This is the last show review from 2010, a year that saw fewer bands than previous and more local than national/touring stuff, mostly because it seemed like I was on call forever and didn't make it to NEMHF and NEDF took the year off. Still, looking back, I count 32 shows, including this one, which is just a little short of three a month -- and I was guaranteed to be out one weekend a month dreading support calls. Still pretty good, still room for improvement with 2011's dismal start -- especially with two DIY 'fests' on the two coming weekends that I should hit at least part of.
Update: missed Bobfest entirely due to various stuff, will probably miss No Life due to being on call again. soitgoes.csc.
Anyways, so like usual for Born of Fire nights, I got in a little early relative to actual start and had the time to get some beers in and hang about a little before things really got going. This community bit is a significant upside to this concert series (the other one, from my perspective, is that it's not nearly as long a drive as going to Worcester for Metal Thursday), but it comes with the necessary debit, of course, of only having two bands on the bill. Fortunately, most of these shows feature two really good bands, which is of course why it's still going despite the other options in the region for heavy music on Thursdays. Long may this continue; it's a lot better than when I was living in Dresden and the question was "is there a show anywhere in this state this month".
Living Void [5.5/7]
Despite the borderline-obsessive following of Revocation that is probably pretty obvious from these pages, I hadn't seen this band before; most of this is a lot of bad luck, but also comes down to the fact that they're a grindcore band, and I go to a lot fewer grind shows than metal shows. As grindcore goes, though, this was wicked, wicked solid; heavy as fuck, and pretty much as diverse as you're going to get in the genre. This is probably helped by being a five-piece as much as by Anthony being in the band; the creativity is coming pretty much across the board, and the second guitar widens the range of complexity that can be introduced while still keeping to the grind framework. Good stuff, worth seeing again, maybe worth making the actual effort to go to grindcore shows for.
After picking up their demo -- more solid stuff -- I talked a bit with Anthony, who mentioned that the new Revocation album was at that point significantly underway, and that they'd be doing some dates with Atheist at the start of March. This information, back in December, wasn't for general dissemination, but that's not what held this writeup back, past the announcement and into the time where those shows are actually happening. That's all pure laziness; had this gotten out earlier, there'd've been a retardedly oblique allusion here rather than the direct statement, because seriously, keep schtum when people ask you to.
Composted [6/7]
Despite extensive pre-show rumors, there were no Jello pudding products in attendance here, either alcohol-infused or otherwise. There were plenty of "signed" photos of Mr. Cosby, though, and five guys in sweaters doing, before the slam started, uniquely bizarre and verfremdend dances to the Cosby theme. Most of the sweaters came off during the performance, because O'Brien's has the stage lighting set conveniently at head level since the point of rock'n'roll is boiling your hair under a heatlamp (ok, also because they actually raised the stage in the renovation but couldn't do anything about the ceiling), but what this mostly served to do was to emphasize that most of what Composted does, and even most of their humor, comes from the actual music rather than the antics surrounding it. On that musical front, they just keep improving; there were a couple songs in this set that didn't make the cut of the recent split with Boarcorpse and Scaphism, but are just as strong as anything else they've done, and "Sausage Cathedral" now has a drop-in intro fully as funny as the "sausage cathedral is made of sausage" bit that Mark's introduced it with in the past. This is how you do a band with jokes rather than a joke band, and because of it, most people will probably take more Composted gigs with fewer average antics rather than elaborate costume productions and Composted not playing as often.
After Composted wrapped up, it was time to hike on back, this time without bread in my cleats. Good time, good show -- just not so good on the timeliness of getting this written out.
There's only one show writeup, from last week, in the pile to get cleared out, which is good because Master is tonight, Metal Thursday is tomorrow, and there's a couple non-show posts that are also due to go in when I get the time to make it happen. Almost up to date.
Showing posts with label composted. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composted. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, October 04, 2010
Composted with Dysentery, Scaphism, Boarcorpse, and Abnormality [Church, Boston, 10/3/2010]
Because I was a little late coming down, I bit the bullet and actually drove-in-Boston enough to park by the venue for this one. With baseball season over, this was almost surprisingly easy and cut out what would have been a bastard-long hike, which came in useful later on.
Anyway, I got in with time and spots behind the restaurant to spare, got some beers, and was ready when the bands started ahead of the announced schedule, in order to fit in everyone before the hard midnight curfew.
Abnormality [5.5/7]
In some ways Abnormality seemed almost like a new band in this outing, though I hadn't really seen enough of them in the previous four years to make that assessment with any degree of confidence. I was concerned that Mike leaving might take them down a peg, but this hasn't really happened; Abnormality is still just as technical, maybe a little more riff-focused and a little more melodic, but still crunching out kickass brutal death metal. It's still a little weird, almost, to see them with a bassist after so long without one, but Josh fills out and solidifies the sound, allowing the guitarists to concentrate on other things while he puts in the low end. (This has been your promotional message from the Bass Players' Mutual Benefit Society for the day.) The set was a little short -- the first four bands had to shoehorn themselves into 30-minute sets to make the timing work, so this is going to be pretty consistent across bands on this gig -- but pulled heavily from their upcoming EP, which is really looking like one to watch out for.
I was talking with Juan Untombed and some other people in here, and he mentioned that Boarcorpse had a new song built on black metal. I was a little skeptical about this -- even for Boarcorpse, that's a little out there -- but lo and behold, in the middle of said band's set, a song that comes out with straight-up Emperor riffs before blending them back into more typical weird tech-death. This is the last time I doubt Juan on something, provided he's functional enough to say words.
Boarcorpse [6/7]
This was Boarcorpse's last show as Boarcorpse has been, at least as long as they've been Boarcorpse, maybe even a little longer, and what a way to go out. In Terrence's last show out front, they smashed out a heavyweight-champeen performance of odd, challenging, brutal, and generally awesome material, including some new stuff from the forthcoming split with Composted and Scaphism, which is allegedly going to master this week. Perhaps impermanence adds coloring, but a set like this doesn't really need that enhancement; Boarcorpse has killed it like this before, they killed it here, and they will hopefully kill it in the future with Mark out front, who is a talented vocalist and class doer of odd things in his own right. A band this good doesn't often become not-good by amicably swapping one good musician for another, but they do change; if you missed this set, you missed the closing of a chapter, but there's no reason not to get onboard with the next iteration of this band as well.
Scaphism [5.5/7]
A good, solid, if a little short, set of meat-and-potatoes death metal from greater Worcester's favorite band of RAEP RAEP RAEP fetishists; this is about their metier, as far as I've seen them to date. Their brand of crushing, chunky death metal may not lend itself to the sort of performance that I'm likely to pick out as a particular high, but if they continue to keep up the quality and the consistency, people will continue to pack in for their sets and continue to respond well to the music. Over the sample space that I've seen from them, this was about an average Scaphism performance; it's just that the average outing you get from Scaphism is wicked good.
Dysentery [6/7]
Solid music, violent floor. So let it ever be. On the musical side, the band continued the trend of the past couple shows, unifying in the new material off the forthcoming-in-the-indefinite-future new record with stuff going back as far as the Excruciatingly Euphoric Torment split; the balance on this one was about 1/3 "old", 1/3 "new", and 1/3 ...Past Suffering..., all strongly integrated. Whenever the new one's out, it's going to be a hell of a crusher. The floor, though, didn't hit maximum violence; some people may have been intimidated by those who were throwing themselves around, some people may have been saving themselves for Composted, and the standards used may just be unrealistic. Is it even possible to make a pit that Will is going to be scared of? I've seen the guy in action, and don't believe that he'd be scared of any floor action that wasn't also indistinguishable from an armed gang fight. As pointed up before, though, this may be the problem; appropriately-violent pits scare people off, which leads to an empty front, which leads to people jumping around more, which eventually hits the local maximum of violence again. Local maxima are just rare.
Composted [6/7]
Some people, on seeing the relative decrease in antics and corresponding increase in ballistics-grade slam, might be motivated to shed a bloody little tear, with a sniffle, in the belief that Composted is growing up. Other people who are paying more attention will note that Mark still did this entire set in a banana suit. The current state of Composted can be most easily likened to the intro to "Sausage Cathedral": direct and to the point, but still relentlessly weird to the point of dada. There will be more antics, in other places that will mind the strewing of baked goods and inflatables less; what should be taken away from this set is that what's been true since the beginning of Composted is if anything even more true now: if you strip off the antics, you still have a very good and very funny slamming death metal band. The audience was up for it, with Aaron Hivesmasher (who's owned up to it under his own name elsewhere, so I can go ahead and be specific here) filling the air with empty pint cans, and a full, active pit that was at times almost as weird as the band on stage. With tanking the dudes and ladies flying around, and with trying to flip the glass shards back out of the killzone (unfortunately, not all of them or not in time to keep the dude who was moshing in his bare feet, having kicked off his flipflops, from stepping on them), there was never a dull moment for me in this set.
Glass shards? Yes, glass shards:
**********************************
SPECIAL REPORT: OSHA INVESTIGATES THE FLYING PINTGLASS INCIDENT
**********************************
Way back, when I was working in a line of business that made products that could kill people in any number of disruptive ways by accident, the EHS (Environmental Health & Safety) folks continually drummed it into everyone who had direct contact with a tool that accidents always have priors. This isn't strictly true, but it is most of the time: more accurately, because accidents are a combination of random chance and an unsafe environment, it is overwhelmingly likely that if you look at an accident, you're going to find a distinct pattern of unsafe situations and near-misses that in hindsight should have warned people that something bad was going to happen. Because I was stuck in traffic coming home (DPW can GTF, closing down 93 to one lane, even at midnight), I had time to go over the night mentally and work out the priors.
What happened: a little after midway through Composted's set, a particularly active mosher threw or swiped an empty pint glass off a table at the edge of the pit. The glass flew through the air about 10 feet without hitting anyone and crashed on the floor, where it shattered. The active ingredients in this one are a violent pit and the presence of glassware.
Near misses: I was pretty certain at the time -- before the glass actually hit the floor here -- that I'd heard another glass bite the dust in between two songs immediately before the break incident. It didn't appear to be in the pit area, but I'm pretty sure I heard breakage somewhere. More concretely, during Scaphism, a girl in the pit (which was not real violent) got knocked into, spilling her drink out of its glass vessel and all over her. No glass hit the floor here, but that's why it's a near miss, not an accident.
Environment generally: There was a lot of glassware on small and high tables near the pit at this gig. With the pits being as violent as Dysentery and Composted pits can get, people likely didn't want to keep holding onto their drinks after finishing them, and it's a hell of a lot shorter to duck back and put the glass on a table rather than lugging it back to the bar. Glass in the pit is always going to be a risk, but a glass that's sitting on a table is a lot more likely to hit the floor than one that's in someone's hand or pocket.
Does any of this exculpate the person who ultimately put the glass on the floor? No, not at all; at the minimum this was a reckless move that could have for real killed somebody, which if intentional makes it even worse. However, looking at this situation and realizing that we'll never be able to completely stop crazy people at the door, it's possible to try to reduce potential injury risk just by moving the bar tables back behind or at least level with the sound desk on shows like this where there's going to be a lot of crowd movement. Even if glass piles up on tables, if they're not on the edge of the pit, it's less likely that they'll end up in the middle of it. And even if people carry pint glasses into the pit, it's less likely, if they're holding onto them, that they'll get swiped/snatched away and end up on the floor.
We'll see how and if this gets implemented; a response of "no metal shows" or "no glass drinking vessels" is not warranted and is complete overkill even from the basic EHS perspective.
Amazingly, this writeup isn't completely late; hopefully, this trend continues over the coming five-day block of shows, where, circumstances permitting, I'm out at four venues over each of the five nights Thursday to Monday seeing bands. Hopefully that comes together; a nice block of music before I go on call, then transition into prepping for Hong Kong.
