Graveheart with Sauriel, Obsidian Tongue, and Weregild [Ralph's, Worcester, 5/3/2012]

Though the (six-six-)sixth anniversary of Metal Thursday was a little less flashy than the fifth (not to mention contained in one night rather than spread over two), it was still, as usual, a pretty kickass bill on offer, and with two bands releasing fairly anticipated CDs.  (Graveheart's record is, so far, only out digitally; the prediction referenced last time is still on for an eventual physical release.)  So it was out across the hills and through the rain, under the light of towns and strip malls bouncing back off the blanketing clouds, jamming Sagas again, because for some reason the wet New England spring calls out for this music.  Also, under the prevailing traffic conditions, the disc will play through exactly once during the ride from Burlington out to the Ralph's parking lot, which is convenient.  I got in, as expected, a little early, and after establishing that there probably weren't going to be any Weregild shirts on offer, I sat about and cooled my heels waiting for the bands to start.

Weregild [5.5/7]
Cape Cod's finest locally-sourced low-fat Amon Amarth substitute have taken their game up a notch since last time, both in design and in execution, despite the fact that they had Kyle from Sentinel covering the second guitar on short notice.  There were a few desyncs that probably came down to that, but for the most part, the band was dead-on, and if they didn't ever get the floor motion they were looking for, even on the final breakdown in "Journey Through Muspellheim", they did get a lot of headbanging and a good strong reaction from a crowd that had not yet begun to drink.  Weregild remains, and likely will continue to remain, so obvious an Amon Amarth clone that their ceiling in terms of exposure is pretty low, but the excellent execution involved here -- to get to the point where you can actually clone Amon Amarth live in the first place --  also guarantees the band a fairly high floor.  This isn't a band that's going to take over the world, but they're likely going to continue to improve local bills around the area for a while yet.

Weregild (permanent members and loanee) concentrating wicked hard.  This is the final and most vital part of cloning Amon Amarth as an original band.  First, you have to write Amon Amarth riffs, which with the body of work they have, is an easily-referenced task.  Then you need to tweak your instrumental and vocal tone to match; with experience, the right gear, and some trial and error, this is also eminently doable.  Then comes the hard part: ceaseless precision.  It's not immediately obvious, but a lot of Amon Amarth's separation from other bands, and how they got to the top of the game, is that they are incredibly precise about staying locked in and keeping all of the guitars exactly on top of each other.  This is, of course, wicked hard to do, especially in a small club where most of the sound is coming out of the cabs rather than the PA and the monitors can be intermittent, but it's also expected if you're going to try to sound like Amon Amarth.  Weregild's commitment to precision, even as here at the expense of looking at the audience rather than their own hands, is what keeps them on the right side of the enormous gulf between "cool Amon Amarth clone" and "failbad Amon Amarth ripoff".

Obsidian Tongue [6/7]
In the past, I've had concerns about how far Obsidian Tongue would be able to take what they're doing as a guitar-and-drums duo.  Six months on and with a full-length album under their belts, those concerns have been convincingly laid to rest via a fully-developed and significantly diverse set of third-wave black metal.  Neither excessively hipster nor necro for its own sake, OT manage to convincingly balance their atmospheric and raw elements as well as keep the music vital despite the reduced instrumentation.  They dropped in a couple keyboard passages for effect, and since this was a local show, were able to bring Christina up out of the audience to do her parts on "Distant, Residual", but for the most part, this set was guitar, drums, and two throats, and of this proved to be entirely sufficient.

Brendan contemplating the infinite.

Naturally, in this break, I picked up OT's new record and also a shirt, and continued to weigh the options on Sauriel's stuff.  They didn't have the full packaged CD yet, so they were giving away burns in half-height cases with the insert, and though I was not crazy about having to take home another shirt (I purged like 30 a couple months ago, and the stacks have built right the fuck back up again) in order to give the band money, I remain reluctant to take CDs with actual production value on them without paying.  Had I known that these were MP3CDs instead of something with uncompressed audio on them, maybe I'd've been less reluctant, but things worked out the way they eventually worked out.

