I left a little later for this than planned, mostly due to hurricanes and laziness forcing a delay in the last writeup, but still made good time out -- the sun being completely down as the seasons run ever on and the days grow persistently shorter -- and got up to Ralph's while Lore was still setting up.
Lore [5/7]
Lore came out with a cool, aggressive set driven by some badass "lead bass", but throughout could not shed the niggling impression that this was not actually a metal band playing. Their version of "heavy alternative" might stand in well with the diverse likes of current Cynic, Tool, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Ehnahre, or Autumn Above, but the style and relative lack of riffs relative to other elements in the music is the kicker in this largely meaningless classification. Still good, and also still heavy, though, and if they come back on, say, a Boarcorpse bill, they'll fit in better than here leading into three melodic doom bands.
Forever's Fallen Grace [5.5/7]
This was an all-new lineup from FFG relative to the last time, and if it wasn't as ballkickingly crazy, it was also a pretty uniform upgrade in sound and style. Though they're still definitely a doom band, the greater and more structured melodics in that style really hearken back to Arcana XXII, about the last band you'd be expecting to be influential here, provided that you were familiar with doomy Namibian power metal bands in the first place. They closed in style, covering Mercyful Fate, but were complete class all the way through.
Forever's Fallen Grace, in addition to the five playing members, also took a while loading up the stage with styrofoam sculptures, many of which were full of dead plants. The reaction from the Dreaded Silence guys, while FFG was setting all this up, was along these lines: "We can't get upstaged like this. We need someone to find us a shrubbery." I thought briefly about getting up a band to write songs about dinosaurs and encumber the stage with all manner of live, green, plants, but rapidly dismissed the idea as impractical. That would involve practicing, getting at least two other people to buy into the "dino metal" concept, and writing songs that would not-suck to a sufficient degree to get shows. The smarter and more adaptive approach would be to mention this idea to Composted at Bobfest or something and help organize the plants if necessary.
Worldecay [6/7]
Up from Pennsylvania, this combo immediately justified the trip by kicking right into a killer if very short set of classic melodic doom inheriting from Opeth, Katatona, and Daylight Dies, maybe a little bit of Woods or GER for flavor. They did manage to take it in an original direction as well; while they're not completely independent of those influences, the synthesis is definitely original, and promises good things as long as the band can keep it going. The only downer was closing up after five songs; there was probably not a single person in the venue who didn't want them to keep playing, but that's very much all the material they have.
I got a shirt and CD from Worldecay here; I need to follow up and get FFG's record sometime, and Dreaded Silence can wait till their CD release if necessary (their current shirt is cool, but I already have all their recorded material), but I needed to support the touring band, and ended up kind of helping with change in the bargain.
Dreaded Silence [6/7]
The band's recent silence and temporary absence has been to good use; "Ghosts..." apart, this was all new material and all amazing. If Dreaded Silence was from Finland, they'd've never got past Jet Black, Blood Red unsigned, but if the new one is as good on disc as it is live, labels even here will have to pay attention. The music was so new that on one of the songs, Ken needed to go to the "cheat sheet" on his phone for the lyrics, apologizing after the song finished. Of course, the crowd didn't care, one jerk going so far as to yell back "Clip an iPad to the mic stand about it". Music with clean vocals has a lot less room to cover over misremembered lyrics with growls or screams, and the kind of involved, complex texts that you get in this kind of doom are a bigger ask in terms of memorization than lyrics that are more repetitive, so good bands will get cut slack when bringing out new stuff.
On their last song, though, Chris did something that I'm not sure I've ever seen from a local band, which is either telling about the boundaries that metal allows with regard to experimentation, or an even more telling indictment about my inability to pick up time signatures (see also, why I don't play in a band): he counted off in 3 rather than 4 (unless you want to read it as 12/4 in order to be deliberately difficult; yes, it was 4-bar 3/4, but with a 3 feel throughout rather than a triplet 4, and much too slow for that to be realistic), and kept in 3 throughout the song. If your band plays songs in 3, or even 6/8, fire in and give me a smack for not paying attention to other 3-feels, but at least going on the time it felt distinct and different.
For whatever reason, it felt like Dreaded Silence also closed up early, but they closed up regardless, and as the road miles ran on, it was clear that it was about normal; I must just have been less exhausted than normal for whatever reason. Let's hope this also carries forward to Bobfest at the weekend, and I can get the writeups of that turned around a little faster.
Showing posts with label ffg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ffg. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Friday, July 02, 2010
Forever's Fallen Grace with Suicide Dream, Absence of the Sun, and Destruction From Within [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/1/2010]
Now that the teams I follow are all out of the part of the World Cup that matters, this post gets to go up in the same tremendously late fashion that anyone disturbed enough to read this thing on a regular basis has come to greet with a resigned acceptance.
