket of four-dollar cans out their pickup window facing the stage room. Budweiser - It's Not Atrocious, And You Don't Have To Stand In Line For It.
Autumn Above [6/7]
The band continues to evolve; this was probably their most progressive and debatably the heaviest outing yet, but given the environment, this may not have been optimal for their prospects. They opened up with "Trail of Roses" and went backwards through To The Inferno, interspersing new material as they've been doing lately, though with the wider general audience, this might have been a good opportunity to play the CD down in order and sucker people in as they did on their early gigs, get the drunks grooving on the smooth acoustic pop-rock and slowly work the changes until they find themselves neck-deep in a morass of metallic despair. Then again, a confused and disturbed lumpenvolk doesn't exactly go over and buy CDs en masse. Regardless, this was a hell of a good set, with the band pushing harder and reaching further than they've done in the past (or are likely to do again -- see Ryan's comments on never playing three songs as one ever again, which is made more strenuous by the fact that most of AA's songs run around six and a half minutes), to good results.
Drunken Above [5/7]
This is an ad-hoc name suggested by Ryan for a merely somewhat ad-hoc band; here we had Autumn Above playing, in various configurations and with some supplemental personnel, fewer Misfits songs than they initially planned to, aided by as many beers as those of us on the floor could scare up. As alluded to, this set was cut short by the club in favor of some live techno crap that few cared about, but fortunately, Misfits songs are wicked short and fast, and we got about eight ot ten or twelve of them before the plug came out, which was enough time for a ton of frantic thrashing, an accidental fist in the head, and someone's elbow to blow up a beer bottle half over my shirt. A nice slice of fast horror punk, violence, and airborne beer; how the hell could you tell this from a 'real' Misfits show, especially since the Misfits today aren't exactly the Misfits Misfits any more? Good stuff, and it should have gone longer, but this is Salem's big Kommerz night, and something had to give.
It was shortly after 12:30 when they finally closed up, so I would have missed the last train, but I took the walk back up to my ride in stride. Unfortunately, I decided not to fight through the city center and everyone else trying to get out of Salem, and ended up going further south and west, eventually cutting through Lynn and Revere to pick up 60 to 93 to 128. I saw a lot of the southern North Shore that I don't normally see, including a closeup of the dog park at Wonderland, but this was a long drive after a late night that, given that I could have probably walked back as fast, was completely unnecessary. Good show -- not such good planning on the peripheral stuff, especially since I live here and ought to know better.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Autumn Above on Loud Street Live [ADC Performance Center, Southbridge, 8/13/2008]
On the one hand, this was a long damn way to go for little reward that I couldn't've gotten over the bridge in Salem. On the other hand, I did get AA's new demo, the band made some of their costs back, and this rather pitiful and annoying excuse for a festival got a touch of class, some good music, and an actual crowd watching at least one of the bands.
Thanks to a car pool put together for the traveling support, I headed down to Southbridge with a bunch of other fans, finally getting to see this venue, which has been rumored about for like a year or so. The drive down wasn't too difficult, just long as all hell; as has been remarked in other posts peripherally mentioning this place, it is practically in freakin Connecticut, and thus, for the kind of venue it is and the bands who normally end up booked into it, way too far from the North Shore to be worth my while.
Finding the venue wasn't tough, and going in was pretty much a joke; tickets barely checked, I guess on the supposition that anyone who actually showed up only did so because they'd heard about this from a band, and bought a ticket from them -- and anytime you've got bands doing ticket sales, it's likely a p2p show, and the organizers can thus let people in basically for free, since they've made their money off the bands up front. Yes, it's bullshit, but that's why people don't like p2p shows and support them as little as they can get away with. When we got in, there was a fairly crummy radio-rock band playing in the bar that Autumn Above was going to do their set in, so after a few minutes I went over to the other bar to see if there was someone playing there, and if so, if they were any better. There was a middle-of-the-road jazz combo on stage, and they were decent if largely uninteresting. At this point, I was glad that I'd come down here on a ten-dollar ticket with friends rather than for Testament or Obituary in the past.
The setup of the individual bars that provide the two stages!!!1!one is pretty simple, on the lines of Harper's Ferry or the Middle East if they were designed by someone with their eyes screwed in backwards and a disturbed concept of usable space. The industrial heritage of the building is readily apparent with the long halls, but the stages are placed rather poorly in them, maybe due to the short supply of usable exits. Each room, on its own, has a useful capacity similar to Ralph's or Jerky's, but might have more if they were better arranged.
Eventually, after a lot of beer, popcorn, and subpar music, Autumn Above started setting up, and the "traveling support" formed up as well; partly because any band is always better seen front and center than over some weirdly-sited bar with the Red Sox game on, and partly to suggest to any of the other people (mostly other bands, and a few hangers-on) that this was a band that was worth watching front and center.
Autumn Above [6/7]
The band also did their part, putting out a strong set that even if you didn't come down with them, was definitely worth watching from up front. Like on Sunday, they started with the heavier songs first, kicking off with "Trail of Roses" and going sort of backwards...well, backwards enough to do "Burn With Me"/"Autumn Lullabye" before switching gears into "Heaven Without"/"My Everything Above" and closing -- since several of the songs mentioned so far are comfortably over eight minutes, and they only had about an hour set -- with their Opeth break (Chris has called it "Screwdriver" twice now, but I'll wait for official release before making the band's decisions for them) into "Skydiver", which now closes with a fairly developed Opeth break of its own. From about the middle of the set on, people not affiliated with the band also joined up with the crowd, hopefully getting into the music and, regardless, cluttering up the lines of sight for the festival photogs and videographers who based on prior samples were pretty used to getting right on top of the bands they were shooting without a lot of difficulty. Not so here. The performance was more solid than superlative, but a lot of this, I think, came down to technical stuff; Tone had some problems getting his sound right playing through the club's bass amp, and since we were standing ahead of the PA, what vocals we got were mostly coming out of the monitors. Good stuff, and, considering the carpool setup, worth going down to freakin Connecticut for, but a few other good bands would have made the trip substantially easier to take.
Unfortunately, that was out of the band's control, and solely on the festival's. When the next band finished setting up, and proved to be pretend-reggae instead of punk, which might have been cool, it was about time to split. (The other option, on the other stage, was a nine-man ska band complete with porkpie hats and checkered belts. Did we step through a time-portal to 1995, and if so, is there any way to get to Sweden and keep Jon Nodtveit from going completely insane in prison?) First, though, we made sure to get the promised free CDs from Jim, which turned out to be a new demo; three songs that depending on perspective are either "the rest of To The Inferno" or the seeds of a new record resolving the story; we'll likely have to wait and see on that front. Regardless, it's pretty cool stuff, more progressive and contemplative than a lot of their current material, but there's also signs that if this is the first part of a new disc, there'll be plenty of the fast-picking leads and crunching palm-muted rhythm guitars that we've become accustomed to.
The trip back was long, and not too arduous; I'd've stopped for gas and coffee had I been driving, but even without it all worked out ok, despite the distance involved. Any Texans or people from other sparsely populated regions are probably scoffing at the grousing about going only two hours to a show, but this close to Boston, there is such a variety of show choices and decent venues that to some people, going out to Worcester, barely 75 miles away, is a long stretch not worth it save for arena shows. I'm not one of them, but since I'm not really into hardcore -- with the stages raised barely eight inches, this is pretty much an ideal HXC venue -- it's going to be difficult justifying going to freakin Connecticut to see bands here that will likely be playing in New Hampshire (much closer) as well.