Sauriel [5/7]
I hadn't seen Sauriel since they were putting out their demo seventeen months ago; in the intervening, they've gotten a little more deathy and a little more vital, but are on the cusp of another member change, on this gig bringing in a new drummer and saying farewell to a guitarist.  (The incipient sound changes are still undefined of course, but more significant of the fact is that Rob didn't really deserve to have his last show with Sauriel be the one where he lost his balance and fell over backwards into his amp 30 seconds into the first song.  Still happened.)  On this sample, playing the new Akasha record pretty much straight down in order, they showed a sound more inspired by the likes of Behemoth and Belphegor in its mix of death into black metal, but independent of those influences even if they stayed within that generally mainstream ouevre.  It's decent, to be sure, but given the members' previous history, there's more that they can -- and should, in the future, be able to -- do to distinguish themselves.

Sauriel gets Chris (Smite The Righteous, ex-The Accursed) up to draw some "Ritualistic Circles".  Seeing this band is in a way pretty bittersweet; everyone involved is/was in fairly major NWOSDM-driven bands back when "Gothenchusetts" was a thing, and now, they're playing NEMHF-mainstage black metal and having internet bampots question the continued relevance of their sound.  Acaro notwithstanding, the tide on that part of the scene has well and truly set.

In the present, though, I still did get Sauriel's new CD, picked up a bunch of stickers to take over, and ended up via the pay-the-band impulse with a shirt that I can wear but won't; it's on the pile with the Herugrim one for export.  These things work out, but pack space is, thanks to having to take shirts again, getting more limited faster than anticipated.  If you want CDs exported, take action quick.

Graveheart [6/7]
This set started a little slow, but got cranked up as the band got going, building to a frantic and hammering climax as the floor finally, finally got moving, partly due to "civilian" "tourists" and partly due to Chris and Samantha passing out gratis whiskey shots.  (Those who dodged the cover weren't supposed to partake, but there were enough of us stalwarts not partaking due to an impending hour-plus drive through the depredations of the state police that it probably came out in the wash.)  Alcohol and metal girls flipping out, in addition to the band's Metallica-Slayer-Sepultura-based deathed-up thrash hitting into a couple of their better tunes right at that point, got things proper violent, and if the "tourists" started out taking the piss, it was pretty clear that at least for a moment, they were into it for real by the end.  Graveheart's mix of the accessible and the extreme tends to work that way, and the band delivered a really killer second half after a good first half, and ended the night on a definite high note.  We're still waiting for a physical release of Return of the Curse of the Creature's Ghost -- though you can download it, and as a wag noted last night, you can't download alcohol -- but when that does arrive, it'll be a releaseshow and a half.

Graveheart chugging away (trololololol) on "Drinking From A Horn".

After it was clear no encore was on offer, I beat feet for the exits and got home shortly after 2, with a minimal exhaustion load, and accordingly got this turned around quicklike.  I go on call tonight, but if everything goes right, I may make it to Sabaton and/or Black Pyramid before the shift finishes.  We'll see.

Every Shirt CXXXII: Graveheart

shirt: Graveheart
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2008
provenance: band

This one's about a year old, from their gig supporting Testament on their tour before last. Per the shirt, Graveheart was also "on tour", though with a distinctly large number of off dates. They're still active, though I have no idea whether the new record that I got a promo for along with the shirt is out yet (Screaming Ferret is like that sometimes); Pete may get more recognition for producing Revocation's stuff, among others, but Graveheart is still out playing gigs and kicking faces in...though I'm not sure that I've seen the band since this date.

Testament with Graveheart, Birch Hill Dam, and What Lies Beneath The Tide [Worcester Palladium, 8/15/2008]

The world was a lot quieter this morning, but things are improving; my ears are only ringing a little now, and hopefully I'll completely recover by Motorhead without any permanent damage. Not super-optimistic about this, but I don't have a ton of other options. Any way, we learn things from our mistakes as we get older; tonight's lesson was that no matter how awesome Testament and Graveheart are, it's probably not smart to stand ten feet from an indoor wall of bass cabs without ear protection.

