Hekseri with Obsidian Tongue, Noose, Deathgod Messiah, and Grue [O'Brien's, Allston, 8/31/2012]

I was a little later than anticipated getting out for this one, but due to typically hard hiking, even with my rig full of stuff to hand out locally, and typically late actual start (five bands, I was expecting 8:30, but the music didn't start till 9), I got in with time to spare and to cool down in the still-functioning, still not overwhelmed AC.  In this time I was able to get some stuff passed out to Larissa in the course of talking about, among other things, the upcoming Hekseri album (as soon as they can finish putting the recordings together and find a label that's not going to go bankrupt) and the chance that they might be playing out in Europe in support of it.  Not a whole lot of discussion, though; her priority was of course on keeping things going smoothly, and secondarily finding out where the hell Noose was, because they didn't make it up to the venue in time to take the first slot, letting it get shuffled up for...

Grue [5.5/7]
The step up from the last outing in this building is quite evident, showing the difference a month can make.  The fundamentals are still the same, but more refined, and with a stronger sense of original self from the band.  If the bark was still on the logs last time, this set saw those chunks of The Olden Domain and Mardraum sawed and hewn into blocks, strapped together with some more third-wave chords and Dave's fulminating death-influenced drumstyle, corners still rough in some places but definitely showing the plan of what this band is building towards.  If we have to use those buckets, Grue is still definitely a third-wave black metal band, but more than any other third-wave band in this area, they're drawing clear lines: "no," the music says, "we're not completely on board with what's been happening in this style lately, so just to be sure, we're going to go back to Dead As Dreams and the proggier end of the viking metal flowering and start from there."  Where they're going, and if they can catch OT in terms of overall effect, are still to be decided, but this is definitely a band worth watching.

Grue setting up.

Since DGM and Grue were mostly backlining out of a shared equipment pool (and things were running a couple minutes behind), this was a short set change, but still long enough to get a beer and peruse the merchdesks; Obsidian Tongue's buttons are a little big, but still decent enough to take one to fill out a fiver in the process of picking up some very cool patches.  This new printing process -- if it catches on; Hekseri also had patches in this line -- in combination with the return towards patched gear on the part of the audience, has the potential to be very, very cool for DIY bands, as the quality is a huge step up from stamping onto a roll of denim and hand-cutting shit, at what seemed to be a pretty marginal additional investment.

Deathgod Messiah [5.5/7]
Hekseri wasn't the only band making a rare return here; it had been a couple years since I saw DGM, partly due to bad luck on my part and partly due to lineup issues and members concentrating on other projects, but they made up for lost time in their typically explosive fashion.  There was a little more Obituary in the sound than I noticed before, but the basic parameters remain, and the resolute violence of their attack got the floor moving for the first time on "Sexual Violence".  Because this kind of gutter-born first-wave black-death is kind of inherently and violently opposed to any kind of transcendance, there may be a ceiling on their arbitrary-numbers rating relative to every other band in the world, but that ultimately doesn't matter to the experience of getting down front, banging like a maniac, and fully soaking up that feeling of relentless war against everything.  Killer.

Also, as before, DGM blacked up for the gig (the only band to do so), and reinforced a long-held personal conviction by positive example: if you're going to do corpsepaint, black shoepolish or you're a fucking false.  No mercy ever.

Marcus invokes hell for Deathgod Messiah -- but not dicks, yet, though those were also on offer later.

Here, Wren finally goddamned showed up, and I was able to hand him the merchpack I'd accumulated overseas.  As noted repeatedly, Party.San has an infinite appetite for DIY material -- and the sources feeding that hunger aint chopped liver either.  Mostly flyers, but still an original Death Agony CD, a copy of Violent Sun's demo, and G.U.C. #28, which will be of dubious utility outside of the CD, but was necessary to hand across regardless.