Anyway, I got in with time and spots behind the restaurant to spare, got some beers, and was ready when the bands started ahead of the announced schedule, in order to fit in everyone before the hard midnight curfew.
Abnormality [5.5/7]
In some ways Abnormality seemed almost like a new band in this outing, though I hadn't really seen enough of them in the previous four years to make that assessment with any degree of confidence. I was concerned that Mike leaving might take them down a peg, but this hasn't really happened; Abnormality is still just as technical, maybe a little more riff-focused and a little more melodic, but still crunching out kickass brutal death metal. It's still a little weird, almost, to see them with a bassist after so long without one, but Josh fills out and solidifies the sound, allowing the guitarists to concentrate on other things while he puts in the low end. (This has been your promotional message from the Bass Players' Mutual Benefit Society for the day.) The set was a little short -- the first four bands had to shoehorn themselves into 30-minute sets to make the timing work, so this is going to be pretty consistent across bands on this gig -- but pulled heavily from their upcoming EP, which is really looking like one to watch out for.
I was talking with Juan Untombed and some other people in here, and he mentioned that Boarcorpse had a new song built on black metal. I was a little skeptical about this -- even for Boarcorpse, that's a little out there -- but lo and behold, in the middle of said band's set, a song that comes out with straight-up Emperor riffs before blending them back into more typical weird tech-death. This is the last time I doubt Juan on something, provided he's functional enough to say words.
Boarcorpse [6/7]
This was Boarcorpse's last show as Boarcorpse has been, at least as long as they've been Boarcorpse, maybe even a little longer, and what a way to go out. In Terrence's last show out front, they smashed out a heavyweight-champeen performance of odd, challenging, brutal, and generally awesome material, including some new stuff from the forthcoming split with Composted and Scaphism, which is allegedly going to master this week. Perhaps impermanence adds coloring, but a set like this doesn't really need that enhancement; Boarcorpse has killed it like this before, they killed it here, and they will hopefully kill it in the future with Mark out front, who is a talented vocalist and class doer of odd things in his own right. A band this good doesn't often become not-good by amicably swapping one good musician for another, but they do change; if you missed this set, you missed the closing of a chapter, but there's no reason not to get onboard with the next iteration of this band as well.
Scaphism [5.5/7]
A good, solid, if a little short, set of meat-and-potatoes death metal from greater Worcester's favorite band of RAEP RAEP RAEP fetishists; this is about their metier, as far as I've seen them to date. Their brand of crushing, chunky death metal may not lend itself to the sort of performance that I'm likely to pick out as a particular high, but if they continue to keep up the quality and the consistency, people will continue to pack in for their sets and continue to respond well to the music. Over the sample space that I've seen from them, this was about an average Scaphism performance; it's just that the average outing you get from Scaphism is wicked good.
Dysentery [6/7]
Solid music, violent floor. So let it ever be. On the musical side, the band continued the trend of the past couple shows, unifying in the new material off the forthcoming-in-the-indefinite-future new record with stuff going back as far as the Excruciatingly Euphoric Torment split; the balance on this one was about 1/3 "old", 1/3 "new", and 1/3 ...Past Suffering..., all strongly integrated. Whenever the new one's out, it's going to be a hell of a crusher. The floor, though, didn't hit maximum violence; some people may have been intimidated by those who were throwing themselves around, some people may have been saving themselves for Composted, and the standards used may just be unrealistic. Is it even possible to make a pit that Will is going to be scared of? I've seen the guy in action, and don't believe that he'd be scared of any floor action that wasn't also indistinguishable from an armed gang fight. As pointed up before, though, this may be the problem; appropriately-violent pits scare people off, which leads to an empty front, which leads to people jumping around more, which eventually hits the local maximum of violence again. Local maxima are just rare.
Composted [6/7]
Some people, on seeing the relative decrease in antics and corresponding increase in ballistics-grade slam, might be motivated to shed a bloody little tear, with a sniffle, in the belief that Composted is growing up. Other people who are paying more attention will note that Mark still did this entire set in a banana suit. The current state of Composted can be most easily likened to the intro to "Sausage Cathedral": direct and to the point, but still relentlessly weird to the point of dada. There will be more antics, in other places that will mind the strewing of baked goods and inflatables less; what should be taken away from this set is that what's been true since the beginning of Composted is if anything even more true now: if you strip off the antics, you still have a very good and very funny slamming death metal band. The audience was up for it, with Aaron Hivesmasher (who's owned up to it under his own name elsewhere, so I can go ahead and be specific here) filling the air with empty pint cans, and a full, active pit that was at times almost as weird as the band on stage. With tanking the dudes and ladies flying around, and with trying to flip the glass shards back out of the killzone (unfortunately, not all of them or not in time to keep the dude who was moshing in his bare feet, having kicked off his flipflops, from stepping on them), there was never a dull moment for me in this set.
Glass shards? Yes, glass shards:
**********************************
SPECIAL REPORT: OSHA INVESTIGATES THE FLYING PINTGLASS INCIDENT
**********************************
Way back, when I was working in a line of business that made products that could kill people in any number of disruptive ways by accident, the EHS (Environmental Health & Safety) folks continually drummed it into everyone who had direct contact with a tool that accidents always have priors. This isn't strictly true, but it is most of the time: more accurately, because accidents are a combination of random chance and an unsafe environment, it is overwhelmingly likely that if you look at an accident, you're going to find a distinct pattern of unsafe situations and near-misses that in hindsight should have warned people that something bad was going to happen. Because I was stuck in traffic coming home (DPW can GTF, closing down 93 to one lane, even at midnight), I had time to go over the night mentally and work out the priors.
What happened: a little after midway through Composted's set, a particularly active mosher threw or swiped an empty pint glass off a table at the edge of the pit. The glass flew through the air about 10 feet without hitting anyone and crashed on the floor, where it shattered. The active ingredients in this one are a violent pit and the presence of glassware.
Near misses: I was pretty certain at the time -- before the glass actually hit the floor here -- that I'd heard another glass bite the dust in between two songs immediately before the break incident. It didn't appear to be in the pit area, but I'm pretty sure I heard breakage somewhere. More concretely, during Scaphism, a girl in the pit (which was not real violent) got knocked into, spilling her drink out of its glass vessel and all over her. No glass hit the floor here, but that's why it's a near miss, not an accident.
Environment generally: There was a lot of glassware on small and high tables near the pit at this gig. With the pits being as violent as Dysentery and Composted pits can get, people likely didn't want to keep holding onto their drinks after finishing them, and it's a hell of a lot shorter to duck back and put the glass on a table rather than lugging it back to the bar. Glass in the pit is always going to be a risk, but a glass that's sitting on a table is a lot more likely to hit the floor than one that's in someone's hand or pocket.
Does any of this exculpate the person who ultimately put the glass on the floor? No, not at all; at the minimum this was a reckless move that could have for real killed somebody, which if intentional makes it even worse. However, looking at this situation and realizing that we'll never be able to completely stop crazy people at the door, it's possible to try to reduce potential injury risk just by moving the bar tables back behind or at least level with the sound desk on shows like this where there's going to be a lot of crowd movement. Even if glass piles up on tables, if they're not on the edge of the pit, it's less likely that they'll end up in the middle of it. And even if people carry pint glasses into the pit, it's less likely, if they're holding onto them, that they'll get swiped/snatched away and end up on the floor.
We'll see how and if this gets implemented; a response of "no metal shows" or "no glass drinking vessels" is not warranted and is complete overkill even from the basic EHS perspective.
Amazingly, this writeup isn't completely late; hopefully, this trend continues over the coming five-day block of shows, where, circumstances permitting, I'm out at four venues over each of the five nights Thursday to Monday seeing bands. Hopefully that comes together; a nice block of music before I go on call, then transition into prepping for Hong Kong.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Composted with Sapremia, Visions of the Night, and Formless [Ralph's, Worcester, 9/2/2010]
This got delayed as a result of finally getting the tour report together; here it is, though.
I punched straight out of work again for this one, and got over in good order, time enough to get in, get some beer, and browse the tables. Despite the very large selection on offer from Sevared (Pat was accompanying the bands around on Visions of the Night's US tour), I wanted to make sure that I supported the bands, and didn't miss records from either of the touring acts. Sapremia didn't have anything new out (Lou mentioned during the set that they were working on a new one), so at that point I just vultured up VotN's catalog.
Formless [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, but they rolled out a decent if occasionally pedestrian set of tech-death that was probably hurt more by the soundboard than it needed to be. It took a couple songs for the bass to really start popping, and maybe a song and a half after that for both guitars to really cut through when they needed to, but the material was good enough, and though they're young, these people definitely have chops. The singer was a little disappointed and unnecessarily butthurt about the lack of moshing, to the point of diving into the crowd to try and get things going...which was to no avail. Seriously, you're a tech-death band playing first at a Metal Thursday with Composted headlining the bill. It'd be a hell of a lot more noteworthy if people were hitting each other in that situation, lack of movement is really no reflection on either the band or the audience's reaction to them.
Formless didn't have any merch out, so, making sure that I'd have the cash to grab a Sapremia shirt later, I looted the Sevared table (picking up stuff from Jack Slater, One Master, Vomepotro, and a couple others), and, much like the last time I relieved Pat of his stock, I got a couple free discs in the bargain....including a 9th Plague record that I think I got freebied last year too. Anyone want that one?
Visions of the Night [5.5/7]
This is the first time I've seen a touring band apologize for the state of their lineup. However, most bands would have packed it in and headed back to Canada with their entire rhythm section out of commission. VotN soldiered on, though, getting some drum tracks programmed in about the time it took Lou from Sapremia to learn bass parts for the songs involved, and put up a good if necessarily somewhat limited set that came a lot more from the band's death metal side than the black metal touches they occasionally show on record. If the band want to assert that they're a black/death band for whatever reason, fine; what we got here was a solid and pretty pure death metal set, maybe due to the drum machine, but probably because of the way the actual material's written.
Full credit to the band for soldiering on; hopefully, they'll be back with a lineup containing more of their permanent members.
Sapremia [5.5/7]
Next up, these Jerseyites, who smashed out a solid set of unrepentant old-school powertrio death metal. We got a bit of new material that's going to be going on the new one, and a good selection of older stuff, including a few tracks older than some people in the room. What you get, though, when a band's been around since '92, still going strong, ....and there's a few underage people in the room thanks to being in the openers. They also had some member rotation; I'm pretty sure that they had another guitarist the last time I saw them, in addition to Justin sitting in on drums for the tour, but this didn't affect the sound to any great degree: still a good death metal band putting in a good shift of death metal.
In here I picked up a Sapremia shirt off Lou, who opined in the process that he didn't know how I was able to take the upstairs heat at Ralph's in a full-sleeve kutte. Us on the floor have it a lot easier and less melting than the bands on stage, who are both directly under the lights and moving around more, but probably the most significant factor is that I'd been living in the thing for most of two weeks, including the crucible of Wacken this year. You get used to it, somehow.
Composted [6/7]
Mark wasn't able to secure a banana suit for this gig (probably for the best, the only banana costume I know of in the greater Peabody area was last seen being worn in the rain while riding a stolen bike with no seat on it, but that's a story for another day), and Composted didn't play any Obituary material (a source of much hilarity; not Obituary, but that they weren't playing any, which is kind of a had to be there thing), but they did roll out a high-test performance of mentalist slam-death that made more than a few converts. A lot of the set was off the new one, including the debut of "SIDS In The City", a nice short song containing exactly five riffs, four of which are punch-yourself-in-the-face quality slams. People, of course, went completely bananas, though with Composted closing out a Metal Thursday, that's more the rule than the exception. That next recording, if I recall correctly, is supposed to be split with Boarcorpse and Scaphism (aka Oor Raep Band); certain devastation to follow whenever that one drops, for sure.