Thanks to a car pool put together for the traveling support, I headed down to Southbridge with a bunch of other fans, finally getting to see this venue, which has been rumored about for like a year or so. The drive down wasn't too difficult, just long as all hell; as has been remarked in other posts peripherally mentioning this place, it is practically in freakin Connecticut, and thus, for the kind of venue it is and the bands who normally end up booked into it, way too far from the North Shore to be worth my while.
Finding the venue wasn't tough, and going in was pretty much a joke; tickets barely checked, I guess on the supposition that anyone who actually showed up only did so because they'd heard about this from a band, and bought a ticket from them -- and anytime you've got bands doing ticket sales, it's likely a p2p show, and the organizers can thus let people in basically for free, since they've made their money off the bands up front. Yes, it's bullshit, but that's why people don't like p2p shows and support them as little as they can get away with. When we got in, there was a fairly crummy radio-rock band playing in the bar that Autumn Above was going to do their set in, so after a few minutes I went over to the other bar to see if there was someone playing there, and if so, if they were any better. There was a middle-of-the-road jazz combo on stage, and they were decent if largely uninteresting. At this point, I was glad that I'd come down here on a ten-dollar ticket with friends rather than for Testament or Obituary in the past.
The setup of the individual bars that provide the two stages!!!1!one is pretty simple, on the lines of Harper's Ferry or the Middle East if they were designed by someone with their eyes screwed in backwards and a disturbed concept of usable space. The industrial heritage of the building is readily apparent with the long halls, but the stages are placed rather poorly in them, maybe due to the short supply of usable exits. Each room, on its own, has a useful capacity similar to Ralph's or Jerky's, but might have more if they were better arranged.
Eventually, after a lot of beer, popcorn, and subpar music, Autumn Above started setting up, and the "traveling support" formed up as well; partly because any band is always better seen front and center than over some weirdly-sited bar with the Red Sox game on, and partly to suggest to any of the other people (mostly other bands, and a few hangers-on) that this was a band that was worth watching front and center.
Autumn Above [6/7]
The band also did their part, putting out a strong set that even if you didn't come down with them, was definitely worth watching from up front. Like on Sunday, they started with the heavier songs first, kicking off with "Trail of Roses" and going sort of backwards...well, backwards enough to do "Burn With Me"/"Autumn Lullabye" before switching gears into "Heaven Without"/"My Everything Above" and closing -- since several of the songs mentioned so far are comfortably over eight minutes, and they only had about an hour set -- with their Opeth break (Chris has called it "Screwdriver" twice now, but I'll wait for official release before making the band's decisions for them) into "Skydiver", which now closes with a fairly developed Opeth break of its own. From about the middle of the set on, people not affiliated with the band also joined up with the crowd, hopefully getting into the music and, regardless, cluttering up the lines of sight for the festival photogs and videographers who based on prior samples were pretty used to getting right on top of the bands they were shooting without a lot of difficulty. Not so here. The performance was more solid than superlative, but a lot of this, I think, came down to technical stuff; Tone had some problems getting his sound right playing through the club's bass amp, and since we were standing ahead of the PA, what vocals we got were mostly coming out of the monitors. Good stuff, and, considering the carpool setup, worth going down to freakin Connecticut for, but a few other good bands would have made the trip substantially easier to take.
Unfortunately, that was out of the band's control, and solely on the festival's. When the next band finished setting up, and proved to be pretend-reggae instead of punk, which might have been cool, it was about time to split. (The other option, on the other stage, was a nine-man ska band complete with porkpie hats and checkered belts. Did we step through a time-portal to 1995, and if so, is there any way to get to Sweden and keep Jon Nodtveit from going completely insane in prison?) First, though, we made sure to get the promised free CDs from Jim, which turned out to be a new demo; three songs that depending on perspective are either "the rest of To The Inferno" or the seeds of a new record resolving the story; we'll likely have to wait and see on that front. Regardless, it's pretty cool stuff, more progressive and contemplative than a lot of their current material, but there's also signs that if this is the first part of a new disc, there'll be plenty of the fast-picking leads and crunching palm-muted rhythm guitars that we've become accustomed to.
The trip back was long, and not too arduous; I'd've stopped for gas and coffee had I been driving, but even without it all worked out ok, despite the distance involved. Any Texans or people from other sparsely populated regions are probably scoffing at the grousing about going only two hours to a show, but this close to Boston, there is such a variety of show choices and decent venues that to some people, going out to Worcester, barely 75 miles away, is a long stretch not worth it save for arena shows. I'm not one of them, but since I'm not really into hardcore -- with the stages raised barely eight inches, this is pretty much an ideal HXC venue -- it's going to be difficult justifying going to freakin Connecticut to see bands here that will likely be playing in New Hampshire (much closer) as well.
Monday, August 11, 2008
2 shows 1 day
Sunday was a rather epic day for music, in which I first finally got my butt in gear and got down to the NEDF, and then closed out the day with a friend's band in my home stomping grounds. It was a fair bit of driving, but definitely worthwhile in terms of the music.
New England Deathfest (day 2)
Jerky's and Club Hell, Providence, 8/10/2008
--
After missing the first day while recuperating from Wacken and planning to go to a show that I actually ended up missing, I finally got my shit in gear and headed down 95 to Providence for the first half of the second day of the NEDF. Under ideal circumstances, I'd've stuck for the second half as well, but I had to work in the morning, and driving the 80 miles back while exhausted was tough enough when I ended up doing it. Finding the venue was easy enough; the place is pretty much right off 195 just as this road splits off 95, and there were parking lots everywhere, which being Sunday were completely free; dunno how good the parking situation here is mid-week.
Though I got in right about the time Strappado was supposed to start, I ended up hanging on the sidewalk for a while; Hivesmasher cancelled shortly before the fest, which meant that everything got shifted back about half an hour. So I stood around, got pumped for Wacken info, and generally shot the shit until the club people had their stuff ready to start letting us one-dayers in.
Since Strappado wasn't starting until like 2:25, I had a bit of time to browse the merch stands and begin my day-long descent into an empty wallet and full vest pockets. Highlights include Toxik, Master, Witch Trap, Vomit Remnants, Crucified Mortals, and a bunch of other stuff that I still have to listen through; no Intestine Baalism, but you can't have everything.
Strappado [5/7]
This group, featuring members of Sexcrement and Revocation, has been a 'band in being' for a long time, though mostly in theory and in name as opposed to one that plays music. This was, according to Anthony before the event, their first show ever, and it showed; not a lack of practice, cohesion, or technique, but only that they had a total of five songs prepared, and thus didn't run for their full allotted time. This might see some raised eyebrows, but only if you're mental and don't take into consideration the fact that most of the lineup is also in some of New England's most active and well-liked extreme metal bands. Strappado may be an incidental side project, but the material that they had ready here was good stuff, old-school brutal death that made a nice start to the day, and if it was short, definitely left the audience wanting more.
Composted [6/7]
Slam-diculous as usual, New England's masters of absurdist extremes took the stage unfortunately without Rich, but dressed to the nines for the occasion: Mark and Dave taking a swipe at the "wiggerslam" criticisms levied at this festival by those who somehow missed Skinless, Dying Fetus, and Mortal Decay at the top of the bills, and Eliot, to remind any out-of-the-loop old bangers that this was in jest, wearing fairy wings, scuba flippers, and a pink pool noodle out the front of his crotch. The set was as bizarre, hilarious, and brutally tight as might be expected; killer stuff, including some newer material that they haven't done live as much, but unfortunately marred as an experience by something out of the band's control.