Noose [5/7]
Despite the fears that they might not show, Noose eventually did get in, and slotted themselves in here as soon as a slot became available.  Unfortunately, they didn't quite meet the standard of the first bands -- indicating why they were initially slotted to go on first -- and attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to cover for their relative lack of compositional prowess by turning up the volume.  Noose thoroughly overpowered the room withtheir sound, but eventually, you decide to plug up or stand further back, and what you get is, at this point, a largely formulaic third-wave black metal act that's making itself difficult to hear via feedback.  They had some cool lines, but ultimately not enough of them to stand out; at the end of the day 'loud' is the bread and butter of metalheads, and no amount of loud is enough loud to prevent us from eventually digging through and evaluating the music underneath.  Noose has some decent potential, but at this point, it's a lot more for the future than the present.

Sorry, no pictures; the lights were down, and since I don't use plugs, I had to be a decent distance back if I wanted any hope of hearing the last two bands.

In this break, I also did my Hekseri/Witchblood merch, and of course all in German.  Meg had been at Party.San, but didn't see me there, for the obvious reason that most of my infield time was spent skulling Totenmacher with various dudes from Germany and the Republic, and that my non-infield time was thoroughly consumed by Dosenfußball and getting up to no good with Müller.  (Report to come, seriously.)  I passed out some flyers in return, but probably to no effect; even Jena is a fair piece from Nürnberg, and Dresden, from that perspective, is almost in goddamned Poland.

Obsidian Tongue [6/7]
Material-wise, this set from OT had a lot of similarities to the last one in this building, and we still didn't get "It Dangles..." or "Distant, Residual", despite the band giving props to the older-styled violence of the balance of the bill by pulling a track off their tape demo.  There will be other shows, though, and this one was pretty damn killer, even if beset by occasional technical difficulties.  As Obsidian Tongue's been playing lately, this was a down outing, but that says more about how good this band's been lately than about their form on this date.  Even as such, ceaselessly cool, still transcendant.

A light in the darkness -- when bands are super popular, it's hard to stand close enough to get pics with stuff in the rest of the frame.

Since I had to stop drinking to dry out for the drive home, I took a  break outside here.  It's getting to the part of the year where Boston's no longer a smelting furnace, but it's still not exactly cool out, even at eleven at night.

Hekseri [6/7]
Meg's Ausseidlung has meant, of course, no gigs since PT109 last year, but this admittedly short set made up for lost time in pretty impressive fashion.  I'm not sure how much new stuff we got along with the classics and Celtic Frost covers, as the front was pretty goddamn turbulent (putting at least one pint glass on the floor, leading me to spend most of "Der Hexenhammer" and "Hekseri" sweeping with my boot soles), but new material is not strictly needed here.  All the audience was looking for was Hekseri, again, and that's exactly what we got, driven, focused, bloody-minded, and somewhat more technically adept than when they were playing out more regularly.  Additionally, Meg's split her bodhran parts out into a new pagan project, keeping the focus here thoroughly on true black fucking metal.  I'd rather have gotten more, but curfews are curfews, and under these conditions, it's good enough to still be able to get Hekseri locally, period.

Hekseri return.

Jerome and Josh, shadowed but not overlooked.  If you want pictures that actually have recognizable people in them, go to RTTP, this is for inaccurate words and occasional poorly-resolved visuals.

Whole band again, with marginally better light on Megan.

As noted, though, the set had to come to an end, and with the bar bellowing for last call, I beat feet for the bridges.  I dodged a scare on the highway -- the stretch by Jordan's in Reading had apparently turned into a Twisted Metal track -- and got home, but at goddamned 2 in the morning, in just enough time to go to sleep, snooze through the alarm, and not hike enough on Saturday before getting drunk watching bad EPL games.  Long weekend, it'll work out.

Cold Northern Vengeance with Sewer Goddess, Deathgod Messiah, and Vaettir [Anchors Up!, Haverhill, 1/30/2010]

So the other shows this week fell by the wayside for various reasons, but there was no chance that this one was going to suffer the same fate. CNV does not play out a lot (though hopefully this will change with them getting some more in the way of label support, and with the turnout alluded to below), and Vaettir is too good to be teetering in and out of existence/activity as they've been doing. So it was a brisk hike back from class to Green Street, with a few minor detours to get some food down and in an ultimately unsuccessful search for a spare car battery, and then the long run of 93 to 95 to 97 to get up at doorsish, stow the car deep in the T lot, and hike over to the venue the long way round to try to mislead the cop sitting right in the damn driveway about my misuse of MBTA resources.