After Composted closed up, I beat feet; I was in the middle of a crush for work that has resulted in this feeling a hell of a lot more than two weeks late. Next show is another Midway black metal matinee....and hopefully that'll get fucking writ up before the leaves start to change.
I punched straight out of work again for this one, and got over in good order, time enough to get in, get some beer, and browse the tables. Despite the very large selection on offer from Sevared (Pat was accompanying the bands around on Visions of the Night's US tour), I wanted to make sure that I supported the bands, and didn't miss records from either of the touring acts. Sapremia didn't have anything new out (Lou mentioned during the set that they were working on a new one), so at that point I just vultured up VotN's catalog.
Formless [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, but they rolled out a decent if occasionally pedestrian set of tech-death that was probably hurt more by the soundboard than it needed to be. It took a couple songs for the bass to really start popping, and maybe a song and a half after that for both guitars to really cut through when they needed to, but the material was good enough, and though they're young, these people definitely have chops. The singer was a little disappointed and unnecessarily butthurt about the lack of moshing, to the point of diving into the crowd to try and get things going...which was to no avail. Seriously, you're a tech-death band playing first at a Metal Thursday with Composted headlining the bill. It'd be a hell of a lot more noteworthy if people were hitting each other in that situation, lack of movement is really no reflection on either the band or the audience's reaction to them.
Formless didn't have any merch out, so, making sure that I'd have the cash to grab a Sapremia shirt later, I looted the Sevared table (picking up stuff from Jack Slater, One Master, Vomepotro, and a couple others), and, much like the last time I relieved Pat of his stock, I got a couple free discs in the bargain....including a 9th Plague record that I think I got freebied last year too. Anyone want that one?
Visions of the Night [5.5/7]
This is the first time I've seen a touring band apologize for the state of their lineup. However, most bands would have packed it in and headed back to Canada with their entire rhythm section out of commission. VotN soldiered on, though, getting some drum tracks programmed in about the time it took Lou from Sapremia to learn bass parts for the songs involved, and put up a good if necessarily somewhat limited set that came a lot more from the band's death metal side than the black metal touches they occasionally show on record. If the band want to assert that they're a black/death band for whatever reason, fine; what we got here was a solid and pretty pure death metal set, maybe due to the drum machine, but probably because of the way the actual material's written.
Full credit to the band for soldiering on; hopefully, they'll be back with a lineup containing more of their permanent members.
Sapremia [5.5/7]
Next up, these Jerseyites, who smashed out a solid set of unrepentant old-school powertrio death metal. We got a bit of new material that's going to be going on the new one, and a good selection of older stuff, including a few tracks older than some people in the room. What you get, though, when a band's been around since '92, still going strong, ....and there's a few underage people in the room thanks to being in the openers. They also had some member rotation; I'm pretty sure that they had another guitarist the last time I saw them, in addition to Justin sitting in on drums for the tour, but this didn't affect the sound to any great degree: still a good death metal band putting in a good shift of death metal.
In here I picked up a Sapremia shirt off Lou, who opined in the process that he didn't know how I was able to take the upstairs heat at Ralph's in a full-sleeve kutte. Us on the floor have it a lot easier and less melting than the bands on stage, who are both directly under the lights and moving around more, but probably the most significant factor is that I'd been living in the thing for most of two weeks, including the crucible of Wacken this year. You get used to it, somehow.
Composted [6/7]
Mark wasn't able to secure a banana suit for this gig (probably for the best, the only banana costume I know of in the greater Peabody area was last seen being worn in the rain while riding a stolen bike with no seat on it, but that's a story for another day), and Composted didn't play any Obituary material (a source of much hilarity; not Obituary, but that they weren't playing any, which is kind of a had to be there thing), but they did roll out a high-test performance of mentalist slam-death that made more than a few converts. A lot of the set was off the new one, including the debut of "SIDS In The City", a nice short song containing exactly five riffs, four of which are punch-yourself-in-the-face quality slams. People, of course, went completely bananas, though with Composted closing out a Metal Thursday, that's more the rule than the exception. That next recording, if I recall correctly, is supposed to be split with Boarcorpse and Scaphism (aka Oor Raep Band); certain devastation to follow whenever that one drops, for sure.
After Composted closed up, I beat feet; I was in the middle of a crush for work that has resulted in this feeling a hell of a lot more than two weeks late. Next show is another Midway black metal matinee....and hopefully that'll get fucking writ up before the leaves start to change.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Composted with Dysentery, Rampant Decay, Maggot Brain, and Intheshit [O'Brien's, Allston, 7/30/2010]
This was the last chance that Boston would have to give me stuff to take over, so fortunately, I had time to get home, change out of my work pants, and equip the battleshorts I'd be going overseas in before I went in. Between these and my warm-weather vest, I had, narrowly, enough capacity to carry everything back home with. This is a good problem to have; pocket space stretched to the limits means that a lot of stuff is crossing the ocean.
I got down, even so, a little early, which was good; time to drink, hang about, talk for a bit with Scott from Deathamphetamine after picking up his 10 promos, drink more, and pick up 20 sleeve-packed copies of Black Thrash Ritual from Hräsvelg. As will be noted in the still-under-construction tour report, all of these eventually found their way into metalhead hands on the other side of the Atlantic.
Intheshit [5/7]
The only real complaint that anyone rational could have about this set was that it was too short. Short sets are a fact of life in the DIY world, especially on five-band shows in a city that has a (stupidly early) had curfew, but this was really on the bleeding edge even of that, probably because Alex (Nachzehrer, 26 Beers) had been pulled in on drums on really short notice and hadn't gotten time to learn any more than what was played. However, since Intheshit is a grind band, and a really pure one at that, we got a good number of songs (being, true to form, fast and short) and a decent amount of material all told. From that point of view, this was what a grind set should be: aggressive, direct, to the point, and never dragging. From another view, this was about 50-75% of what a grind set should be, since it seemed like they only played for about 10 minutes when 15 or 20 of this style would still have felt as fresh and as raw.
After the set, I went to see if I could pick something up from the band; I didn't end up with an Intheshit demo, but Dawn did give me a large envelope full of Dead Languages stuff to lug over, which initially was a problem; this early on, something like that is a little unwieldy to be holding onto. Fortunately, I was in my warm-weather vest, which has a back pouch for a trauma plate that I didn't sew shut while applying either backpatch that I've used on that rig. Envelope issue solved with room to spare. Around this time, I also got about 10 limited-edition PanzerBastard promos from Andrew, with instructions to distribute them only to the hardest and the truest, which I'm pretty sure I did. As with the CDs mentioned above, all of this stuff got distributed as well.
Maggot Brain [5.5/7]
Coming out of New York, I hadn't heard these guys before and didn't have much in the way of expectations; what we got was a good, solid set of doom/grind balanced more towards the doom side while remaining raw. The slower parts wore on a little; personally, I preferred the breaks where they cranked up the speed and blast intensity, but any way you slice it, the music on offer was still good stuff.
On one level, it's still kind of weird for a touring band to go on second. On the more comprehensive level, though, this is where they fit best into the bill soundwise, and basically everyone who came out to the show saw them, and they didn't have to worry about cleaning up the stage after Composted.
Rampant Decay [5.5/7]
In comparison to last year, or on CD, they sounded a little grindier and a little more black metal (welcome to Boston, where these concepts are on the same axis, rather than opposed) without a bassist, but kicked out a class set of pure Drunk Edge. Their material's the same material, "Cocaine Frenzy" still gets people flying around, and Rich remains one of the funniest motherfuckers in Boston.
Following their set, I picked up a shirt that would end up doing yeoman service over the first four days overseas, and also a bunch of stickers and buttons. The stickers all went, and because I was clever about how I did it, most of the buttons went out too.
Dysentery [6.5/7]
Wow. Just wow. This set did trail off a little at the end, but it finished nearly as well as it started -- how good would this have been overall if Will didn't have strep? Brushing illness to the side, Dysentery powered through an intense set of crushing death metal; the new -- as yet unrecorded/unreleased -- songs that they rolled out didn't have as many 'breakdowns' as the older material, but they definitely aren't short in either the slam or general brutality departments. The crowd was in pretty good form as well, though not as riotous as things would get for Composted; maybe holding their energy in reserve, maybe nervous about picking up a bronchial infection. Whatever the circumstances, this was a hell of a performance, and I'm eagerly anticipating the next time that Dysentery puts out something recorded.
Composted [6/7]
Composted's set was much like the last time (as might be expected when the band doesn't have a lot of brainstorming time to come up with new antics), but.....breadier. Several loaves' worth of Wonder Bread got aired out within the first song, and after the bread stopped being in pieces large enough to throw at people, or into the ceiling fan, it stuck around in the form of pieces small enough to get stuck in your boot treads, which is not what "waffle stomper" refers to, but with this band, you kind of had to figure that it would end up with that meaning eventually. While the air was being filled with carbohydrates and male blowup dolls, Composted continued right along smashing out the slams; the older stuff, still killer, and the new stuff measuring up equally well. The new one from these guys may not have been out yet -- and I may not have been able to find them cheap vuvuzelas in the Berlin discount store, which is also a shame -- but it's definitely something to look forward to.
Finally, though, things closed up, and the management threw people out due to the Boston curfew and because there was seriously mashed bread all over the fucking place. I hit the road posthaste; I had the better part of 50 CDs to move and pack, and a flight to catch the next day. This ofcourse is going to be detailed in the tour report -- which is actually upcoming, and some of it, at least, will be done by the end of the long weekend.
I got down, even so, a little early, which was good; time to drink, hang about, talk for a bit with Scott from Deathamphetamine after picking up his 10 promos, drink more, and pick up 20 sleeve-packed copies of Black Thrash Ritual from Hräsvelg. As will be noted in the still-under-construction tour report, all of these eventually found their way into metalhead hands on the other side of the Atlantic.
Intheshit [5/7]
The only real complaint that anyone rational could have about this set was that it was too short. Short sets are a fact of life in the DIY world, especially on five-band shows in a city that has a (stupidly early) had curfew, but this was really on the bleeding edge even of that, probably because Alex (Nachzehrer, 26 Beers) had been pulled in on drums on really short notice and hadn't gotten time to learn any more than what was played. However, since Intheshit is a grind band, and a really pure one at that, we got a good number of songs (being, true to form, fast and short) and a decent amount of material all told. From that point of view, this was what a grind set should be: aggressive, direct, to the point, and never dragging. From another view, this was about 50-75% of what a grind set should be, since it seemed like they only played for about 10 minutes when 15 or 20 of this style would still have felt as fresh and as raw.
After the set, I went to see if I could pick something up from the band; I didn't end up with an Intheshit demo, but Dawn did give me a large envelope full of Dead Languages stuff to lug over, which initially was a problem; this early on, something like that is a little unwieldy to be holding onto. Fortunately, I was in my warm-weather vest, which has a back pouch for a trauma plate that I didn't sew shut while applying either backpatch that I've used on that rig. Envelope issue solved with room to spare. Around this time, I also got about 10 limited-edition PanzerBastard promos from Andrew, with instructions to distribute them only to the hardest and the truest, which I'm pretty sure I did. As with the CDs mentioned above, all of this stuff got distributed as well.
Maggot Brain [5.5/7]
Coming out of New York, I hadn't heard these guys before and didn't have much in the way of expectations; what we got was a good, solid set of doom/grind balanced more towards the doom side while remaining raw. The slower parts wore on a little; personally, I preferred the breaks where they cranked up the speed and blast intensity, but any way you slice it, the music on offer was still good stuff.
On one level, it's still kind of weird for a touring band to go on second. On the more comprehensive level, though, this is where they fit best into the bill soundwise, and basically everyone who came out to the show saw them, and they didn't have to worry about cleaning up the stage after Composted.