About halfway through the set, this big dude starts spinning and thrashing around, and he ended up spin-kicking a guy in the face, who was standing on the edge of the floor and didn't see him coming. The combination of 'huge guy', 'foot to the jaw', and 'completely unprepared' resulted in an immediate knockout; the band kept going, but the club guys with first aid training and a couple metalheads (including me) moved him out of the line of fire and tried to get him stabilized, once we established that he was still alive and there wasn't much chance of spinal damage, while his kid called in the paramedics. The incident ended up looking a lot worse than it actually was; within 10 minutes, he'd come around and was talking, moving his appendages, and trying to sit up by the time the ambulance arrived. They still collared and backboarded him, though, and took him out for evaluation; even if he got away with only a concussion and a bitten lip, it's still worth the medical attention rather than just leaving him at a metal show.
There was some scuttlebutt at the fest that this might have been an intentional attack, but this is bullshit circulated by people who didn't see it go down; unfortunately, circumstances combined that gave such scurrilious rumors credence. First, the guy who got knocked out was standing in the back, on the side, away from the part of the floor where you're likely to eat a flying fist or foot; he was being a smart non-mosher and standing somewhere where there was as reasonable an expectation of not getting hurt as you're likely to have at an underground show. Second, the dude who hit him was not in among those of us holding his hands and keeping his head still until the rescue team arrived; while if you don't know the guy, and maybe are coming from a scene where the expectation is that the friends of a guy who gets hurt are on a hair trigger, this is slightly understandable, there were still a lot of people here who believe that if a guy goes down near you, whether you were the one who put him on the floor or not, he becomes your responsibility, and not picking that responsibility up looks suspicious. There was no malice here, just maybe not as much forethought as might have been desired.
Fortunately, word came in later that Allen was doing all right, and his kid eventually did come back to the festival, though not before I left. Horns up, Mr. Chen; finish getting well soon.
After recovering my jacket from under Allen's head when the paramedics picked him up, I went back upstairs to try and watch some more death metal.
Without Remorse [4.5/7]
With your eyes closed, this Long Island combo sounded much like a decent ripoff of Long Island's most famous death metal export (and if you don't know who the band in question is, why are you reading this far about NEDF?); unfortunately, I'm too much of an old stick-in-the-mud to not get cognitive dissonance seeing such performed by guys in flat-billed hats and basketball shorts, talking like rappers between songs. It was decent music, but they'd've done better if there was more hardcore or deathcore on the bill -- and if most of the audience hadn't just been down at Composted and seen one of their own get knocked out, which probably suppressed the mosh impetus a little, and which the band probably wasn't themselves aware of. Some people did get violent, and I ended up accidentally getting punched in the head by Paul from Proteus, but overall this was the down set of what I saw, though likely more due to complete exhaustion than to just non-inspiring music.
Somewhere around here I significantly injured my left wrist; not sure if it was during Composted and I was concentrating on someone with a much more major injury and didn't notice, or if I got socked during Without Remorse. Whatever; it now hurts like hell whenever I try to bend it in certain directions, but I'll live.
As they finished, Blue, the headman of the fest, announced that Behead The Lamb wasn't going to be able to make it; this freed up some time to walk around, get some eats, and generally decompress from the events of the morning. I ended up going up the street a ways to get some pizza; this part of Providence is flat dead on a Sunday afternoon, the streets silent and empty of traffic, only a few people walking around here and there. Despite the sour taste of some of the morning, there were little bits of larger metalfests present as well; normal establishments invaded by black-shirted longhairs, people grilling at their 'campsite' (on the sidewalk by their car, but what the hell), hot girls in Endstille shirts -- wait, what again? Her boyfriend was in an Obscene Extreme lineup shirt, so it's pretty clear that other people from around here also go bang their heads in central Europe; the more we can bring that spirit back here, the more future iterations of this fest will go from strength to strength.
Abacinate [5/7]
Now this was a pleasant surprise; a band from New Jersey that didn't sound like Waking The Cadaver. They brought one of the WTC guys up for guest vocals on one song, but mostly stuck to kickass old-school brutality in the vein of a less-evolved Decrepit Birth. It made for a good restart after the downtime, and some fun headbanging, along with a few breakdowns for the ninjas. Good stuff from a traveling band; I picked up one of their shirts later, a merch Spende that I didn't make for the New England acts on the bill...mainly because I have shirts from most to all of them already, and Dwyer didn't seem to have his table out so that I could drop the last of my change on a Goreality hat.
Revocation [6.5/7]
Another fucking amazing set from Revocation, but unfortunately the sound wasn't super-kind to them. The upstairs sound was clean and sharp, while downstairs in Club Hell often came off fuzzy with overdriven bass. Most of their sound got through, though, and the Empire material is so completely dominating you could play it to your friend over the telephone and it'd still rule. They covered "Symbolic" (Dave: "It's the Deathfest, so let's play some Death!"), and interestingly Dave did his own solos rather than following Chuck's as he's done in the past; it takes a lot of confidence in your abilities as a guitarist to play your own notes over Chuck Schuldiner's changes, but if you can pull it off, as Revocation did here, it's massive win in getting to the real heart of the material. Great stuff, great time.
I finally bought Empire of the Obscene, and it is currently on repeat in my car. What an absolutely incredible album. No words, just get it; no idea how they haven't been picked up yet, though with the standard "dry buttrape" contracts available to bands putting out their first full-length, they may have decided to just DIY it for a while until a major (CM, Relapse, etc) makes them an offer with some actual meat in it.
Proteus [5.5/7]
I went upstairs, then, and saw Proteus with my back against the bar. This is the outcome of one of those tough decisions that you have to make every once in a while; I love how Proteus mixes up post-rock and extreme death metal, but hate getting spin-kicked, and it's pretty much a given that at any Proteus show in New England, at some point Will from Dysentery is going to flip out and completely destroy someone. Thus the bar thing, and the set went pretty much as expected; Proteus was great, though not quite as overwhelming as when I saw them in Haverhill (Drew's bass still sounded a little low in the mix), people went crazy in the pit, Will shoved half a dozen people nearly out the door, and I didn't get kicked by anyone. If I still had a functioning knee, maybe I'd've been in closer, but that's not something I can count on at this point.
During Proteus' set, I finally finished the Narraganset that I picked up in the downstairs bar before Revocation went on. That stuff is absolute swill, worse than PBR; I swear it smells like vomit even coming out of the can, but that may just be me stinking from sweating all day, and the corollary stench of hanging with 30-70 other metalheads who've been doing the same.
Goreality [6/7]
Back downstairs for Goreality; I'm not sure I'd seen them with the new singer previously, but the performance was still everything you could have wanted from them. The sound hit like a ton of bricks, and though it was still a little fuzzed, the sound board did better for them than for the other bands I saw down here. This was some good shit, front to back, and while immensely brutal, not a whole lot of mosh going on; everyone was too dialed in on the band, which, at least for us old people, is the way it oughta be. Killer set; shame that I wasn't able to stay longer.
Every single comment I've seen on this festival has been immensely lauditory, and it should be; even for the brief time that I was able to participate, it was almost without exception an awesome experience, full of quality death metal of all kinds, in a good environment with ready cameraderie and inexpensive beer. Blue and those who assisted him did a great job on the organization, keeping everything rolling despite the really large bill for a first-year fest and the vagaries of DIY bands who may just not be able to make the show for reasons totally outside their control. This wasn't a perfect fest, but it was damn good, about as good as we're going to get on this continent, and the organizers are definitely smart enough to look at what worked and what didn't, then make the necessary changes to make next year's even better. This gig won't be moving outside anytime soon -- blame the alcohol laws for this, and those in change of enforcing them for their zeal and enthusiasm -- but for a club fest, this one is as close as we're likely to get.
As I drove north, I closed in on a huge electrical storm that was moving west to east, and barely managed to get across the front of it before the rain arrived in force. The views of the storm were just unbelievable; someday when I get a car I care enough to customize, I'm going to get a camera built in coaxial with my line of vision, focused lens-to-infinity, and not miss out on this cool stuff just because I have to keep my vehicle from crashing into others or driving off the road or such.