As it turned out, I was one of the first non-band people in the door, which resulted in a fair bit of standing around, browsing Matt/Gemini's distro pile, and getting admiration and mock threats from Keith PanzerBastard over my Tankard sweatshirt. If there was any justice in this world, Gerre and co. would have been over here recently, playing a warehouse gig to a mixed bunch of fitba and hockey hooligans, but as it is, only frustration and vain hopes that eventually, I'll hit them on some festival or another.

Eventually, Vaettir started, and those in attendance, which at this point was still mostly just members of the other bands on the bill, went down the well to support.

Vaettir [6/7]
As noted above, I was pumped to see Vaettir back again, and the band didn't disappoint. Their sound had a more death-tinged edge to it than the last time I recall seeing them, resulting in an atmosphere strongly reminiscent of classic Emperor, but this may also be down to better acoustics here than at the Midway, standing straight in front of the band, and not being as gilled. (This was a dry, all-ages show, being a dry, all-ages venue that has to deal with the Haverhill PD and their dislike of DIY shows, which has been documented on several occasions here, mainly back in 2007.) The CNV and Sigh (especially) touches remained, but the final result was Vaettir establishing very much their own sound and their own identity as a band. Though they're still looking for a permanent bassist to let the vocalist concentrate on vocals, this lineup works pretty damn fine as well, and they can't get that demo out soon enough. This is what NEBM is: we are so deep in good bands around here that even the ones that flicker in and out of active phases like Vaettir are currently doing are worth tracking and listening to.

As Vaettir changed out and DGM loaded their gear in, more and more people started trickling in. Some of this has to do with the dry nature of the show, and people's desires to get a little lubricated before coming over (or to arm up their flask to stay buzzing covertly), but more of it, likely, has to do with this gig being a 7:15 start in Haverhill, well out of the normal catchment areas for metal in eastern New England. There are a lot of metalheads in Haverhill itself, and the local dudes did a hell of a job getting it shouted up, but more than a few of the attendees were either up from Boston or down from New Hampshire, and couldn't, obviously, get moving as early as I did. Price to pay, though; when shows go too late in Haverhill, the HPD get antsy, and that's not good for venue operators.

Deathgod Messiah [5/7]
I'd been jamming Apocalyptic Raids and Carnivore in the stereo on the way up by pure chance, so as immediate as the comparison was for me, it probably does the band a disservice to just come out with "Hellhammer playing Carnivore" as a shorthand for their sound, though an introduction to first-time listeners could be a lot worse. This was the other, urban, side of NEBM, raw, blasting, dirty noise from the streets and alleys of Boston, in contrast but also in complement to the colder and more mystic sounds from the NH-based acts on the bill; the distinction's pretty artificial, as those who know the provenance of Bone Ritual and Martyrvore will recognize, but it works for illustrative purposes here. This was a fairly short and kind of slack set, but still well-delivered, and the crowd, which was now filling up the venue, was definitely appreciative.

It was around here that the venue ops confirmed that turnout had met the 'success' threshold to Paul CNV; this was a good indication, as (as commented before the show) a good crowd here was likely to have a knock-on effect in terms of getting other Bindrune bands booked into here. CNV is going to be on the road in Europe this summer with Wodensthrone; a return match with them coming over here would be a draw and a half at this place.

Sewer Goddess [NR]
The floor crowd stayed fairly thick for Sewer Goddess, though it's an open point as to how many people, or to what extent, appreciated what they were doing. Though the recording lineup was supplemented with several members of Deathgod Messiah, this was still extreme chaotic industrial noise, power electronics rather than anything immediately distinguishable as metal, and thus not rated. I like Scorn and Thrones, and will listen to Eyescale and Terror Organ just as readily as Wormphlegm, so I dug this, but I'm not sure how many others this was true for. Their set was also rather short, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, tops, but I don't have a lot of experience with this band, or, really, power electronics in general, so I'm not sure if this was normal or cutting things off to be accomodating to an audience that was hearing the band, and perhaps the genre, for the first time.