Rampant Decay [5.5/7]
In comparison to last year, or on CD, they sounded a little grindier and a little more black metal (welcome to Boston, where these concepts are on the same axis, rather than opposed) without a bassist, but kicked out a class set of pure Drunk Edge. Their material's the same material, "Cocaine Frenzy" still gets people flying around, and Rich remains one of the funniest motherfuckers in Boston.
Following their set, I picked up a shirt that would end up doing yeoman service over the first four days overseas, and also a bunch of stickers and buttons. The stickers all went, and because I was clever about how I did it, most of the buttons went out too.
Dysentery [6.5/7]
Wow. Just wow. This set did trail off a little at the end, but it finished nearly as well as it started -- how good would this have been overall if Will didn't have strep? Brushing illness to the side, Dysentery powered through an intense set of crushing death metal; the new -- as yet unrecorded/unreleased -- songs that they rolled out didn't have as many 'breakdowns' as the older material, but they definitely aren't short in either the slam or general brutality departments. The crowd was in pretty good form as well, though not as riotous as things would get for Composted; maybe holding their energy in reserve, maybe nervous about picking up a bronchial infection. Whatever the circumstances, this was a hell of a performance, and I'm eagerly anticipating the next time that Dysentery puts out something recorded.
Composted [6/7]
Composted's set was much like the last time (as might be expected when the band doesn't have a lot of brainstorming time to come up with new antics), but.....breadier. Several loaves' worth of Wonder Bread got aired out within the first song, and after the bread stopped being in pieces large enough to throw at people, or into the ceiling fan, it stuck around in the form of pieces small enough to get stuck in your boot treads, which is not what "waffle stomper" refers to, but with this band, you kind of had to figure that it would end up with that meaning eventually. While the air was being filled with carbohydrates and male blowup dolls, Composted continued right along smashing out the slams; the older stuff, still killer, and the new stuff measuring up equally well. The new one from these guys may not have been out yet -- and I may not have been able to find them cheap vuvuzelas in the Berlin discount store, which is also a shame -- but it's definitely something to look forward to.
Finally, though, things closed up, and the management threw people out due to the Boston curfew and because there was seriously mashed bread all over the fucking place. I hit the road posthaste; I had the better part of 50 CDs to move and pack, and a flight to catch the next day. This ofcourse is going to be detailed in the tour report -- which is actually upcoming, and some of it, at least, will be done by the end of the long weekend.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Composted with Parasitic Extirpation, Hivesmasher, Goreality, and Scaphism (supporting The Funeral Pyre and Early Graves) [Midway, J.P., 7/11/2010]
As alluded to previously, this was the conclusion to a rather full afternoon/evening of events. After Inestia successfully prevented an often-boring (decent, but not a patch on Germany-Uruguay the day before) and unnecessarily violent (thanks Webb for chickening out and not sending De Jong off for his Mortal Kombat tackle) final from going to penalties, I drove pell-mell to get in a decent amount of hanging out and socialization before bailing for this showcase of pure death metal quality.
I got in a little late thanks to the aforementioned, but got through the door without issue and right into the raging from Scaphism.
Scaphism [5/7]
Though I missed at least their first song, they still set out a killer performance of crunching death metal; relatively less grind and more death this time than the last that I'd seen them, but still quality. This band keeps getting better and better; unfortunate that they probably won't have anything to lug over to Europe this time around, but those who don't have that hard cutoff will probably see their demo soon enough.
Tom's favorite hockey player is from the underworld. Seriously, what took this guy so long to get to Boston? Even New Jersey would have probably played it down, but as soon as he signed here, the bootleggers had shirts like this out aping the Haunting The Chapel cover with hockey sticks, and next season, they'll probably be in the official Bruins stores.
Goreality [5.5/7]
Another show, another different Goreality lineup; this one, though, with bass and only one guitar. The resulting sound was a little less complex than Goreality have been before, but still crushing; what really hurt them, though, was the heat on stage. Even at the best of times the Midway can be a bit of a sauna, but with New England in the bowels ofrepuga significant heatwave, things got out of hand, and Fish was having problems holding onto his guitar pick due to the sweat. It shouldn't be necessary to note that this is a bad thing to have happen to you as a technical death metal band. They persevered and laid out a solid performance including a few new ones, but some 100-grit sandpaper glued to the back end of a couple guitar picks might have made it go a little smoother.
Hivesmasher [6/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, somehow, but now I know what I was missing out on. From the first moment, just an absolute maniac grind avalanche, and when Aaron hit the floor, the pit started moving good and proper. In the pummeling, though, it was hard to hear exactly why they have a member on keyboards/fx -- as if more inducement was needed, the answer to that one is to actually pick up some recorded material from them, in a setting where they've got slightly more control of the total balance and aren't trying to incite/play over a riot, to see what the sound is like in that context. Killer regardless.
Parasitic Extirpation [6.5/7]
Amazing. Just a stupendous performance of solid, violent, chunky yet technical death metal accompanied by insane floor violence, every bit the kind of performance the band would have desired to kick off a long and brutally-slotted (it's not too surprising that brutal gigs are few and far between in flyover country, but one day to go between OKC and southern Illinois is really backbreaking) tour out to the LVDF and back. They're hitting on all cylinders right now, and hopefully will get more attention out west out of this, and be more able to plan longer tours with shorter between-gigs legs.
I got a shirt off Blue afterwards, as well as a couple stickers, but since they were leaving on, um, a national tour the next morning, I didn't go mining for stuff to lug over to Europe. Dudes who show up and see the band should get first shot at merch for themselves and to push on their friends; on the 30th, though, any leavings will get looted to the bare walls of the bucket.
Special World Cup extra: Drew in Netherlands-supporting mode. You can see him in his orange (or Oranje, whichever) shirt in the back, but Tim is unfortunately standing in front of the red-white-blue sweatband on his plucking hand, which was usually the case in moments like this where the band wasn't playing and I had the ability to hold my phone up as opposed to staying on guard to avoid getting punched in the mouth.
Composted [6/7]
When Composted says it's Pride Month, it's Pride Month. Especially when they do it with a new lineup, balloons, and a black male blowup doll to celebrate. The new members blend well in with the rest of the guys, and in addition to the bizarre props and silly costumes, pounded out the deceptively strong slam-death that audiences have come to expect from this band; lineup surgery success, roll on the AWSMcore. The performance was good, the floor was violent, and in a testament to the abuse that such things are anticipated to get by their makers, the blowup doll survived all the way through, despite being kicked, stomped, tossed all over the room, used to beat several band members about the head and shoulders, and repeatedly thrown into the ceiling fans. In the official Composted say-no-to-drugs-comic-book continuity (note: does not actually exist, but someone should make it up on wikipedia anyway), he has obviously swum off with Leo the fish to Rainbow Unicorn Buttrape Land to live happily ever after.
When Composted wrapped up, it was getting towards the point where I had to split in order to get the last Orange Line train back towards where I left my car. It was tough missing the nationals on this one, especially since I'd been impressed with The Funeral Pyre the last time I saw them (at Metalfest a few years back, for like 20 minutes), but I picked up a record from each before heading out. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make any of the several other gigs in the region; when they come back, you have to hope.
Even without the nationals, though, this was a kickass gig, at a place that's only going to get better: the Midway was well under construction for his one, so you've got to figure that they'll be expanded to their full new dimensions (more room for more audience, less gear piled on the sidewalk, and less sauna atmosphere) by the next gig I end up going down there for.
I got in a little late thanks to the aforementioned, but got through the door without issue and right into the raging from Scaphism.
Scaphism [5/7]
Though I missed at least their first song, they still set out a killer performance of crunching death metal; relatively less grind and more death this time than the last that I'd seen them, but still quality. This band keeps getting better and better; unfortunate that they probably won't have anything to lug over to Europe this time around, but those who don't have that hard cutoff will probably see their demo soon enough.
Tom's favorite hockey player is from the underworld. Seriously, what took this guy so long to get to Boston? Even New Jersey would have probably played it down, but as soon as he signed here, the bootleggers had shirts like this out aping the Haunting The Chapel cover with hockey sticks, and next season, they'll probably be in the official Bruins stores.
Goreality [5.5/7]
Another show, another different Goreality lineup; this one, though, with bass and only one guitar. The resulting sound was a little less complex than Goreality have been before, but still crushing; what really hurt them, though, was the heat on stage. Even at the best of times the Midway can be a bit of a sauna, but with New England in the bowels of
Hivesmasher [6/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, somehow, but now I know what I was missing out on. From the first moment, just an absolute maniac grind avalanche, and when Aaron hit the floor, the pit started moving good and proper. In the pummeling, though, it was hard to hear exactly why they have a member on keyboards/fx -- as if more inducement was needed, the answer to that one is to actually pick up some recorded material from them, in a setting where they've got slightly more control of the total balance and aren't trying to incite/play over a riot, to see what the sound is like in that context. Killer regardless.
Parasitic Extirpation [6.5/7]
Amazing. Just a stupendous performance of solid, violent, chunky yet technical death metal accompanied by insane floor violence, every bit the kind of performance the band would have desired to kick off a long and brutally-slotted (it's not too surprising that brutal gigs are few and far between in flyover country, but one day to go between OKC and southern Illinois is really backbreaking) tour out to the LVDF and back. They're hitting on all cylinders right now, and hopefully will get more attention out west out of this, and be more able to plan longer tours with shorter between-gigs legs.
I got a shirt off Blue afterwards, as well as a couple stickers, but since they were leaving on, um, a national tour the next morning, I didn't go mining for stuff to lug over to Europe. Dudes who show up and see the band should get first shot at merch for themselves and to push on their friends; on the 30th, though, any leavings will get looted to the bare walls of the bucket.
Special World Cup extra: Drew in Netherlands-supporting mode. You can see him in his orange (or Oranje, whichever) shirt in the back, but Tim is unfortunately standing in front of the red-white-blue sweatband on his plucking hand, which was usually the case in moments like this where the band wasn't playing and I had the ability to hold my phone up as opposed to staying on guard to avoid getting punched in the mouth.
Composted [6/7]
When Composted says it's Pride Month, it's Pride Month. Especially when they do it with a new lineup, balloons, and a black male blowup doll to celebrate. The new members blend well in with the rest of the guys, and in addition to the bizarre props and silly costumes, pounded out the deceptively strong slam-death that audiences have come to expect from this band; lineup surgery success, roll on the AWSMcore. The performance was good, the floor was violent, and in a testament to the abuse that such things are anticipated to get by their makers, the blowup doll survived all the way through, despite being kicked, stomped, tossed all over the room, used to beat several band members about the head and shoulders, and repeatedly thrown into the ceiling fans. In the official Composted say-no-to-drugs-comic-book continuity (note: does not actually exist, but someone should make it up on wikipedia anyway), he has obviously swum off with Leo the fish to Rainbow Unicorn Buttrape Land to live happily ever after.
When Composted wrapped up, it was getting towards the point where I had to split in order to get the last Orange Line train back towards where I left my car. It was tough missing the nationals on this one, especially since I'd been impressed with The Funeral Pyre the last time I saw them (at Metalfest a few years back, for like 20 minutes), but I picked up a record from each before heading out. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make any of the several other gigs in the region; when they come back, you have to hope.