In the end, I got back home in good time to fit out again, and head down to.....
Slow Fuse Burning with Autumn Above, The Real Smokin' Power, and Cape Terra
Dodge Street, Salem, 8/10/2008
--
This was not a metal show, and will not be rated as such, but I still showed up to this bar, recently highlighted as one of the best live music venues north of Boston, stinking of NEDF and wearing my Sodom-enabled flak vest. Part of it was the timing dimension -- I barely had the chance to take the CDs out of my vest before heading over -- and part of it was deliberate, but there was no fear and revulsion, so I guess things were ok.
Cape Terra [NR]
I got in about midway through their set, and drank part of a Guinness listening; decent but nothing to write home about as long as you had rock radio on at some point between about 1996 and 1998. Post-grunge, vaguely indie, peripherally interesting and mildly entertaining, they never really stepped out and established themselves, but in this genre I'm not exactly sure that bands are supposed to. I don't have much of any point of evaluation, but they weren't terrible, so if you like alt-rock from that period, you may want to check them out.
The Real Smokin' Power [5/7]
An instrumental collaboration between Sean (drums) and Tone (bass) of Autumn Above, this band showed some interesting promise and some cool lines, but wasn't quite as developed as perhaps they'll be if it turns into a real project instead of just a guaranteed undercard for the members' main band. The bass was too low at the start, a right problem when there's no other non-percussion instruments, but this was rapidly settled, and the short but definitely thoroughly cool set rolled on.
Autumn Above [6/7]
They changed up the order for this set, doing their heavier songs earlier instead of later, but aside from some clammed notes early where Ryan's voice wasn't completely warmed up, this was another great performance from a band that continues to be solid in everything they do. This wasn't as apex a performance as they've done in the past, but for a non-headlining slot, it was rock-solid.
They finally had shirts available, and also mentioned a couple times the anti-drunk-driving fest they're playing at the ADC in Southbridge this week; hopefully people hit them up for merch and tickets, because between them and Slow Fuse Burning, the nominal headliners, the venue kind of emptied out. It was a Sunday night, but seriously, sticking around another half hour isn't going to kill you. The sensible thing might have been to rearrange the lineup as has been done at a couple O'Brien's shows I can recall where the headliner was going to be outdrawn by the top local support, but unfortunately the fact that RSP was playing -- and, of course, using Autumn Above's gear -- kind of complicated this. More people might stick later, but some might just leave with the extra time needed to tear down and build up Sean's kit twice.
Slow Fuse Burning [5/7]
Again, not especially germane for rating, but they were a good time; punk bands who like late Bad Religion (and probably some other canonical influences, but I'm not a punk guy) a lot are seldom unwelcome, and even though they were playing to a handful of people, most of whom were in Autumn Above, they didn't let it affect their professionalism or their performance. Pretty decent; I sprang for a CD as they were going for a largely optional $3, then split; Slow Fuse Burning may not have been quite like the band who, also, had only five songs prepared with whom I started the day, but they provided a good enough finish to it.
Now that's a day worth recording; eleven bands in three venues with some impressive separation between two of them. The road continues later this week; after Autumn Above Wednesday, I'll be out in Worcester for Testament and Motorhead (with a bunch of crummy undercard bands and Arsis) on Thursday and Friday respectively. After that, I can sleep, and feel a little less down about not doing more German fests this year.
New England Deathfest (day 2)
Jerky's and Club Hell, Providence, 8/10/2008
--
After missing the first day while recuperating from Wacken and planning to go to a show that I actually ended up missing, I finally got my shit in gear and headed down 95 to Providence for the first half of the second day of the NEDF. Under ideal circumstances, I'd've stuck for the second half as well, but I had to work in the morning, and driving the 80 miles back while exhausted was tough enough when I ended up doing it. Finding the venue was easy enough; the place is pretty much right off 195 just as this road splits off 95, and there were parking lots everywhere, which being Sunday were completely free; dunno how good the parking situation here is mid-week.
Though I got in right about the time Strappado was supposed to start, I ended up hanging on the sidewalk for a while; Hivesmasher cancelled shortly before the fest, which meant that everything got shifted back about half an hour. So I stood around, got pumped for Wacken info, and generally shot the shit until the club people had their stuff ready to start letting us one-dayers in.
Since Strappado wasn't starting until like 2:25, I had a bit of time to browse the merch stands and begin my day-long descent into an empty wallet and full vest pockets. Highlights include Toxik, Master, Witch Trap, Vomit Remnants, Crucified Mortals, and a bunch of other stuff that I still have to listen through; no Intestine Baalism, but you can't have everything.
Strappado [5/7]
This group, featuring members of Sexcrement and Revocation, has been a 'band in being' for a long time, though mostly in theory and in name as opposed to one that plays music. This was, according to Anthony before the event, their first show ever, and it showed; not a lack of practice, cohesion, or technique, but only that they had a total of five songs prepared, and thus didn't run for their full allotted time. This might see some raised eyebrows, but only if you're mental and don't take into consideration the fact that most of the lineup is also in some of New England's most active and well-liked extreme metal bands. Strappado may be an incidental side project, but the material that they had ready here was good stuff, old-school brutal death that made a nice start to the day, and if it was short, definitely left the audience wanting more.
Composted [6/7]
Slam-diculous as usual, New England's masters of absurdist extremes took the stage unfortunately without Rich, but dressed to the nines for the occasion: Mark and Dave taking a swipe at the "wiggerslam" criticisms levied at this festival by those who somehow missed Skinless, Dying Fetus, and Mortal Decay at the top of the bills, and Eliot, to remind any out-of-the-loop old bangers that this was in jest, wearing fairy wings, scuba flippers, and a pink pool noodle out the front of his crotch. The set was as bizarre, hilarious, and brutally tight as might be expected; killer stuff, including some newer material that they haven't done live as much, but unfortunately marred as an experience by something out of the band's control.
About halfway through the set, this big dude starts spinning and thrashing around, and he ended up spin-kicking a guy in the face, who was standing on the edge of the floor and didn't see him coming. The combination of 'huge guy', 'foot to the jaw', and 'completely unprepared' resulted in an immediate knockout; the band kept going, but the club guys with first aid training and a couple metalheads (including me) moved him out of the line of fire and tried to get him stabilized, once we established that he was still alive and there wasn't much chance of spinal damage, while his kid called in the paramedics. The incident ended up looking a lot worse than it actually was; within 10 minutes, he'd come around and was talking, moving his appendages, and trying to sit up by the time the ambulance arrived. They still collared and backboarded him, though, and took him out for evaluation; even if he got away with only a concussion and a bitten lip, it's still worth the medical attention rather than just leaving him at a metal show.
There was some scuttlebutt at the fest that this might have been an intentional attack, but this is bullshit circulated by people who didn't see it go down; unfortunately, circumstances combined that gave such scurrilious rumors credence. First, the guy who got knocked out was standing in the back, on the side, away from the part of the floor where you're likely to eat a flying fist or foot; he was being a smart non-mosher and standing somewhere where there was as reasonable an expectation of not getting hurt as you're likely to have at an underground show. Second, the dude who hit him was not in among those of us holding his hands and keeping his head still until the rescue team arrived; while if you don't know the guy, and maybe are coming from a scene where the expectation is that the friends of a guy who gets hurt are on a hair trigger, this is slightly understandable, there were still a lot of people here who believe that if a guy goes down near you, whether you were the one who put him on the floor or not, he becomes your responsibility, and not picking that responsibility up looks suspicious. There was no malice here, just maybe not as much forethought as might have been desired.