Due to the kind of early start, I left right from work and slogged down to the Pike, then out to the venue in time to get a decent parking space, despite kind of stopping to get some food down. I was surprised that there was actually a lineup outside; Testament is kind of the forgotten son of the Masters of Metal tour, and I was unsure whether this gig was upstairs or down initially, but apparently people are still up for them, especially since they've got 4/5 original members back (Chuck, Eric, Alex, and Greg, plus Paul Bostaph behind the kit), and, of course, are freakin awesome despite not playing in the area for 15 years. Inside, the usual round; touring merch is too expensive ($25 T-shirts for a US band what the hell), beer is dealing with price inflation as badly as gas (if Sam Adams is $5.25, why the hell would you buy a Coors for $4.25), and local bands' stuff is too good to snub them on it without feeling like a dick.

Eventually, I got my merch and realized that my wallet was practically empty, a kind of occupational hazard doing several shows back to back, so I went a little forward in order to keep myself from drinking up my toll and caffeine money.

What Lies Beneath The Tide [2/7]
This was probably the worst-sounding metal performance I've ever heard. Yes, the band got massively jobbed by the sound board, particularly at the start, which plowed their sound into an overly bass-heavy mess, but they also bear some responsibility; if you're going to play on the main stage at the Palladium, being out of phase on your initial breakdown is just unacceptable. Their material wasn't much to write home about: boring retreaded metalcore with little imagination or aspiration and more than a few plain old mistakes in addition to either out-of-tune or horrendously-composed solos. The band, with a proper sound, is probably at the 3 or 4 level; not really good, but not deliberately offensive either. Unfortunately, they did not have proper sound here; it took three or four songs for the board to get the bass PA dialed back to the point where the guitars could even be heard with the drums going. Yes, WLBTT kind of sucked, but the mismix is completely unacceptable; metal bands play here all the time, and most people have at least a rough idea what heavy metal sounds like. Sound this crappy, even from the Palladium and their legendary inability to mix anyone who isn't on tour, is completely out of line, and those responsible should be sacked, and then run over by a moose for good measure.

Having gotten my second and last beer, and seeing that the rail was still kind of open when Birch Hill Dam started, I decided to take a flyer and go down, in order to be relatively forward for Graveheart and Testament. This would have negative consequences for my ears, but as mentioned above, they're getting better, and it's kind of weird to be in heavy metal for more than a decade without permanent hearing loss anyways.

Birch Hill Dam [4/7]
This band was the pleasant surprise of the night; with their lower profile and WB-tween-show name, they could easily have been terrible, but instead were mildly decent, playing southern-fried Sabbath-and-BLS rock-metal that, if it wasn't particularly original, was at least entertaining and a little more properly balanced soundwise. I had previously passed up their free demo on the logic that since my CD-reviewing time is drastically reduced, I don't have the time for every single band's free demo, but I did pick it up later at the door. This band may not be worth going out to see on their own, but if they're opening on a bill that you're interested in anyway, they're at least worth a listen.

Graveheart [6/7]
The organizers kept the sets clicking right along to make sure Testament got their full time, and presently Graveheart was up, and in prime form. They did a fair mix of new material and Blistered Earth stuff, and the floor was full up and into it for them as well. While the other openers were clearly at the local level, Graveheart's prior experience showed strongly through in this set, and may have confused some people who later went up to get their 'tour shirt' and wondered why this excellent thrash/death band that Testament was apparently trailing around had so damn many off dates scheduled. Some of the newer material, such as the groanworthily-titled but still kickass "Axeident", I hadn't heard before, but will again as soon as I get around to listening to the sampler for their new record, which will allegedly be out in October or November, which in Screaming Ferret time probably means slightly after the Mayan Singularity. Wait for it, though; it's gonna be pretty cool.