Even without the nationals, though, this was a kickass gig, at a place that's only going to get better: the Midway was well under construction for his one, so you've got to figure that they'll be expanded to their full new dimensions (more room for more audience, less gear piled on the sidewalk, and less sauna atmosphere) by the next gig I end up going down there for.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Every Shirt CXXXVIII: Composted - Fighting Cock
shirt: Composted - Fighting Cock
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2009
provenance: band/festival
This design debuted at the '09 NEDF and was intended to be exclusive there, though there will probably be some still kicking around the band's merch bucket by the NJDF should you see them there. Those wondering why this design of a baby chicken's head on top of a muscular human torso gets tagged as any sort of "cock" have obviously never seen the band live, nor listened to their CD all the way through, nor looked them up on YouTube. Do any of these, and you will understand the associativity that leads Composted to use chicken motifs in designs like these. You'll also laugh yourself stupid and get the reason stuck in your head all day, but thems the breaks.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Every Shirt CVI: Composted
shirt: Composted - SLAMbulance
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2009
provenance: band
Also acquired Friday, this is a shirt that really has to be seen full size to be appreciated, from a band that kind of has to be seen live to be fully grokked. For slam-death to give rise to a band like Composted, who are intentionally self-parodying as well as delivering quality slam, the genre has to be unintentionally self-parodying, to the point where people wonder if New Yorkment is actually a real band and don't get Composted's joke when they dress up in flat-brimmed hats, which may lead people to mistaken conclusions about the band, if all they've got is the music....until they see pictures from one of their gigs featuring otherwise normal Boston metalheads beating an inflatable plastic fish to death.
It may be difficult to see on the first pass, particularly because your attention's drawn to the SLAMbulance!!!1! and the Icy Hot Stuntaz just under the logo,but this dood is lurking in the background in the lower right (of the shirt, lower left of the image). No Pedobear, but there is a wicked lot of LOL INTERNETS on this shirt, even to the point, debatably, of this as a WYSIYWSB moment.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Composted with Rampant Decay, Embryonic Cryptopathia, and Macerated [O'Brien's, Allston, 7/10/2009]
Though the huge multinational trip is looming -- need to get some groundcloths in stat -- there are still local shows that need paying attention to, like this one, which was pretty much as awesome and as ridiculous as might have been expected going in.
I left right from work because I had some crap to take care of that ran late, but was pretty much on time until I got to the part where some idiot had thought it was smart to close 33-50% of Storrow Drive westbound for concert parking, instead of making people take the train and use their feet like they ought to. This wasted everybody's time and led me to hustle a bit after caching my vehicle, because I didn't want to miss Macerated. Fortunately, I got over with time to spare, and had the chance to drink a beer with a nice high water:chemicals ratio, apologize to Mark for not letting him know I was coming down in advance, and buy a CD off Rich before the bands started.
Macerated [5.5/7]
I have a history of prejudice against bands without bassists; such is well-documented here. Despite this drawback -- as mentioned in some other venues, Macerated's sound wasn't maybe as tight as might have been desired -- the actual music offered here was pretty damn cool. Their set was relatively short, but they kept up at a high level throughout, with a lot more of an old-school brutal sound than might have been expected on this bill, or with this kind of lineup. Part of this may have been the equipment; the guitarist had at least a seven-string, maybe an eight, and did a really good job of keeping a thick low-end going as well as slashing out the riffage.
As mentioned previously, this band had some good merch, but didn't charge much for it, and additionally spent a lot of time away from their merch table during set breaks. While this is understandable (nobody's going to begrudge band members the right to pack up, watch friends they see two or three times a year via tourdate trades, and get some food down), this may have led to decreased sales, which would be a shame: good bands from 500 miles away need and deserve a hand getting to their next gig.
Embryonic Cryptopathia [5/7]
There have been rumors that this is an active band about as long as I've been actually going to DIY shows in Boston. This, though, was the first time I'd actually seen them play, and the first or maybe second time I can recall seeing them on a bill. Though the set was far too short, EC executed masterfully, with short, sharp, heavily blackened bursts of death-grind pummeling the audience. You might not expect the black metal elements at a show like this, but that's before you notice the large numbers of Hirudinea and Witch Tomb members in this band; then, it becomes clear that this is the other side of that coin, the more grind-heavy side of that absolute blackened worldhate music. Hella good stuff; no idea when they're playing again, or if they'll have anything recorded by then, but a band to watch for in any case.
If there was anything odd about this set, it was that EC was debatably more costumed than Composted; while the "sports" theme the latter band had going on wasn't the most well-implemented themegag the band's ever done, this is still something.
Rampant Decay [5.5/7]
Mr. Rich Horror has put on, in concrete and scientific terms, a metric fuckton of shows, including this one, since I returned to the Northeast from overseas. I have been to many of these shows. He has also had an active band throughout, whether the name be It Will End In Pure Horror, Rich Horror and the Screaming Nervous Breakdowns, or at this point, Rampant Decay. Despite this guy running a large part, if not the lion's share, of heavy music in eastern Massachusetts, I had to date never seen his actual band, for three years either missing shows due to illness, schedule conflicts, or outside commitments, or going to shows and being bummed that his band had to cancel. It boggles the frickin mind.
So I eventually do actually see Rampant Decay, and what is the upshot? A hella good band that makes Rich's commitment to promotion entirely understandable, thickly slurrying the line between metal and punk to the point where other promoters might not book them on punk or hardcore shows as being too metal, or metal promoters give them a pass as too punk. This is, of course, dumb, given the quality of the music, which mixes the best elements of Carnivore and a moshpit fistfight to create high-class DIY music that doesn't care nearly so much about genre as it does about getting wasted and headbutting somebody in the jaw. Rampant Decay could also have gone on longer than they did, but it was a good set regardless, and hopefully this ridiculous streak is over and I won't have to wait another three goddamned years to see a very active band from my home area again.
Composted [6/7]
On this sad occasion, two members left the Composted family: Eliot "the BlackNess Monster" Bayless, who separated amicably from the band to pursue a career in actually getting paid to do music stuffs, which was taking off to the point that playing in an active death metal band was starting to interfere, and Leo the inflatable fish, who was beaten, stomped, and eventually hit by a car while trying to cross Harvard Ave. Yes, seriously. (Photo credits to Rev. Aaron, obviously.) That Leo survived to that point was something of a miracle, and may be a record for a Composted inflatable prop; practically everything else that gets thrown into the audience dies in a matter of a song or two, but Leo kept on trucking the whole set, flying through the air, getting punched and sat on, bouncing off everyone and everything, and helping Composted demonstrate that they are, yes, among the best slam-death bands out there, because while everybody may be able to lock in and drill siqq breakdownz khed, there's only an elect few that can do this while getting hit in the face with blowup fish and not miss a beat.
I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the best Composted set I've seen, but it was damned high quality, with solid slam-death making up for a slight decrease in gag volume. More so than for Rampant Decay, people got moving and violent -- towards each other as well as the inflatable fish -- but nobody got facewaffled and Eliot (on the floor because O'Brien's only has so much stage area) didn't even drop his guitar after he got run into, despite the strap separating from it. Good times, to be sure.
Eventually, the music stopped, and the band packed up, and people danced and made gang signs to the first Body Count disc, which was somehow on the club sound system, and then I hit the trail, saw Leo bounce off the windshield of some totally oblivious motorists, and hiked back to pick up my car again. Having gone right from work, there was no downtime, so I was feeling pretty beat, and as a result didn't pay attention on Route 1 and ended up detouring through Lynn and Swampscott for no discernable reason in the process of getting home. Three or four shows left, then it's off to Europe with whatever I end up hauling.
I left right from work because I had some crap to take care of that ran late, but was pretty much on time until I got to the part where some idiot had thought it was smart to close 33-50% of Storrow Drive westbound for concert parking, instead of making people take the train and use their feet like they ought to. This wasted everybody's time and led me to hustle a bit after caching my vehicle, because I didn't want to miss Macerated. Fortunately, I got over with time to spare, and had the chance to drink a beer with a nice high water:chemicals ratio, apologize to Mark for not letting him know I was coming down in advance, and buy a CD off Rich before the bands started.
Macerated [5.5/7]
I have a history of prejudice against bands without bassists; such is well-documented here. Despite this drawback -- as mentioned in some other venues, Macerated's sound wasn't maybe as tight as might have been desired -- the actual music offered here was pretty damn cool. Their set was relatively short, but they kept up at a high level throughout, with a lot more of an old-school brutal sound than might have been expected on this bill, or with this kind of lineup. Part of this may have been the equipment; the guitarist had at least a seven-string, maybe an eight, and did a really good job of keeping a thick low-end going as well as slashing out the riffage.
As mentioned previously, this band had some good merch, but didn't charge much for it, and additionally spent a lot of time away from their merch table during set breaks. While this is understandable (nobody's going to begrudge band members the right to pack up, watch friends they see two or three times a year via tourdate trades, and get some food down), this may have led to decreased sales, which would be a shame: good bands from 500 miles away need and deserve a hand getting to their next gig.
Embryonic Cryptopathia [5/7]
There have been rumors that this is an active band about as long as I've been actually going to DIY shows in Boston. This, though, was the first time I'd actually seen them play, and the first or maybe second time I can recall seeing them on a bill. Though the set was far too short, EC executed masterfully, with short, sharp, heavily blackened bursts of death-grind pummeling the audience. You might not expect the black metal elements at a show like this, but that's before you notice the large numbers of Hirudinea and Witch Tomb members in this band; then, it becomes clear that this is the other side of that coin, the more grind-heavy side of that absolute blackened worldhate music. Hella good stuff; no idea when they're playing again, or if they'll have anything recorded by then, but a band to watch for in any case.
If there was anything odd about this set, it was that EC was debatably more costumed than Composted; while the "sports" theme the latter band had going on wasn't the most well-implemented themegag the band's ever done, this is still something.
Rampant Decay [5.5/7]
Mr. Rich Horror has put on, in concrete and scientific terms, a metric fuckton of shows, including this one, since I returned to the Northeast from overseas. I have been to many of these shows. He has also had an active band throughout, whether the name be It Will End In Pure Horror, Rich Horror and the Screaming Nervous Breakdowns, or at this point, Rampant Decay. Despite this guy running a large part, if not the lion's share, of heavy music in eastern Massachusetts, I had to date never seen his actual band, for three years either missing shows due to illness, schedule conflicts, or outside commitments, or going to shows and being bummed that his band had to cancel. It boggles the frickin mind.
So I eventually do actually see Rampant Decay, and what is the upshot? A hella good band that makes Rich's commitment to promotion entirely understandable, thickly slurrying the line between metal and punk to the point where other promoters might not book them on punk or hardcore shows as being too metal, or metal promoters give them a pass as too punk. This is, of course, dumb, given the quality of the music, which mixes the best elements of Carnivore and a moshpit fistfight to create high-class DIY music that doesn't care nearly so much about genre as it does about getting wasted and headbutting somebody in the jaw. Rampant Decay could also have gone on longer than they did, but it was a good set regardless, and hopefully this ridiculous streak is over and I won't have to wait another three goddamned years to see a very active band from my home area again.
Composted [6/7]
On this sad occasion, two members left the Composted family: Eliot "the BlackNess Monster" Bayless, who separated amicably from the band to pursue a career in actually getting paid to do music stuffs, which was taking off to the point that playing in an active death metal band was starting to interfere, and Leo the inflatable fish, who was beaten, stomped, and eventually hit by a car while trying to cross Harvard Ave. Yes, seriously. (Photo credits to Rev. Aaron, obviously.) That Leo survived to that point was something of a miracle, and may be a record for a Composted inflatable prop; practically everything else that gets thrown into the audience dies in a matter of a song or two, but Leo kept on trucking the whole set, flying through the air, getting punched and sat on, bouncing off everyone and everything, and helping Composted demonstrate that they are, yes, among the best slam-death bands out there, because while everybody may be able to lock in and drill siqq breakdownz khed, there's only an elect few that can do this while getting hit in the face with blowup fish and not miss a beat.
I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the best Composted set I've seen, but it was damned high quality, with solid slam-death making up for a slight decrease in gag volume. More so than for Rampant Decay, people got moving and violent -- towards each other as well as the inflatable fish -- but nobody got facewaffled and Eliot (on the floor because O'Brien's only has so much stage area) didn't even drop his guitar after he got run into, despite the strap separating from it. Good times, to be sure.