Fortunately, word came in later that Allen was doing all right, and his kid eventually did come back to the festival, though not before I left. Horns up, Mr. Chen; finish getting well soon.
After recovering my jacket from under Allen's head when the paramedics picked him up, I went back upstairs to try and watch some more death metal.
Without Remorse [4.5/7]
With your eyes closed, this Long Island combo sounded much like a decent ripoff of Long Island's most famous death metal export (and if you don't know who the band in question is, why are you reading this far about NEDF?); unfortunately, I'm too much of an old stick-in-the-mud to not get cognitive dissonance seeing such performed by guys in flat-billed hats and basketball shorts, talking like rappers between songs. It was decent music, but they'd've done better if there was more hardcore or deathcore on the bill -- and if most of the audience hadn't just been down at Composted and seen one of their own get knocked out, which probably suppressed the mosh impetus a little, and which the band probably wasn't themselves aware of. Some people did get violent, and I ended up accidentally getting punched in the head by Paul from Proteus, but overall this was the down set of what I saw, though likely more due to complete exhaustion than to just non-inspiring music.
Somewhere around here I significantly injured my left wrist; not sure if it was during Composted and I was concentrating on someone with a much more major injury and didn't notice, or if I got socked during Without Remorse. Whatever; it now hurts like hell whenever I try to bend it in certain directions, but I'll live.
As they finished, Blue, the headman of the fest, announced that Behead The Lamb wasn't going to be able to make it; this freed up some time to walk around, get some eats, and generally decompress from the events of the morning. I ended up going up the street a ways to get some pizza; this part of Providence is flat dead on a Sunday afternoon, the streets silent and empty of traffic, only a few people walking around here and there. Despite the sour taste of some of the morning, there were little bits of larger metalfests present as well; normal establishments invaded by black-shirted longhairs, people grilling at their 'campsite' (on the sidewalk by their car, but what the hell), hot girls in Endstille shirts -- wait, what again? Her boyfriend was in an Obscene Extreme lineup shirt, so it's pretty clear that other people from around here also go bang their heads in central Europe; the more we can bring that spirit back here, the more future iterations of this fest will go from strength to strength.
Abacinate [5/7]
Now this was a pleasant surprise; a band from New Jersey that didn't sound like Waking The Cadaver. They brought one of the WTC guys up for guest vocals on one song, but mostly stuck to kickass old-school brutality in the vein of a less-evolved Decrepit Birth. It made for a good restart after the downtime, and some fun headbanging, along with a few breakdowns for the ninjas. Good stuff from a traveling band; I picked up one of their shirts later, a merch Spende that I didn't make for the New England acts on the bill...mainly because I have shirts from most to all of them already, and Dwyer didn't seem to have his table out so that I could drop the last of my change on a Goreality hat.
Revocation [6.5/7]
Another fucking amazing set from Revocation, but unfortunately the sound wasn't super-kind to them. The upstairs sound was clean and sharp, while downstairs in Club Hell often came off fuzzy with overdriven bass. Most of their sound got through, though, and the Empire material is so completely dominating you could play it to your friend over the telephone and it'd still rule. They covered "Symbolic" (Dave: "It's the Deathfest, so let's play some Death!"), and interestingly Dave did his own solos rather than following Chuck's as he's done in the past; it takes a lot of confidence in your abilities as a guitarist to play your own notes over Chuck Schuldiner's changes, but if you can pull it off, as Revocation did here, it's massive win in getting to the real heart of the material. Great stuff, great time.
I finally bought Empire of the Obscene, and it is currently on repeat in my car. What an absolutely incredible album. No words, just get it; no idea how they haven't been picked up yet, though with the standard "dry buttrape" contracts available to bands putting out their first full-length, they may have decided to just DIY it for a while until a major (CM, Relapse, etc) makes them an offer with some actual meat in it.
Proteus [5.5/7]
I went upstairs, then, and saw Proteus with my back against the bar. This is the outcome of one of those tough decisions that you have to make every once in a while; I love how Proteus mixes up post-rock and extreme death metal, but hate getting spin-kicked, and it's pretty much a given that at any Proteus show in New England, at some point Will from Dysentery is going to flip out and completely destroy someone. Thus the bar thing, and the set went pretty much as expected; Proteus was great, though not quite as overwhelming as when I saw them in Haverhill (Drew's bass still sounded a little low in the mix), people went crazy in the pit, Will shoved half a dozen people nearly out the door, and I didn't get kicked by anyone. If I still had a functioning knee, maybe I'd've been in closer, but that's not something I can count on at this point.
During Proteus' set, I finally finished the Narraganset that I picked up in the downstairs bar before Revocation went on. That stuff is absolute swill, worse than PBR; I swear it smells like vomit even coming out of the can, but that may just be me stinking from sweating all day, and the corollary stench of hanging with 30-70 other metalheads who've been doing the same.
Goreality [6/7]
Back downstairs for Goreality; I'm not sure I'd seen them with the new singer previously, but the performance was still everything you could have wanted from them. The sound hit like a ton of bricks, and though it was still a little fuzzed, the sound board did better for them than for the other bands I saw down here. This was some good shit, front to back, and while immensely brutal, not a whole lot of mosh going on; everyone was too dialed in on the band, which, at least for us old people, is the way it oughta be. Killer set; shame that I wasn't able to stay longer.
Every single comment I've seen on this festival has been immensely lauditory, and it should be; even for the brief time that I was able to participate, it was almost without exception an awesome experience, full of quality death metal of all kinds, in a good environment with ready cameraderie and inexpensive beer. Blue and those who assisted him did a great job on the organization, keeping everything rolling despite the really large bill for a first-year fest and the vagaries of DIY bands who may just not be able to make the show for reasons totally outside their control. This wasn't a perfect fest, but it was damn good, about as good as we're going to get on this continent, and the organizers are definitely smart enough to look at what worked and what didn't, then make the necessary changes to make next year's even better. This gig won't be moving outside anytime soon -- blame the alcohol laws for this, and those in change of enforcing them for their zeal and enthusiasm -- but for a club fest, this one is as close as we're likely to get.
As I drove north, I closed in on a huge electrical storm that was moving west to east, and barely managed to get across the front of it before the rain arrived in force. The views of the storm were just unbelievable; someday when I get a car I care enough to customize, I'm going to get a camera built in coaxial with my line of vision, focused lens-to-infinity, and not miss out on this cool stuff just because I have to keep my vehicle from crashing into others or driving off the road or such.
In the end, I got back home in good time to fit out again, and head down to.....
Slow Fuse Burning with Autumn Above, The Real Smokin' Power, and Cape Terra
Dodge Street, Salem, 8/10/2008
--
This was not a metal show, and will not be rated as such, but I still showed up to this bar, recently highlighted as one of the best live music venues north of Boston, stinking of NEDF and wearing my Sodom-enabled flak vest. Part of it was the timing dimension -- I barely had the chance to take the CDs out of my vest before heading over -- and part of it was deliberate, but there was no fear and revulsion, so I guess things were ok.
Cape Terra [NR]
I got in about midway through their set, and drank part of a Guinness listening; decent but nothing to write home about as long as you had rock radio on at some point between about 1996 and 1998. Post-grunge, vaguely indie, peripherally interesting and mildly entertaining, they never really stepped out and established themselves, but in this genre I'm not exactly sure that bands are supposed to. I don't have much of any point of evaluation, but they weren't terrible, so if you like alt-rock from that period, you may want to check them out.
The Real Smokin' Power [5/7]
An instrumental collaboration between Sean (drums) and Tone (bass) of Autumn Above, this band showed some interesting promise and some cool lines, but wasn't quite as developed as perhaps they'll be if it turns into a real project instead of just a guaranteed undercard for the members' main band. The bass was too low at the start, a right problem when there's no other non-percussion instruments, but this was rapidly settled, and the short but definitely thoroughly cool set rolled on.