More odd and dissonant sounds were provided by Keith's bass amp as CNV started setting up; with shades of Spinal Tap at the Air Force base dance, it independently started blasting salsa from a nearby radio transmitting tower while he was tuning up. ¡Ay, caramba! This generated its fair share of laughs as La Frija Venganza del Norte continued to warm up, but it also got dialed in by the time the band formed up, put their backs to the audience, and the lights went down.

Cold Northern Vengeance [7/7]
When you try to describe CNV these days, you generally end up with a word soup: adjectives that apply, but must be stacked in careful and precise order to build an approximation, a low-polygon skeleton model of a whole that is difficult to describe directly and concretely. You can say 'doomy cold thelemic blackened heavy metal', but this, like trying to describe a sphere by the isocahedron of closest volume, both undercuts and overruns the band, and does not mesh in with the actual experience of seeing the band live and being within that evocation. With the exception of "Black Metal Isolation", this was all Domination and Servitude material, and though there are rumblings about a new CNV record sometime in the near future, if this is the set that goes over the ocean, Europe will be just as strongly bound as this record store basement was. This was their night -- Paul/Heathen set up the show and booked the bill -- but they thoroughly made it theirs, as much as they've taken over at least the DIY portion of every bill I've seen them on. The future is indefinite as much for them as for any other band, but if the music can get out, the rest of the underground, not just us in the regrowth forests and on the rocky shores of New England, is going to have to pay attention.

Eventually, CNV wound "Heathen, Heretic, Scapegoat" down and the lights came back up, and folk started clearing out; I nabbed a shirt off Vaettir and pounded pavement back to the T lot in time to find my car neither towed not ticketed, which was a relief, and the ride back down the winding roads to the south ended up without incident. This update is late due to Robbie Keane signing for Celtic, and then not winning us the first game; between one thing and another, I'm on call for the next week, but this doesn't rule out Witch Tomb on the coming Friday. Missing Revocation at Unit 11 is going to suck, but such are the bargains I make to be able to go afield in the summer without having to quit my job every year.

Summoning Hate with Martyrvore, Witch Tomb, and Deathgod Messiah [O'Brien's, Allston, 9/24/2009]

This was the best show I've gotten seriously injured at on this continent. Actually, the seriousness is debatable, because it was only a finger that got broken, and just the end of it, really, but the awesomeness of the performance was not.

I plugged along at work a little too late, at least as I thought, got stuck in traffic due to large portions of 93 being closed, and then managed to hike over to the venue with time to spare regardless. Once inside, I drank some beer, got shit from Raphael and others for cutting off the Sodom backpatch in favor of a DIYed Revocation badge (pics of assembly sequence maybe coming), and waited around a bit occasionally getting quizzed on Euro-festival stuff; pretty much the usual.

After some grousing about "punk rock standard time" (also pretty much the usual), the bands got rolling, and the result was a pretty epic time only a little dinged up by injury.

Deathgod Messiah [5.5/7]
I hadn't seen these guys together before (but, of course, all of the members separately in various local black/thrash bands such as CNV, Deathamphetamine, and Witch Tomb), and the first three bands were backlined with the Martyrvore/Panzerbastard kit, so I was a little confused that it wasn't Martyrvore opening. Once the band actually started, though, the confusion was gone, blown away by a roiling tide of primitive first-wave black metal. Best comparisons are probably to Sarcofago and Hellhammer, but angrier and more focused. Though this was a good set, it also felt kind of short, which is par for the course when a new band shows up (not much material written, and as discussed on Bone Ritual's debut a while back, a general disinclination to play covers), but still hurts. In truth, all the sets this night felt a little short, even Summoning Hate at the end when I was waiting for them to finish so I could go to the doctor; maybe it's just not enough shows lately. Good stuff, and if they had demos I missed them, but a band this good and aggressive is going to show up again on DIY shows, and I'll get another chance.