Eventually, the music stopped, and the band packed up, and people danced and made gang signs to the first Body Count disc, which was somehow on the club sound system, and then I hit the trail, saw Leo bounce off the windshield of some totally oblivious motorists, and hiked back to pick up my car again. Having gone right from work, there was no downtime, so I was feeling pretty beat, and as a result didn't pay attention on Route 1 and ended up detouring through Lynn and Swampscott for no discernable reason in the process of getting home. Three or four shows left, then it's off to Europe with whatever I end up hauling.
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.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Composted with Covenance and Burial [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/17/2008]
There are probably a million and one slam-related puns that could be made on this show, even setting aside the ones that Composted made from the stage. Let it suffice to say that this was a kickass Metal Thursday, and one at which a ridiculous amount of slam was passed out.
That being said, there is no guarantee that the author's purely vestigal sense of humor will be able to refrain from making slam-related jokes further on in this review.
Getting in to this iteration of New England's best regular concert series was a little tougher than normal; the DPW apparently decided that Thursday evening was a grand old time to tear up large parts of 128 and the Pike for resurfacing. The drivers trying to use the road did not agree, and as a result it was getting a little late when I finally pulled in to Ralph's; fortunately, the bands hadn't started yet, and I was able to unwind a little -- including picking up a couple interesting records from Oak Knoll -- before they did. Unfortunately, this was because Archaeon had to drop, which was kind of a bummer. I was also a little surprised to see the way the running order sorted out, with the touring band on next-to-last; on the other hand, they probably took one look at Composted's past history and shrewdly said "yeah, we're not going to try and top a local supergroup that dresses up in costumes and still plays good music, we'll take the next-to-last slot and get our van packed up earlier."
Burial [6/7]
In their last show under this name, Burial, veterans of long standing (thirteen years under this name, or since several members of Archaeon, who were scheduled to open, were last in kindergarden), put up a quality set of death metal bridging the gap between Suffocation-style brutality and the slam that would dominate the rest of the bill. Some of their material wasn't the most inspired, and their slam breakdowns definitely came off the third best, but this was a solid outing of death metal that should have eminently satisfied any brutal death fan in attendance. Unfortunately, they didn't have any merch, probably looking ahead to the name change, but they're definitely a band to watch out for.
Covenance [6/7]
There was a decent interval for set change between the bands, but as Covenance went on, the show changed gears sharply, from trad-brutal-death plus slam to slam plus hardcore. The floor got more violent, and the breakdowns a little better managed, but the main difference was in style rather than total level of execution. They may not have been quite as on as their antecedents in Dying Fetus and Misery Index, but this was still an awesome slab of slam/grind/death that would have easily overpowered most other bills even in this style. They're on tour for the next couple weeks, so if they're at a bar near you, go and get your ears blown out.
Too much of Covenance's merch is free for a band touring in an era of $4.20/gallon gas. Their CD is free, which was cool, but I'd've gladly dropped 3 to 5 bucks on the seven-inch (also free) in addition to the ten for the shirt. They're to be applauded for their DIY dedication, but sometimes you do need to eat food too, and metalheads certainly won't begrudge good bands for charging reasonable prices for good music.
Composted [6.5/7]
Composted has probably never heard of Rapid Charlie, and will no doubt be slightly saddened by the fact that they are not absolutely the first band to introduce pool noodles to heavy music. However, Rapid Charlie's knifers and conductor never put their noodles to as good or violent use as the audience did here, which is probably due to having a very special crowd, one that is as fine with turning a dead beachball into a keffiyeh as with whipping people with it, and one whose first instinct on seeing a stray flipflop in the pit is to beat themselves in the head with it. Composted, as might be inferred, was in luau gear on this outing, but still as usual passed out simply retarded amounts of slam. They've really got the interplay of breakdowns and pileups down to an exact if chaotic science, and if Rich spent less time destroying food with his forehead in this set, he spent more of it as a real co-vocalist, a uniformly positive turn for an already killer sound. This was not a perfect set overall, but it's easy to see how someone could get that impression if they were downstairs at the start when the sound system decided that Eliot's bass was just bringing too much slam, and decided to stop working for him. Once this was ironed out, yeah, it's hard to think of how it might have gone better, especially since they had the time at the end to grind through a couple unreleased TYAG (RIP) tunes.
The low point, if there was one, of this set was towards the end, where one of the girls in the pit collided with Crazy Dan when she wasn't expecting to and munged up her knee. Fortunately, the injury wasn't so critically bad that the bar had to call for the SLAMbulance. (See, I told you; no escaping the horrible slam jokes.)
I picked up a bunch of stickers from the Rev for the Sonderwerbeaktion Wacken; now to make up a sales pitch to convince Europeans to check out metal photography from the Americas. Unfortunately, Composted was pretty much out of stickers, so I'm not carrying over any bandmerch yet; fortunately, this means I still definitely have space. I was at a friend's wedding this weekend, so no shows, but there may be one or two this week before the last declared opportunity on the 27th.
That being said, there is no guarantee that the author's purely vestigal sense of humor will be able to refrain from making slam-related jokes further on in this review.
Getting in to this iteration of New England's best regular concert series was a little tougher than normal; the DPW apparently decided that Thursday evening was a grand old time to tear up large parts of 128 and the Pike for resurfacing. The drivers trying to use the road did not agree, and as a result it was getting a little late when I finally pulled in to Ralph's; fortunately, the bands hadn't started yet, and I was able to unwind a little -- including picking up a couple interesting records from Oak Knoll -- before they did. Unfortunately, this was because Archaeon had to drop, which was kind of a bummer. I was also a little surprised to see the way the running order sorted out, with the touring band on next-to-last; on the other hand, they probably took one look at Composted's past history and shrewdly said "yeah, we're not going to try and top a local supergroup that dresses up in costumes and still plays good music, we'll take the next-to-last slot and get our van packed up earlier."
Burial [6/7]
In their last show under this name, Burial, veterans of long standing (thirteen years under this name, or since several members of Archaeon, who were scheduled to open, were last in kindergarden), put up a quality set of death metal bridging the gap between Suffocation-style brutality and the slam that would dominate the rest of the bill. Some of their material wasn't the most inspired, and their slam breakdowns definitely came off the third best, but this was a solid outing of death metal that should have eminently satisfied any brutal death fan in attendance. Unfortunately, they didn't have any merch, probably looking ahead to the name change, but they're definitely a band to watch out for.
Covenance [6/7]
There was a decent interval for set change between the bands, but as Covenance went on, the show changed gears sharply, from trad-brutal-death plus slam to slam plus hardcore. The floor got more violent, and the breakdowns a little better managed, but the main difference was in style rather than total level of execution. They may not have been quite as on as their antecedents in Dying Fetus and Misery Index, but this was still an awesome slab of slam/grind/death that would have easily overpowered most other bills even in this style. They're on tour for the next couple weeks, so if they're at a bar near you, go and get your ears blown out.
Too much of Covenance's merch is free for a band touring in an era of $4.20/gallon gas. Their CD is free, which was cool, but I'd've gladly dropped 3 to 5 bucks on the seven-inch (also free) in addition to the ten for the shirt. They're to be applauded for their DIY dedication, but sometimes you do need to eat food too, and metalheads certainly won't begrudge good bands for charging reasonable prices for good music.
Composted [6.5/7]
Composted has probably never heard of Rapid Charlie, and will no doubt be slightly saddened by the fact that they are not absolutely the first band to introduce pool noodles to heavy music. However, Rapid Charlie's knifers and conductor never put their noodles to as good or violent use as the audience did here, which is probably due to having a very special crowd, one that is as fine with turning a dead beachball into a keffiyeh as with whipping people with it, and one whose first instinct on seeing a stray flipflop in the pit is to beat themselves in the head with it. Composted, as might be inferred, was in luau gear on this outing, but still as usual passed out simply retarded amounts of slam. They've really got the interplay of breakdowns and pileups down to an exact if chaotic science, and if Rich spent less time destroying food with his forehead in this set, he spent more of it as a real co-vocalist, a uniformly positive turn for an already killer sound. This was not a perfect set overall, but it's easy to see how someone could get that impression if they were downstairs at the start when the sound system decided that Eliot's bass was just bringing too much slam, and decided to stop working for him. Once this was ironed out, yeah, it's hard to think of how it might have gone better, especially since they had the time at the end to grind through a couple unreleased TYAG (RIP) tunes.
The low point, if there was one, of this set was towards the end, where one of the girls in the pit collided with Crazy Dan when she wasn't expecting to and munged up her knee. Fortunately, the injury wasn't so critically bad that the bar had to call for the SLAMbulance. (See, I told you; no escaping the horrible slam jokes.)
I picked up a bunch of stickers from the Rev for the Sonderwerbeaktion Wacken; now to make up a sales pitch to convince Europeans to check out metal photography from the Americas. Unfortunately, Composted was pretty much out of stickers, so I'm not carrying over any bandmerch yet; fortunately, this means I still definitely have space. I was at a friend's wedding this weekend, so no shows, but there may be one or two this week before the last declared opportunity on the 27th.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Terminally Your Aborted Ghost with Composted, Dysentery, Proteus, Archaeon, and Brutal #2 [Welfare Records, Haverhill, 4/7/2008]
Early-week shows are always kind of tough; people are back at work or school after the weekend, and are just caught up in the grind rather than seeking to actively escape it. This may have been the reason that this show wasn't as well-attended as it ought to have been, but it also may well have been a strong reason why TYAG wanted to do start their tour with three fairly-local shows early in the week, both to get the bugs out in front of the home crowd, and also to hit into the first leg of their travels on a weekend. As it was, this was a good show that would have been better with more doods, but still was about as good value as you could get for eight bucks on a Monday night.
Since the show was starting kind of early, I had to go right up from work, and got up to Haverhill about a quarter past six. I figured I'd miss a band or two, which would suck, but as it turned out, the music hadn't started yet, and I was able to wolf down my overpriced ghetto pies outside and get in with time to spare. Eventually, a DIY show will start on time somewhere, but until then, people stuck in traffic can relax a little.
Brutal #2 [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band live previously, but I did remember not being terribly impressed with their demo; this, though, was recorded nearly a year ago, and they've come a long way in the intervening time. They haven't yet set themselves apart as one of the top death metal bands in this area, but as the rest of the bill will show, this is wicked hard considering the depth of the New England scene, and they put on a solid, bruising set regardless. They've got a lot of ability, and the way it's being used has definitely improved since their last recording; whether they continue to push it up, or continue to play good meat-and-potatoes death metal, they'll continue to provide good music and good entertainment regardless.
Archaeon [5/7]
From a certain perspective, Archaeon has more potential than any other band on this bill. Of course, that perspective has to also admit that they were about the rawest band of the night (this being about their third show, if I recall correctly), and to a certain degree it did show in their performance. Less slammy than the surrounding bands, they set forth a strong set of highly insular brutal death metal that unfortunately was marred by a couple hitches where everything wasn't quite together yet. I like their style a little more, in general, than the slam-death offered in the main here, but they also hopefully impressed the other attendees enough with their chops that people will look for them on bills once they've got a little more experience and a little stronger sense of themselves as a band.
It was about here that I did the merch bit; I picked up an Archaeon shirt as well as a tour shirt and a kutte part from TYAG, and talked with Mark a bit; he recognized me from RTTP and OH NOES MAI COVER IS TEH BLOED. :roll: Well enough; it's hard to be anonymous when you're regularly in attendance at gigs where there's often only a handful of people not in one of the bands on the bill. I was also cursing my mostly empty wallet; I wanted to pick up a Composted shirt, but was running out of belt space and, not having seen Proteus before, didn't know what if anything I'd need to drop on them.