I came right out of work going over to this, and ended up getting in a little early due to expecting more traffic than there actually was. The Pike westbound can be pure hell on weekends in the summer as everyone tries to get the hell out of Boston, but apparently people were sticking for the long weekend, or not taking off till Friday. Whatever, no matter, as it just came out to a little more time sitting around waiting for the bands to go on and trying to think of schemes to keep beer bottles from exploding when opened. (Final conclusion: immediately pour into a pint glass, but knowing how turbulent the floor tends to get at this place, you can see why the bartenders wanted to keep the glassware behind the counter.)
Destruction From Within [5/7]
I hadn't heard of these guys before, let alone heard anything that they've done, and perhaps unfairly, when you see a bunch of kids with Xed out hands and a backline full of Crates, you tend to get a little suspicious. Fortunately, any suspicions turned out to be completely unjustified, as they provided a decent, moderately developed set of Dissection-biting blackened metal that got things off on the right foot. Like a lot of young or just new bands, these guys showed solid technical chops even if the composition or songwriting was occasionally lacking, and it'll be interesting to see how they develop and mature going forward.
Absence of the Sun [5/7]
There's no shortage of opportunity for making various environmental-lighting-related jokes given the bandname and the general style, but these guys did come all the way down from Maine and play a solid set, despite their keyboardist getting this instrument jacked out of his car the day before, so actually doing so would be out of line. I'm not sure that the band's sound as presented without the keys is a 100% accurate picture of what they sound like on record or live going forward, but the well-finished if admittedly kind of formulaic NWOSDM/NWOAHM that they laid out here was decent enough. Nothing enormously new, but well-done and solidly executed, and a good time, even if people may not have been as receptive, or inclined to move about, as the band might have liked. Still, good music, and if they're on Hold True, they'll be back in the area sooner or later, and probably on a bill more balanced towards their style.
Suicide Dream [5.5/7]
I'd heard peripherally about this band before, though mostly in the context of the guitarist's gigantic pedal board, which was fully as epic as advertised. Fortunately, the ability and facility to more or less run front-of-house with his feet didn't intrude into the actual musical experience; people were watching and listening to the band, not where Shadow was stepping on. They played out a good set of doomish melodic metal that didn't immediately suggest comparisons; maybe Warlock singles played at 33 rpm -- and not just due to Laurel's voice, but the style of the vocals and the arrangements around them; automatically comparing one female-fronted band to another is the music world's equivalent of the equally annoying, lazy, and misleading black-quarterback/white-receiver comparison -- but the Opeth and Sentenced tinges are undeniable as well. Probably best to actually go and listen to the band; this was good music and they seem to be getting more active.
Unfortunately, neither they nor any of the other three bands on the bill had merch out that would be amenable to lugging over on the fast-approaching Euro tour. Forever's Fallen Grace did have shirts (as well as stickers at a buck a pop, but I'd feel like a dick asking bands to write off potential revenue so I can, in many cases, leave them on tables and bar counters), but I have way too many shirts to buy one from a band before I have a record from them. Of course, everything leans in the other direction (ignore recordings and steal it on the internet later, buy the shirt), but I continue to, salmonlike, swim against the current, fixed firmly on the goal of mistiming a jump over some rocks, falling out of the river, and asphyxiating, later to be devoured by a bear.
Wait, what? Anyways.
Forevers' Fallen Grace [6.5/7]
Wow. The bands to this point had been quite good, and well worth the trip out, but FFG really kicked it up a notch, as well as kicking each others' pedals out of configuration, kicking each other over, and kicking boots off. It kicked off on the floor as well, as might be anticipated at the end of the night, watching a band that at many times came off like Angel Dust, albeit powered by a diesel hemi. Plus more than a few NEHC breakdowns. It was an impressive performance (despite or because of the weirdness of the synthesis), but perhaps marred to a certain degree by excessive fucking around. Yes, it's a DIY gig, and yes, there's nothing wrong with being loose, but when you're bodychecking other band members around the stage so hard that they fall over and knock their axes out of tune, it's hard to argue that it's not having a negative effect. Despite the mishaps, though, this was as indicated a killer performance of the kind that so often closes out these gigs, eminently justifying the investment in driving out and staying to the end.
Unfortunately, while they were able to get one additional song out of the venue ops, that end did have to come, and it was on the road to go home, get in shortly before 3AM, and take a nap before going in to work. Tiredness took its toll on the optimistic goal of getting it out Friday, and then Germany got into the semis. I missed the two gigs that I'd ideally have gone to over the weekend if I hadn't been on call, but the last shift before Germany comes to an end tomorrow, and before that I should have a calendar of remaining gigs up as well.