Autumn Above [6/7]
They changed up the order for this set, doing their heavier songs earlier instead of later, but aside from some clammed notes early where Ryan's voice wasn't completely warmed up, this was another great performance from a band that continues to be solid in everything they do. This wasn't as apex a performance as they've done in the past, but for a non-headlining slot, it was rock-solid.
They finally had shirts available, and also mentioned a couple times the anti-drunk-driving fest they're playing at the ADC in Southbridge this week; hopefully people hit them up for merch and tickets, because between them and Slow Fuse Burning, the nominal headliners, the venue kind of emptied out. It was a Sunday night, but seriously, sticking around another half hour isn't going to kill you. The sensible thing might have been to rearrange the lineup as has been done at a couple O'Brien's shows I can recall where the headliner was going to be outdrawn by the top local support, but unfortunately the fact that RSP was playing -- and, of course, using Autumn Above's gear -- kind of complicated this. More people might stick later, but some might just leave with the extra time needed to tear down and build up Sean's kit twice.
Slow Fuse Burning [5/7]
Again, not especially germane for rating, but they were a good time; punk bands who like late Bad Religion (and probably some other canonical influences, but I'm not a punk guy) a lot are seldom unwelcome, and even though they were playing to a handful of people, most of whom were in Autumn Above, they didn't let it affect their professionalism or their performance. Pretty decent; I sprang for a CD as they were going for a largely optional $3, then split; Slow Fuse Burning may not have been quite like the band who, also, had only five songs prepared with whom I started the day, but they provided a good enough finish to it.
Now that's a day worth recording; eleven bands in three venues with some impressive separation between two of them. The road continues later this week; after Autumn Above Wednesday, I'll be out in Worcester for Testament and Motorhead (with a bunch of crummy undercard bands and Arsis) on Thursday and Friday respectively. After that, I can sleep, and feel a little less down about not doing more German fests this year.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Autumn Above (opening for some other bands) [Midway Cafe, Boston, 6/6/2008]
This was a congested night for shows, at least originally, but then Welfare Records closed, knocking the MPD gig off the calendar. The record store is still there, but Massachusetts lost another really good venue to the bullshit intersection of antediluvian alcohol laws and immature gimboids all too willing to flaunt them. This was a well-placed venue for access with a good management team that brought in uniformly good bills and put together a positive environment for them, but now, alas, it is no more. This leaves a critical lack of venues between Boston and Manchester, and though Bernie (of Mark's Showplace infamy) has been connected with a revival of Club 125 in Haverhill (the converted Pizza Hut that I nearly saw Kreator at in 2002), I wouldn't expect a whole shitton. Bad stuff all around.
Anyway, the lack of MPD made this a choice between Composted and Autumn Above, which was originally pretty clear; Autumn Above, while awesome, has a marked tendency to play shows with annoying or boring bands, and there was a lot of awesome death metal on the O'Brien's bill. It was still a tough choice, but made easier when I found out that Autumn Above was opening up their gig: instead of having to pick a show, I could attempt the nearly impossible and try to go to both, using the MBTA to make the transition.
This plan worked perfectly to start: parked at Green Street on time, down the Red Line to the Orange Line to JP and over to the Midway to see my boys. The gig was good (see below), but I got out a little late, which turned out to be a problem. I barely missed the train out of Green Street and ended up sitting for longer than I figured on. The delays piled up, and by the time I got to my last decision point, at Kenmore, it was already nudging past midnight. I got off the train and gave up. Maybe I could have kept on and seen some of their set, though I'd already missed Moral Decay, who I really should have bitten the bullet to see in Worcester on Thursday, as well as Psytoxia and Unholy Goatfucker. Maybe I made the wrong decision and should have just gone to Allston, period, but Autumn Above are still my guys, and they put up a good enough set that it was time well spent, even if it wasn't perfectly optimal.
Back to the gig: I got down, as described, in a timely manner, and got a beer or two while waiting for the bands to start. DIY, as it turns out, is more or less the same wherever you go: late starts, lineups in flux, and the non-affiliated fans a bare handful in number. Midway, though, is still a nice DIY venue whether it's metal or alt-rock, as here: good atmosphere, decent food next door, and fairly cheap PBR. Among the fellow denizens were an old scene vet recently back in the area, chummy with the barkeep and setting up a regular gig, calling down one of his old bandmates to hang. This was a guy to mark for me, at least, because his reaction would be a good benchmark for how people will react to Autumn Above coming from really flat zero. Their fans love them, but a lot of their fans at this point are old friends, old schoolmates, and old vets of the North Shore metal scene, with a lot of overlap between those three groups. Their current mini-tour may lead to bigger tours, and out on the road they've got to be able to convert people, and opinion leaders as well as the easily impressionable.
Autumn Above were supposed to go on second, but got 'promoted' to the opening slot (not noticeably earlier) when the opening band failed to show (DIY, how we love ye). They took a while setting up due to the sound guy bringing all their mics in correctly, but start they did, and it didn't take them long to get things cranked up.
This band, especially with a set like this where they run the CD basically straight down, is a band that kind of sneaks up on you, much like tequila or a shark pretending to deliver candygrams. At first, with the mics still not completely balanced and with a lot of straight pop riffs and construction in the early songs, they're easy to miscategorize as a Plain Old Indie Band. I think after "Skydiver", that old hipster mentioned earlier said something dismissive about power chords and turned back to the bar. This was the last I saw directly of him, because the bar was filling up, and I was getting pushed ahead -- actually, make that "pushed" ahead; sure, I could have left my back on the brass rail, but the good part was just getting started.
So you think you have them figured as a pop band, and maybe you think that they have three guitars because they're all friends all in, mostly doubling and occasionally tripling parts. Maybe you think Jim's Misfits shirt is ironic, if a little odd. Then the lyrics start to get a little more twisted, and maybe you notice a little more palm-muting slicing out of the rhythm guitars -- Tone's bass definitely seems to have a little more bite to it, but this it a pop band, right, and it's not too far out of character. Things push forward, and you don't think about frogs in boiling water -- if you did, there wouldn't be cause to -- and you continue to think you have the measure of the band, which is about the same as where they were at the beginning. And then at some point -- maybe when Chris is screaming for divine retribution, maybe when the vocal styles swap rapidly in and back from five-part crooning to HXC barks, maybe when a facemelting solo leads into a Maiden/In Flames bridge (all of this on acoustics still, mind), maybe when the phrase "double homicide to suicide" comes up, maybe when the kid in the Mortician shirt mimes cutting a throat, or maybe when "Trail of Roses" winds up on a hate-filled burst of a lyric that might, depending on everyone's vocal cords, well come out as half black metal -- you get snapped back to reality and find out that the band that concludes the set is not the band that started it, and they are a lot more talented, deep, and complex than you figured, and, oh yeah, they half ripped your face off while you weren't looking. As soon as I determined that they weren't going to go on and close with "Eulogy", I looked back to the bar for that jaded scenester mentioned earlier, finding him as he leaned back and mouthed "wow" to his old guitarist; if he wasn't impressed, which he may still have been, he was definitely taken aback, and by my assessment the band will take that reaction if they can't get instant devotion. ;)
Autumn Above is still not a metal band, but from this performance, they've decidedly come to terms with their metal roots -- and metal side, in the case of those members still gigging with metal bands -- and are using that heritage to sharpen and intensify their sound. Perhaps the pop and prog elements are equally strong, but it does seem like they've reached a point where they've balanced their influences to satisfaction, and it's going to be really cool to see where they go with these strands on their future material.