Proteus [6/7]
This was a splendidly killer set, with a sound that only TYAG really approached in its absolute diversity; as though Neurosis won a battle with half a dozen slam-death bands and carried away their breakdowns as trophies. At times, when they were locked in and going on for minutes at a time, it seemed like their set consisted entirely of one huge breakdown, and while this was not really the case, even if it had been, they definitely raised the slam break to the level of a high art. They had a few issues with the bass, but they were mostly corrected before they interrupted the run of the set, and the band succeeded in imposing their will on the crowd regardless. The set felt a little short; the set lengths on this gig were fairly short generally, to pack six bands and four stage changes (Composted and TYAG, for obvious reasons, use all the same gear) into four hours, but a really good set always feels shorter than it is.
At this point I picked up Proteus' CD, and was officially out of useful cash. Another $20, and I could have swung shirts from both them and Composted. I'm not sure whether to blame the need for Epic Leg Armor, or just the fact that I need to eat food, but regardless, it's pretty bogus.
Dysentery [6/7]
Dysentery was also in top form, and more so than when I last saw them, showed off their chops in addition to slam as well as the subtle technical demands that are still present when they're just dug in and blasting. Of course, this may be due to being that much closer to the band, and actually seeing their whole set as much as anything, but their music flowed together smoothly, and as before, also hit like a house to the face. There may not have been as much movement as they might have liked, despite the contributions of the Proteus guys, but a likely explanation is that Will was kind of constrained by having to hold onto the mic and do vocals, and thus couldn't flip out as much for his own band.
Composted [5.5/7]
Those expecting to see the visual spectacle that this band's presented in the past may have been let down; this was Composted Lite, with no costumes or props, probably because 3/4 of the band was going to be spending the next 3 weeks living out of the back of a van as Terminally Your Aborted Ghost. They were also down to a four-piece, with Eliot switching to bass, and this did have a material result, as the sound wasn't as thick or dense as when I saw them at O'Brien's with two guitarists. Even without gimmicks and with a less dense sound, though, Composted did put up a strong set, and quite as funny as expected. There was a little more fan participation in this one than the last time, probably because the stakes were lower and people just had to sit down for the intro rather than risk getting baked goods all over themselves. Unfortunately, my knee didn't bend all the way and I also failed at even sitting down. Fortunately, this was the sole piece of fail manifested during this show.
Terminally Your Aborted Ghost [5.5/7]
The score stuck onto this performance illustrates the problems -- and, actually, a signal critical failing -- of trying to attach an arbitrary number to a holistic experience. I was really impressed by TYAG musically, but their skills and sound couldn't quite erase a bunch of purely incidental stuff that cut into the experience; namely, Mark breaking a string and the room energy (the band less so, even though 75% of them had just done a full set as Composted) slowly running down towards the end. Fortunately, this all is stuff that the band will work out as they get back into touring mode; they'll be more solid as they work with and get used to a regular setlist, and Mark's too much of a pro to regularly go breaking strings, and in most cases, they won't be playing on a Monday night mostly to people in other bands on the gig, and their real abilities will cut through more significantly. On hearing these guys, it's clearly apparent why they've had such a high profile despite an extended period of inactivity; their sound represents a fairly perfect fusion of hardcore, grind, and death metal actually done right, and blending in a bunch of stuff that most bands combining those genre buckets will never think to include. Despite the technical difficulties, this was a really good musical performance, and if you see them on this current run, whether at one of the remaining New England dates, somewhere else in the country, or on the last day of the tour in Yonkers with Vital Remains and Monstrosity, you're quite likely to have an even better time of it.
The music over and the venue nearly empty, I stumped my way back to the T lot to get home, and thankfully avoided further injury en route. Four hours of quality death metal - not at all bad for a Monday night.
Since the show was starting kind of early, I had to go right up from work, and got up to Haverhill about a quarter past six. I figured I'd miss a band or two, which would suck, but as it turned out, the music hadn't started yet, and I was able to wolf down my overpriced ghetto pies outside and get in with time to spare. Eventually, a DIY show will start on time somewhere, but until then, people stuck in traffic can relax a little.
Brutal #2 [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band live previously, but I did remember not being terribly impressed with their demo; this, though, was recorded nearly a year ago, and they've come a long way in the intervening time. They haven't yet set themselves apart as one of the top death metal bands in this area, but as the rest of the bill will show, this is wicked hard considering the depth of the New England scene, and they put on a solid, bruising set regardless. They've got a lot of ability, and the way it's being used has definitely improved since their last recording; whether they continue to push it up, or continue to play good meat-and-potatoes death metal, they'll continue to provide good music and good entertainment regardless.
Archaeon [5/7]
From a certain perspective, Archaeon has more potential than any other band on this bill. Of course, that perspective has to also admit that they were about the rawest band of the night (this being about their third show, if I recall correctly), and to a certain degree it did show in their performance. Less slammy than the surrounding bands, they set forth a strong set of highly insular brutal death metal that unfortunately was marred by a couple hitches where everything wasn't quite together yet. I like their style a little more, in general, than the slam-death offered in the main here, but they also hopefully impressed the other attendees enough with their chops that people will look for them on bills once they've got a little more experience and a little stronger sense of themselves as a band.
It was about here that I did the merch bit; I picked up an Archaeon shirt as well as a tour shirt and a kutte part from TYAG, and talked with Mark a bit; he recognized me from RTTP and OH NOES MAI COVER IS TEH BLOED. :roll: Well enough; it's hard to be anonymous when you're regularly in attendance at gigs where there's often only a handful of people not in one of the bands on the bill. I was also cursing my mostly empty wallet; I wanted to pick up a Composted shirt, but was running out of belt space and, not having seen Proteus before, didn't know what if anything I'd need to drop on them.
Proteus [6/7]
This was a splendidly killer set, with a sound that only TYAG really approached in its absolute diversity; as though Neurosis won a battle with half a dozen slam-death bands and carried away their breakdowns as trophies. At times, when they were locked in and going on for minutes at a time, it seemed like their set consisted entirely of one huge breakdown, and while this was not really the case, even if it had been, they definitely raised the slam break to the level of a high art. They had a few issues with the bass, but they were mostly corrected before they interrupted the run of the set, and the band succeeded in imposing their will on the crowd regardless. The set felt a little short; the set lengths on this gig were fairly short generally, to pack six bands and four stage changes (Composted and TYAG, for obvious reasons, use all the same gear) into four hours, but a really good set always feels shorter than it is.
At this point I picked up Proteus' CD, and was officially out of useful cash. Another $20, and I could have swung shirts from both them and Composted. I'm not sure whether to blame the need for Epic Leg Armor, or just the fact that I need to eat food, but regardless, it's pretty bogus.
Dysentery [6/7]
Dysentery was also in top form, and more so than when I last saw them, showed off their chops in addition to slam as well as the subtle technical demands that are still present when they're just dug in and blasting. Of course, this may be due to being that much closer to the band, and actually seeing their whole set as much as anything, but their music flowed together smoothly, and as before, also hit like a house to the face. There may not have been as much movement as they might have liked, despite the contributions of the Proteus guys, but a likely explanation is that Will was kind of constrained by having to hold onto the mic and do vocals, and thus couldn't flip out as much for his own band.
Composted [5.5/7]
Those expecting to see the visual spectacle that this band's presented in the past may have been let down; this was Composted Lite, with no costumes or props, probably because 3/4 of the band was going to be spending the next 3 weeks living out of the back of a van as Terminally Your Aborted Ghost. They were also down to a four-piece, with Eliot switching to bass, and this did have a material result, as the sound wasn't as thick or dense as when I saw them at O'Brien's with two guitarists. Even without gimmicks and with a less dense sound, though, Composted did put up a strong set, and quite as funny as expected. There was a little more fan participation in this one than the last time, probably because the stakes were lower and people just had to sit down for the intro rather than risk getting baked goods all over themselves. Unfortunately, my knee didn't bend all the way and I also failed at even sitting down. Fortunately, this was the sole piece of fail manifested during this show.
Terminally Your Aborted Ghost [5.5/7]
The score stuck onto this performance illustrates the problems -- and, actually, a signal critical failing -- of trying to attach an arbitrary number to a holistic experience. I was really impressed by TYAG musically, but their skills and sound couldn't quite erase a bunch of purely incidental stuff that cut into the experience; namely, Mark breaking a string and the room energy (the band less so, even though 75% of them had just done a full set as Composted) slowly running down towards the end. Fortunately, this all is stuff that the band will work out as they get back into touring mode; they'll be more solid as they work with and get used to a regular setlist, and Mark's too much of a pro to regularly go breaking strings, and in most cases, they won't be playing on a Monday night mostly to people in other bands on the gig, and their real abilities will cut through more significantly. On hearing these guys, it's clearly apparent why they've had such a high profile despite an extended period of inactivity; their sound represents a fairly perfect fusion of hardcore, grind, and death metal actually done right, and blending in a bunch of stuff that most bands combining those genre buckets will never think to include. Despite the technical difficulties, this was a really good musical performance, and if you see them on this current run, whether at one of the remaining New England dates, somewhere else in the country, or on the last day of the tour in Yonkers with Vital Remains and Monstrosity, you're quite likely to have an even better time of it.
The music over and the venue nearly empty, I stumped my way back to the T lot to get home, and thankfully avoided further injury en route. Four hours of quality death metal - not at all bad for a Monday night.
Friday, March 14, 2008
a late show review and some bad news for procrasinators
Later on in this post, some content about the recent Embryonic Devourment gig at O'Brien's, but first, a brief comment: as predicted back last year, W:O:A '08 has officially sold out. This sucks for everyone who doesn't have a ticket but was thinking of going, but it's good news for me: my ticket's value will sharply appreciate, maybe even faster than it had been earning so far -- according to exchange rates, I've "made" about $15, or a little less than 10%, by buying when I did based purely on its face value in euros versus the dollar.
It remains to be seen how many Wacken tickets were bought en bloc by Americans looking to speculate in the foreign exchange market, but it will probably be a low number, because even though this was about the soundest investment you could make -- the value of the dollar was virtually guaranteed to continue to drop, and the festival, especially this year, was basically guaranteed to sell out -- it still sounds really stupid.
Sexcrement with Embryonic Devourment, Dismal Lapse, and Composted
O'Brien's, Allston, 3/12/2008
--
It had been, at this point, a long fucking time since I'd been to a show, and I was feeling somewhat down due to various personal issues, and significantly because I'd missed Goreality at Metal Thursday the week before, as well as the sole installment of the Benefit For The Advancement of Dudes that I've been in town for on the weekend. It was well and truly time for some death metal; no qualifiers, no ancilliary crap, no bullshit. Just brutal music, sick topics, and large people in black shirts hitting one another. There's a purity in it, but that's a digression for another article; writing show reviews on their own is pretentious enough in assuming I actually have something to say.
I stumped the two miles in from my regular car depot in good time, and managed to get a beer before Composted started. More than anything I was surprised by the turnout: this was a Wednesday night gig featuring some relentlessly straight-up brutal death metal, but the place was packed, maybe in the neighborhood of a hundred. It was quite certainly the largest bunch of people that I've ever seen in O'Brien's, and a definite contender for the most people I've yet seen at a DIY show. What's more, most of them stuck around all the way through, so it wasn't just Composted's non-musical elements that brought them in...or if it was, their musical elements definitely pulled them in after the hook was struck.