I came right out of work going over to this, and ended up getting in a little early due to expecting more traffic than there actually was. The Pike westbound can be pure hell on weekends in the summer as everyone tries to get the hell out of Boston, but apparently people were sticking for the long weekend, or not taking off till Friday. Whatever, no matter, as it just came out to a little more time sitting around waiting for the bands to go on and trying to think of schemes to keep beer bottles from exploding when opened. (Final conclusion: immediately pour into a pint glass, but knowing how turbulent the floor tends to get at this place, you can see why the bartenders wanted to keep the glassware behind the counter.)
Destruction From Within [5/7]
I hadn't heard of these guys before, let alone heard anything that they've done, and perhaps unfairly, when you see a bunch of kids with Xed out hands and a backline full of Crates, you tend to get a little suspicious. Fortunately, any suspicions turned out to be completely unjustified, as they provided a decent, moderately developed set of Dissection-biting blackened metal that got things off on the right foot. Like a lot of young or just new bands, these guys showed solid technical chops even if the composition or songwriting was occasionally lacking, and it'll be interesting to see how they develop and mature going forward.
Absence of the Sun [5/7]
There's no shortage of opportunity for making various environmental-lighting-related jokes given the bandname and the general style, but these guys did come all the way down from Maine and play a solid set, despite their keyboardist getting this instrument jacked out of his car the day before, so actually doing so would be out of line. I'm not sure that the band's sound as presented without the keys is a 100% accurate picture of what they sound like on record or live going forward, but the well-finished if admittedly kind of formulaic NWOSDM/NWOAHM that they laid out here was decent enough. Nothing enormously new, but well-done and solidly executed, and a good time, even if people may not have been as receptive, or inclined to move about, as the band might have liked. Still, good music, and if they're on Hold True, they'll be back in the area sooner or later, and probably on a bill more balanced towards their style.
Suicide Dream [5.5/7]
I'd heard peripherally about this band before, though mostly in the context of the guitarist's gigantic pedal board, which was fully as epic as advertised. Fortunately, the ability and facility to more or less run front-of-house with his feet didn't intrude into the actual musical experience; people were watching and listening to the band, not where Shadow was stepping on. They played out a good set of doomish melodic metal that didn't immediately suggest comparisons; maybe Warlock singles played at 33 rpm -- and not just due to Laurel's voice, but the style of the vocals and the arrangements around them; automatically comparing one female-fronted band to another is the music world's equivalent of the equally annoying, lazy, and misleading black-quarterback/white-receiver comparison -- but the Opeth and Sentenced tinges are undeniable as well. Probably best to actually go and listen to the band; this was good music and they seem to be getting more active.
Unfortunately, neither they nor any of the other three bands on the bill had merch out that would be amenable to lugging over on the fast-approaching Euro tour. Forever's Fallen Grace did have shirts (as well as stickers at a buck a pop, but I'd feel like a dick asking bands to write off potential revenue so I can, in many cases, leave them on tables and bar counters), but I have way too many shirts to buy one from a band before I have a record from them. Of course, everything leans in the other direction (ignore recordings and steal it on the internet later, buy the shirt), but I continue to, salmonlike, swim against the current, fixed firmly on the goal of mistiming a jump over some rocks, falling out of the river, and asphyxiating, later to be devoured by a bear.
Wait, what? Anyways.
Forevers' Fallen Grace [6.5/7]
Wow. The bands to this point had been quite good, and well worth the trip out, but FFG really kicked it up a notch, as well as kicking each others' pedals out of configuration, kicking each other over, and kicking boots off. It kicked off on the floor as well, as might be anticipated at the end of the night, watching a band that at many times came off like Angel Dust, albeit powered by a diesel hemi. Plus more than a few NEHC breakdowns. It was an impressive performance (despite or because of the weirdness of the synthesis), but perhaps marred to a certain degree by excessive fucking around. Yes, it's a DIY gig, and yes, there's nothing wrong with being loose, but when you're bodychecking other band members around the stage so hard that they fall over and knock their axes out of tune, it's hard to argue that it's not having a negative effect. Despite the mishaps, though, this was as indicated a killer performance of the kind that so often closes out these gigs, eminently justifying the investment in driving out and staying to the end.
Unfortunately, while they were able to get one additional song out of the venue ops, that end did have to come, and it was on the road to go home, get in shortly before 3AM, and take a nap before going in to work. Tiredness took its toll on the optimistic goal of getting it out Friday, and then Germany got into the semis. I missed the two gigs that I'd ideally have gone to over the weekend if I hadn't been on call, but the last shift before Germany comes to an end tomorrow, and before that I should have a calendar of remaining gigs up as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)