Final score? 6/7; this wasn't the best gig I've seen from them, and it ended up a little short, but they fought through a number of technical difficulties -- the power cord on Ryan's amp died, and Anthony busted his A-string midway through "Burn With Me" (if I recall the song correctly) and had to do a field repair onstage -- and definitely impressed a bunch of people. If their tour shows go this well, they won't have any problem getting invited back. It would have been a better night if I'd been able to get up to O'B's, and the other bands on this bill might have been entertaining had I stuck, but even just with this much, it was a hell of a night.
Anyway, the lack of MPD made this a choice between Composted and Autumn Above, which was originally pretty clear; Autumn Above, while awesome, has a marked tendency to play shows with annoying or boring bands, and there was a lot of awesome death metal on the O'Brien's bill. It was still a tough choice, but made easier when I found out that Autumn Above was opening up their gig: instead of having to pick a show, I could attempt the nearly impossible and try to go to both, using the MBTA to make the transition.
This plan worked perfectly to start: parked at Green Street on time, down the Red Line to the Orange Line to JP and over to the Midway to see my boys. The gig was good (see below), but I got out a little late, which turned out to be a problem. I barely missed the train out of Green Street and ended up sitting for longer than I figured on. The delays piled up, and by the time I got to my last decision point, at Kenmore, it was already nudging past midnight. I got off the train and gave up. Maybe I could have kept on and seen some of their set, though I'd already missed Moral Decay, who I really should have bitten the bullet to see in Worcester on Thursday, as well as Psytoxia and Unholy Goatfucker. Maybe I made the wrong decision and should have just gone to Allston, period, but Autumn Above are still my guys, and they put up a good enough set that it was time well spent, even if it wasn't perfectly optimal.
Back to the gig: I got down, as described, in a timely manner, and got a beer or two while waiting for the bands to start. DIY, as it turns out, is more or less the same wherever you go: late starts, lineups in flux, and the non-affiliated fans a bare handful in number. Midway, though, is still a nice DIY venue whether it's metal or alt-rock, as here: good atmosphere, decent food next door, and fairly cheap PBR. Among the fellow denizens were an old scene vet recently back in the area, chummy with the barkeep and setting up a regular gig, calling down one of his old bandmates to hang. This was a guy to mark for me, at least, because his reaction would be a good benchmark for how people will react to Autumn Above coming from really flat zero. Their fans love them, but a lot of their fans at this point are old friends, old schoolmates, and old vets of the North Shore metal scene, with a lot of overlap between those three groups. Their current mini-tour may lead to bigger tours, and out on the road they've got to be able to convert people, and opinion leaders as well as the easily impressionable.
Autumn Above were supposed to go on second, but got 'promoted' to the opening slot (not noticeably earlier) when the opening band failed to show (DIY, how we love ye). They took a while setting up due to the sound guy bringing all their mics in correctly, but start they did, and it didn't take them long to get things cranked up.
This band, especially with a set like this where they run the CD basically straight down, is a band that kind of sneaks up on you, much like tequila or a shark pretending to deliver candygrams. At first, with the mics still not completely balanced and with a lot of straight pop riffs and construction in the early songs, they're easy to miscategorize as a Plain Old Indie Band. I think after "Skydiver", that old hipster mentioned earlier said something dismissive about power chords and turned back to the bar. This was the last I saw directly of him, because the bar was filling up, and I was getting pushed ahead -- actually, make that "pushed" ahead; sure, I could have left my back on the brass rail, but the good part was just getting started.
So you think you have them figured as a pop band, and maybe you think that they have three guitars because they're all friends all in, mostly doubling and occasionally tripling parts. Maybe you think Jim's Misfits shirt is ironic, if a little odd. Then the lyrics start to get a little more twisted, and maybe you notice a little more palm-muting slicing out of the rhythm guitars -- Tone's bass definitely seems to have a little more bite to it, but this it a pop band, right, and it's not too far out of character. Things push forward, and you don't think about frogs in boiling water -- if you did, there wouldn't be cause to -- and you continue to think you have the measure of the band, which is about the same as where they were at the beginning. And then at some point -- maybe when Chris is screaming for divine retribution, maybe when the vocal styles swap rapidly in and back from five-part crooning to HXC barks, maybe when a facemelting solo leads into a Maiden/In Flames bridge (all of this on acoustics still, mind), maybe when the phrase "double homicide to suicide" comes up, maybe when the kid in the Mortician shirt mimes cutting a throat, or maybe when "Trail of Roses" winds up on a hate-filled burst of a lyric that might, depending on everyone's vocal cords, well come out as half black metal -- you get snapped back to reality and find out that the band that concludes the set is not the band that started it, and they are a lot more talented, deep, and complex than you figured, and, oh yeah, they half ripped your face off while you weren't looking. As soon as I determined that they weren't going to go on and close with "Eulogy", I looked back to the bar for that jaded scenester mentioned earlier, finding him as he leaned back and mouthed "wow" to his old guitarist; if he wasn't impressed, which he may still have been, he was definitely taken aback, and by my assessment the band will take that reaction if they can't get instant devotion. ;)
Autumn Above is still not a metal band, but from this performance, they've decidedly come to terms with their metal roots -- and metal side, in the case of those members still gigging with metal bands -- and are using that heritage to sharpen and intensify their sound. Perhaps the pop and prog elements are equally strong, but it does seem like they've reached a point where they've balanced their influences to satisfaction, and it's going to be really cool to see where they go with these strands on their future material.
Final score? 6/7; this wasn't the best gig I've seen from them, and it ended up a little short, but they fought through a number of technical difficulties -- the power cord on Ryan's amp died, and Anthony busted his A-string midway through "Burn With Me" (if I recall the song correctly) and had to do a field repair onstage -- and definitely impressed a bunch of people. If their tour shows go this well, they won't have any problem getting invited back. It would have been a better night if I'd been able to get up to O'B's, and the other bands on this bill might have been entertaining had I stuck, but even just with this much, it was a hell of a night.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
the cat escapes the bag in Allston Rock City
I'd held off on writing this particular show review for a while, because the subject matter is of debatable metal content, and I was holding back in the interest of the band's desire to sit on the fence between the metal and not-metal worlds. My brother's fiancee thinks they sound like Dashboard Confessional, but those sworn to the black would run out of fingers counting up their Opeth parts, heavy sections as well as those Akerfelt signatures to their acoustic work. They can be all things to all people, and in their ability to do so, they deserve a long degree of crossover success; bearing Katatonia and their jobbing by the music world in mind, this is less likely if people realize that they've got metal roots, and that a nontrivial chunk of their vitality is based on the fact that blood will tell.
However, all sense of subtlety and under-the-radar intrusion goes out the window when you have the band headbanging and thrashing on stage, the bassist forsaking crooning for hardcore barks, and among the past and current metalheads rocking out down front, some dude in a Manowar kutte, and not just a kutte built around a Manowar backpatch, but a kutte whose sole source of patches is the Kings of Metal. Autumn Above is not a metal band, but they are definitely not not a metal band either, and it is highly incumbent on them to get a promo disc together in time for Dream Theater's coming tour, where spamming the audience gets them into the ears of fans of Between The Buried And Me, 3, Opeth, and Porcupine Tree, which is about their natural metier....it's just unfortunate that they're about the only band of this type in eastern New England and have difficulty getting pure prog shows. If it was all on pure music, they could play with Ehnahre and Lord Bacon, but people mainly go to shows because they like the sound, not for abstract contemplation.
Autumn Above
Harper's Ferry, Allston [3/19/2008]
--
Even with many New England schools on spring break, a Wednesday show out of market is a difficult sell -- especially a solo show like this one, in a hall that was debatably a little large. Still, Autumn Above managed, by the end to get their door quota, and they also presented a pretty awesome set that had a lot of attractions for both the metal- and non-metal-listening segments of their audience.