Composted [6/7]
Short descriptions of this band have been fairly succinct, if non-musical: "GWAR for /b/tards", "retards", etc. To a certain degree, this is fair; they wear silly costumes, engage in performance art, and their drummer has a Pedobear suit on order. However, like GWAR, they also have an immense amount of musical ability: the pedigree of this band includes (among others) Terminally Your Aborted Ghost, The Body Farm, Bane of Existence, and just about every powerviolence band that has ever formed in the Boston area. (Even if Rich is mostly there to do demonstrative eating, he still does do backing vocals, and also presumably influences their direction.) Said direction is a combination of a lot of slammy threads, and at least at this show, it produced a killer final result; if you took off the duck masks and took away the baked goods, Composted would still be a kickass band. However, they'd be less visually interesting and a lot less likely to weird out touring bands -- this was the first gig that they've done with significant out-of-New-England participation in the lineup, if I recall correctly, and the Californians were at least at first a little confused as to how and why this band was playing killer slam-death and simultaneously smashing cupcakes on their faces.
Dismal Lapse [5.5/7]
The first of these bands with the unenviable task of "follow a local supergroup that wears costumes and does antics" was this three-piece, who had a few equipment issues but still delivered a really good set of technical death metal. Dismal Lapse started out a little flat, but they improved over the course of the set despite (allegedly) the guitarist's head dying on him about midway through. They weren't quite as brutal, maybe, as some of the other bands, and they were a little frustrated with the crowd not moving for them, but they put out a quality death metal set, and I was more than a little bummed that I wasn't able to purchase any recordings off them (Deepsend Records will have an EP from them in the near future - put it on your list, definitely at least to DL if the band isn't coming to your area for you to check them out live), though their tour shirt was still pretty damn cool.
Note for those who are somehow both plugged into this scene and behind on current happenings: Dismal Lapse used to be called Bled, but had to change their name due to legal pressure from what the band referred to as "a bunch of emo queers". I'll take the band at face value, because in every other aspect of their performance and attendance they appeared to be stand-up dudes, but there are still some points of suspicion: first, Dismal Lapse is a better name than Bled, even if their Bled logo did look really cool, and more importantly, second, "Bled" is short by like eight words of typical emo band names. Maybe it's different in California, but here in New England you usually see emo/screamo douches Our Band's Name Is Actually A Complete Sentence opening up for stereotypical metalcore combo Three Word Name....and then someone swings from the drop ceiling rails and the police show up and close the venue.
Embryonic Devourment [6.5/7]
Insidious Decrepancy dropped off this tour for personal reasons, leaving this outfit as the last touring band of the night -- the "keep Allston hipsters around for the nationals" rule seems to have stayed in effect from the last time I was down at this place, though "Allston hipsters" may have a different definition when it's Sexcrement closing up -- and those who were staying around mainly to see their friends in the last band definitely got a prime earful of kickass death metal out of it. While not as slammy as the New England bands, ED definitely took the brutality up a notch, and interstingly worked in fairly seamless transitions of spoken-word verse between songs; hella different, but still a killer overall effect, especially considering how good the music was surrounding it. There wasn't a lot of crowd motion for them, either, but by this time, it looked like the nationals had the measure of the audience, and since there was a lot of cheering and other general approbation, they didn't seem to mind so much. Their merch was done up at a high level, really good production values for a tour hitting mostly or totally DIY venues, and it was also justified in that a lot of people did spring for it; mine's about the best shirt I've picked up this year, in terms of total design and execution. The conclusion is that the band knew their music would bring a lot of people over to the merch stand rather than the bar, and it made sense to do thoroughly kickass design and presentation to close the deal on that volume of sales.
Sexcrement [6/7]
As per last time I saw these guys here, the pit went apeshit for them; even though I moved back some in preparation for their set, I was still catching and tossing people most of the way through, as well as sweeeping up shards so that those who fell down wouldn't be diving onto a bunch of broken glass. Normally, the micro-shelves around the pillars in the middle of the floor at O'Brien's are perfectly functional for holding drinks, and if everyone had just been slugging back PBRs, there wouldn't've been a problem, but glass bottles, pint glasses, and vigorous moshing do not mix well. There was a fair amount of breakage, but we had it under control. The band also kept it fairly under control: the music was cool, if not quite at the same level as last time, and Adam, despite the audience plying him with at least two tequila shots and a couple beer cans -- on top of what he may have had before the band started -- managed to keep his dick in his pants. Their set was a little short, or at least, so it seemed, but didn't lack for activity, interest, or quality death metal, to say nothing of progressively more incoherent stage banter. I was planning to pick up one of their "Music You Fuck To" shirts, but was unfortunately out of money at this point: supporting the touring bands, plus picking up an obligato Broken Hope record and some other stuff, had chunked up nearly all of my wallet contents that weren't committed to paying the garage fee and purchasing food for the rest of the week. I'll see them again, though; maybe not next week, as I can't do the next-day-off thing needed for a proper show in Providence due to jury duty later in the week, but some other time, as a band this good and well-supported doesn't usually just strike the tents and give up.
The trip back wasn't that difficult, either on foot or by highway, despite exhaustion and nearly 2 liters of rotten beer, but it hit hard afterwards; hence this thing is late. Next show is probably going to be Autumn Above (likely not reviewed), then Metal Thursday with a bunch of doom bands...and then Metal Spring Break looms large in the following weekend.
It remains to be seen how many Wacken tickets were bought en bloc by Americans looking to speculate in the foreign exchange market, but it will probably be a low number, because even though this was about the soundest investment you could make -- the value of the dollar was virtually guaranteed to continue to drop, and the festival, especially this year, was basically guaranteed to sell out -- it still sounds really stupid.
Sexcrement with Embryonic Devourment, Dismal Lapse, and Composted
O'Brien's, Allston, 3/12/2008
--
It had been, at this point, a long fucking time since I'd been to a show, and I was feeling somewhat down due to various personal issues, and significantly because I'd missed Goreality at Metal Thursday the week before, as well as the sole installment of the Benefit For The Advancement of Dudes that I've been in town for on the weekend. It was well and truly time for some death metal; no qualifiers, no ancilliary crap, no bullshit. Just brutal music, sick topics, and large people in black shirts hitting one another. There's a purity in it, but that's a digression for another article; writing show reviews on their own is pretentious enough in assuming I actually have something to say.
I stumped the two miles in from my regular car depot in good time, and managed to get a beer before Composted started. More than anything I was surprised by the turnout: this was a Wednesday night gig featuring some relentlessly straight-up brutal death metal, but the place was packed, maybe in the neighborhood of a hundred. It was quite certainly the largest bunch of people that I've ever seen in O'Brien's, and a definite contender for the most people I've yet seen at a DIY show. What's more, most of them stuck around all the way through, so it wasn't just Composted's non-musical elements that brought them in...or if it was, their musical elements definitely pulled them in after the hook was struck.
Composted [6/7]
Short descriptions of this band have been fairly succinct, if non-musical: "GWAR for /b/tards", "retards", etc. To a certain degree, this is fair; they wear silly costumes, engage in performance art, and their drummer has a Pedobear suit on order. However, like GWAR, they also have an immense amount of musical ability: the pedigree of this band includes (among others) Terminally Your Aborted Ghost, The Body Farm, Bane of Existence, and just about every powerviolence band that has ever formed in the Boston area. (Even if Rich is mostly there to do demonstrative eating, he still does do backing vocals, and also presumably influences their direction.) Said direction is a combination of a lot of slammy threads, and at least at this show, it produced a killer final result; if you took off the duck masks and took away the baked goods, Composted would still be a kickass band. However, they'd be less visually interesting and a lot less likely to weird out touring bands -- this was the first gig that they've done with significant out-of-New-England participation in the lineup, if I recall correctly, and the Californians were at least at first a little confused as to how and why this band was playing killer slam-death and simultaneously smashing cupcakes on their faces.
Dismal Lapse [5.5/7]
The first of these bands with the unenviable task of "follow a local supergroup that wears costumes and does antics" was this three-piece, who had a few equipment issues but still delivered a really good set of technical death metal. Dismal Lapse started out a little flat, but they improved over the course of the set despite (allegedly) the guitarist's head dying on him about midway through. They weren't quite as brutal, maybe, as some of the other bands, and they were a little frustrated with the crowd not moving for them, but they put out a quality death metal set, and I was more than a little bummed that I wasn't able to purchase any recordings off them (Deepsend Records will have an EP from them in the near future - put it on your list, definitely at least to DL if the band isn't coming to your area for you to check them out live), though their tour shirt was still pretty damn cool.
Note for those who are somehow both plugged into this scene and behind on current happenings: Dismal Lapse used to be called Bled, but had to change their name due to legal pressure from what the band referred to as "a bunch of emo queers". I'll take the band at face value, because in every other aspect of their performance and attendance they appeared to be stand-up dudes, but there are still some points of suspicion: first, Dismal Lapse is a better name than Bled, even if their Bled logo did look really cool, and more importantly, second, "Bled" is short by like eight words of typical emo band names. Maybe it's different in California, but here in New England you usually see emo/screamo douches Our Band's Name Is Actually A Complete Sentence opening up for stereotypical metalcore combo Three Word Name....and then someone swings from the drop ceiling rails and the police show up and close the venue.
Embryonic Devourment [6.5/7]
Insidious Decrepancy dropped off this tour for personal reasons, leaving this outfit as the last touring band of the night -- the "keep Allston hipsters around for the nationals" rule seems to have stayed in effect from the last time I was down at this place, though "Allston hipsters" may have a different definition when it's Sexcrement closing up -- and those who were staying around mainly to see their friends in the last band definitely got a prime earful of kickass death metal out of it. While not as slammy as the New England bands, ED definitely took the brutality up a notch, and interstingly worked in fairly seamless transitions of spoken-word verse between songs; hella different, but still a killer overall effect, especially considering how good the music was surrounding it. There wasn't a lot of crowd motion for them, either, but by this time, it looked like the nationals had the measure of the audience, and since there was a lot of cheering and other general approbation, they didn't seem to mind so much. Their merch was done up at a high level, really good production values for a tour hitting mostly or totally DIY venues, and it was also justified in that a lot of people did spring for it; mine's about the best shirt I've picked up this year, in terms of total design and execution. The conclusion is that the band knew their music would bring a lot of people over to the merch stand rather than the bar, and it made sense to do thoroughly kickass design and presentation to close the deal on that volume of sales.
Sexcrement [6/7]
As per last time I saw these guys here, the pit went apeshit for them; even though I moved back some in preparation for their set, I was still catching and tossing people most of the way through, as well as sweeeping up shards so that those who fell down wouldn't be diving onto a bunch of broken glass. Normally, the micro-shelves around the pillars in the middle of the floor at O'Brien's are perfectly functional for holding drinks, and if everyone had just been slugging back PBRs, there wouldn't've been a problem, but glass bottles, pint glasses, and vigorous moshing do not mix well. There was a fair amount of breakage, but we had it under control. The band also kept it fairly under control: the music was cool, if not quite at the same level as last time, and Adam, despite the audience plying him with at least two tequila shots and a couple beer cans -- on top of what he may have had before the band started -- managed to keep his dick in his pants. Their set was a little short, or at least, so it seemed, but didn't lack for activity, interest, or quality death metal, to say nothing of progressively more incoherent stage banter. I was planning to pick up one of their "Music You Fuck To" shirts, but was unfortunately out of money at this point: supporting the touring bands, plus picking up an obligato Broken Hope record and some other stuff, had chunked up nearly all of my wallet contents that weren't committed to paying the garage fee and purchasing food for the rest of the week. I'll see them again, though; maybe not next week, as I can't do the next-day-off thing needed for a proper show in Providence due to jury duty later in the week, but some other time, as a band this good and well-supported doesn't usually just strike the tents and give up.
The trip back wasn't that difficult, either on foot or by highway, despite exhaustion and nearly 2 liters of rotten beer, but it hit hard afterwards; hence this thing is late. Next show is probably going to be Autumn Above (likely not reviewed), then Metal Thursday with a bunch of doom bands...and then Metal Spring Break looms large in the following weekend.
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