Witch Tomb [7/7]
You never know with Witch Tomb; some nights you just get a great show, and others you get something completely awesome. This was one of the latter; the band has an excellent history, but this was one of the real true highlights, at least as I've seen so far. They did a lot of stuff old and new, and all with that complete conquering presence that you really only get from a good black metal band at the top of their game. There are a lot of good black metal bands in this area, enough that it's realistic to talk about NEBM as largely or completely independent of USBM as it is today, but when they're putting up a performance like this, it's hard to think of Witch Tomb as anything but the top of that heap. The environment at that '07 outing supporting Watain was maybe a little more special, but the music here was definitely better.

Martyrvore [6/7]
Before these guys started, Seth (Anal Cunt, duh) Putnam had a couple words into the mic lauding the fact that the Boston underground is still going, still producing quality extreme metal and still putting up quality shows like this gig and these bands. Martyrvore basically took it from there, putting out an intense barrage of violent blackened death metal in their expected no-prisoners fashion. I was able to hear more of their set than the last time I caught them -- potentially one of the last times they've played out, but that's really neither here nor there -- due to generally better sound, and the result was a solidly better impression. If you're looking for a quick look into NEBM, you won't do much better than their split with Witch Tomb. As noted, there are a lot of bands from here, but this sort of raw, dirty violence is the dominant strain, and these two bands do it pretty goddamned well.

This show was the end of the line for the cowskull that Martyrvore has had for a while, and brought out corpsepainted. It got slammed into the stage rather hard on numerous occasions, and by the end of their set, Paul had carpeted the stage and front of the floor in bone shrapnel. OH SNAP FORESHADOWING. Another attendee took this Symbolfoto of it sometime before it became completely destroyed; that's no a half-bad desktop background for anyone into DIY metal. I managed to pick up a tooth from it that so far has not been successful as a ritual focus for the Merseburg Charm, but expecting effectiveness out of old Germanic magic is probably asking too much.

Summoning Hate [6/7]
Though I spent about half the set distracted by violent pains in the middle of my right hand, this was still an intense and awesome set from the least black metal band on the bill. Summoning Hate turned in, like usual lately, a nice thick set of pounding thrash-death that sounded a little crisper than the last few times I've seen them, maybe due to the good venue sound. They also got people moving with this music, which is the reason that this score ought to come with that infamous "includes adjustments for injury" tag.

About halfway through Summoning Hate's set, one of their guys got pitched backward in the pit. I stretched out a hand to try and keep him from busting his head open on the edge of one of Martyrvore's cabs, which they'd cleared off the stage after their set but not yet out to their van/truck. This was a partial success; the guy wasn't injured, but his head caught the last digit on my right middle finger right on the fucking edge of the cab, and as it turned out, neatly broke the bone. This hurt like a fucking bastard, but I've gotten banged up before, so with the help of a couple trips to the O'B's bathroom sink to ice it down, I got through the end of the show.

The finger was swelling up and looking bad, and I didn't do any favors on the long walk back to Cambridge by not elevating it and also jimmying the digit around to see if it would bend in a way that wasn't consistent with a single piece of bone between the nail and the first knuckle. I got one of those results, and by the time I got back to my town, the finger was large and purple and worth a trip to the ER rather than just going to the pharmacy next door to my apartment buying some athletic tape.

Since this was kind of a pussy injury as ER cases go -- even in a small town like this, there are issues, like the patient brought in euphemistically described by the EMTs as "significant lower GI bleed" and more candidly by the nursing staff as "gouts of blood pouring from the anus" -- I got to sit around with an icepack for three hours while the doctors took care of the people with real problems, and contemplate the staff, the sounds of other people under heavier treatment, and the bed in the waiting room, and with it the reality that I, like some of the heavier cases, would likely find myself on a similar contraption sometime in the next fifty years, at which point I would stop being an alive human being and turn into a corpse. Pussy injury or no pussy injury, medical gore and forced contemplation of your own mortality is pretty fucking death metal.

In the end, I got what I was after -- a splint and confirmation that the damn finger was broken and I hadn't wasted three hours -- then went home and went to sleep instead of going to work. An outbreak of egregious drunkenness kind of killed off the rest of the weekend, but I'm on the mend now, in fine condition apart from that one damn digit, and will be in prime shape for Revocation's CD release this week.