On this go-round, it was only raining, not snowing, and I had both my brothers en suite, though James left ahead of us due to his friends not knowing how long it takes to get places in Boston. Mark and I left at a more normal time, got to the venue shortly after doors, and because this was a solo show had plenty of time to move my car somewhere it wouldn't get towed -- valuable info for future O'Brien's and Great Scott shows, so that I only have to walk two blocks, not two miles -- and drink some beers with the rest of the gang before the band went on. Harper's Ferry is a pretty big club, but through the delay before they went on, more people filtered in to at least give the impression that it was getting full. (Church would probably be a better fit at this point, between room size and promoters' pulling power, but this place has a little more name recognition.)
Autumn Above [7/7]
When the band did get going, it was definitely worth it, especially as they rolled on for a good long set and were well-served by the excellent PA. This was the second show I've seen the band standing on, and they were much improved in this outing as regards staying on pitch despite the increased energy that comes with moving around. Ryan's formative ideas about taking more vocals off Jim and giving him more of the solos and leads still make sense, but the band continues to show improvement across the board as they tweak and tune their material. They did all of the songs off of To The Inferno (as it exists now), plus the now-requisite Opeth breaks, a couple covers ("No Excuses", "1979", and "Ramble On", which should reinforce that not-metal-and-not-not-metal trope alluded to above), and two new songs, "Heaven Without", which has been recorded, and another new one that hasn't been released yet. The execution of this material, even more, though, was top-class, and even if the audience hadn't been liberally salted with people who've known the band members for extended periods of time, the applause would likely have been just as long and loud and enthusiastic. Autumn Above is a really good band; it's just problematic that they don't really fit in any existing genre, and that they showed a performance this good at a solo gig on a Wednesday night, rather than on someone else's bill on a weekend where they'd be more able to get more new ears interested.
It's at times like this that I really feel how lucky the metal underground has it; if you're willing to accept the drawbacks of heavy music (i.e., nobody listens to you and you make no money), your growth path is basically assured around here: there are regular venues for metal gigs, small labels are always looking for new talent to put out albums and van-based DIY tours around, national labels look to the smaller ones to do their A&R discovery for free, and if it wasn't economical to open for larger tours, and have this whole huge summer megatour economy, it wouldn't be happening. What the fuck do more mainstream bands do to have a similar trajectory? As far as I can remember from the radio station, they put out a bunch of 7"s that nobody buys, then do two albums on Matador, maybe a tour, and break up and go to law school. That ain't me, and hopefully it ain't Autumn Above either, and they find their way onto some decent prog package and get the fans they deserve.
In more strongly metal-related news, my brother's getting married on NEDF weekend. This is good because he's not doing it while I'm at Wacken, and also because he and his fiancee are a really good match, so the likelihood of him getting married against some other future show is pretty small. It's bad because I'm probably not going to be able to go to said fest, or if so only on Sunday, but this saves me money on gas, hotels, beer, and admission that I can roll towards more Wacken enjoyment or, more likely, a stupid number of patches and cult recordings from Hell's Headbangers. Of course, I ought to apply the patches that I have left to some kutte or other first, but there's enough Internet Not Working time in the immediate future that this shouldn't be an issue.
However, all sense of subtlety and under-the-radar intrusion goes out the window when you have the band headbanging and thrashing on stage, the bassist forsaking crooning for hardcore barks, and among the past and current metalheads rocking out down front, some dude in a Manowar kutte, and not just a kutte built around a Manowar backpatch, but a kutte whose sole source of patches is the Kings of Metal. Autumn Above is not a metal band, but they are definitely not not a metal band either, and it is highly incumbent on them to get a promo disc together in time for Dream Theater's coming tour, where spamming the audience gets them into the ears of fans of Between The Buried And Me, 3, Opeth, and Porcupine Tree, which is about their natural metier....it's just unfortunate that they're about the only band of this type in eastern New England and have difficulty getting pure prog shows. If it was all on pure music, they could play with Ehnahre and Lord Bacon, but people mainly go to shows because they like the sound, not for abstract contemplation.
Autumn Above
Harper's Ferry, Allston [3/19/2008]
--
Even with many New England schools on spring break, a Wednesday show out of market is a difficult sell -- especially a solo show like this one, in a hall that was debatably a little large. Still, Autumn Above managed, by the end to get their door quota, and they also presented a pretty awesome set that had a lot of attractions for both the metal- and non-metal-listening segments of their audience.
On this go-round, it was only raining, not snowing, and I had both my brothers en suite, though James left ahead of us due to his friends not knowing how long it takes to get places in Boston. Mark and I left at a more normal time, got to the venue shortly after doors, and because this was a solo show had plenty of time to move my car somewhere it wouldn't get towed -- valuable info for future O'Brien's and Great Scott shows, so that I only have to walk two blocks, not two miles -- and drink some beers with the rest of the gang before the band went on. Harper's Ferry is a pretty big club, but through the delay before they went on, more people filtered in to at least give the impression that it was getting full. (Church would probably be a better fit at this point, between room size and promoters' pulling power, but this place has a little more name recognition.)
Autumn Above [7/7]
When the band did get going, it was definitely worth it, especially as they rolled on for a good long set and were well-served by the excellent PA. This was the second show I've seen the band standing on, and they were much improved in this outing as regards staying on pitch despite the increased energy that comes with moving around. Ryan's formative ideas about taking more vocals off Jim and giving him more of the solos and leads still make sense, but the band continues to show improvement across the board as they tweak and tune their material. They did all of the songs off of To The Inferno (as it exists now), plus the now-requisite Opeth breaks, a couple covers ("No Excuses", "1979", and "Ramble On", which should reinforce that not-metal-and-not-not-metal trope alluded to above), and two new songs, "Heaven Without", which has been recorded, and another new one that hasn't been released yet. The execution of this material, even more, though, was top-class, and even if the audience hadn't been liberally salted with people who've known the band members for extended periods of time, the applause would likely have been just as long and loud and enthusiastic. Autumn Above is a really good band; it's just problematic that they don't really fit in any existing genre, and that they showed a performance this good at a solo gig on a Wednesday night, rather than on someone else's bill on a weekend where they'd be more able to get more new ears interested.
It's at times like this that I really feel how lucky the metal underground has it; if you're willing to accept the drawbacks of heavy music (i.e., nobody listens to you and you make no money), your growth path is basically assured around here: there are regular venues for metal gigs, small labels are always looking for new talent to put out albums and van-based DIY tours around, national labels look to the smaller ones to do their A&R discovery for free, and if it wasn't economical to open for larger tours, and have this whole huge summer megatour economy, it wouldn't be happening. What the fuck do more mainstream bands do to have a similar trajectory? As far as I can remember from the radio station, they put out a bunch of 7"s that nobody buys, then do two albums on Matador, maybe a tour, and break up and go to law school. That ain't me, and hopefully it ain't Autumn Above either, and they find their way onto some decent prog package and get the fans they deserve.
In more strongly metal-related news, my brother's getting married on NEDF weekend. This is good because he's not doing it while I'm at Wacken, and also because he and his fiancee are a really good match, so the likelihood of him getting married against some other future show is pretty small. It's bad because I'm probably not going to be able to go to said fest, or if so only on Sunday, but this saves me money on gas, hotels, beer, and admission that I can roll towards more Wacken enjoyment or, more likely, a stupid number of patches and cult recordings from Hell's Headbangers. Of course, I ought to apply the patches that I have left to some kutte or other first, but there's enough Internet Not Working time in the immediate future that this shouldn't be an issue.
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