Testament [6.5/7]
Testament justified the lineup to get in the door and the subsequently full venue (not sold out, but a good bunch of people) with an oustanding set, full of great performances from the classic lineup, that was only minimally damaged by the inabilary of the Palladium soundstaff to manage their bass firepower correctly. It was great to see classic Testament together again, and more importantly really looking like they were enjoying themselves playing the material (from "Alone In The Dark" up through "DNR" and some stuff off the new record, which I couldn't afford after buying their shirt), but until my ears completely shut down a couple of songs before the encore, I'm not really sure that I heard it as it was intended to sound. I'd've liked to get "C.O.T.L.O.D" as well, but I called "The Preacher" about 15 seconds before Chuck announced it, and got an hour and a half of great Testament besides; who am I to complain if it wasn't the best set ever?

As mentioned, the show got out about midnight, a welcome change over previous Palladium efforts that appeared to have a side agenda of getting all the kids to bed before curfew, even if I got a little loopy on 128 from exhausion due to being up since 5:30. Before this, I picked up a flyer for some show on September 12 in Salisbury from Eric CSDO; say what you will about his band -- and "not original", "dinosaurian", and "weird ideas of alleged success" are all popular -- the guy definitely has a talent for setting up shows in all manner of venues, some of which actually work out and start hosting metal regularly. If I've got nothing else going on, I might be up for it; CSDO's decent at any rate, and we need more metal venues north of Boston.

Tonight: Motorhead, Arsis, and like 10 bands that are in no way interesting. Doors at 5, show at 6, I don't show up till like 7:30, a wall of anklebiters at the merch stand, and plenty of elbow room at the bar.

Candy Striper Death Orgy with Graveheart, Ravage, and Legion of the Dying [Ralph's, Worcester, 6/7/2007]

The comment's been made before, but aside from being out in goddamned Worcester, Ralph's is an awesome, awesome venue, and with spectacularly few exceptions, Metal Thursdays there boast an awesome lineup. This time was certainly par for the course; kickass metal, Sam Adams under 4 bucks, The New Devil In Miss Jones and some kung fu movie starring a thalidomide-dude on the big screen, moshing, camaraderie, more cool records in Jeremy's boxes than I could afford....and then a long dark drive on roads filled with trucks moving at relativistic speeds back home while totally exhausted, and less than three hours of sleep before going in to work today. We've got to take over, like, River City Billiards in Haverhill or pick up one of those dead function-hall restaurants on 114 in Middleton so that people from the North Shore and the Seacoast can get cool shit like this without having to put up with all the bad parts.

As it is, though, even with the bad parts, for an experience like this, it's still worth it. I got in just about doors and had time to waste piling up new records -- partly because the Oak Knoll table always has cool stuff, and partly because the bands were not that great on getting merch set up. It sucks not supporting the bands directly, but if there isn't anything out where doods can check it out, it's kind of tough. All four bands on this bill have new records coming out shortly, though, so perhaps next time.

Eventually, I finished my beer and Legion of the Dying went on, with remarks to the effect that they had gotten a ride at least part of the way with the police. There's doubtless a story in that, but it's for them to tell, especially since I don't know it.

Legion of the Dying [4.5/7]
I think this was a small step up from last time, but they got kind of a raw deal from the sound, so I can't be certain. In contrast to the clear sound and proper balance that everyone else had, theirs was heavily trebled out to the point of obscuring what they were doing. This is unfortunate, but perhaps symptomatic of the band; they did some cool things, but didn't present a really cohesive idea of how it all fit together. The likeness to Bifrost is still strong, which may be a bad thing as well as good; Bifrost did create some great music, but the countervailing directions in their sound probably contributed strongly to why they never made another record after Mythistory. Legion of the Dying is being pulled in two directions by their heavy metal and extreme-metal elements, and it's somewhat disheartening to realize that they haven't really made much progress on harmonizing the two since January. The potential is definitely there, both to create a working fusion and to do something really cool with it, but the band (in the opinion of this goober, of course) needs to take another look at their arrangements and make sure that everything's really developing the way they want it to.

Ravage [6/7]
This set started out a little rough - Al's mic was apparently off or something - but Ravage quickly pulled it together and laid out another killer set that improved as it progressed. While they did a fair share of new material from DamnNation - which is allegedly going to be out soon, and hopefully available in this country as well as in Europe - there was also a lot of old stuff in the setlist. No "Wyvern", though, despite some goombah in a ridiculous jacket who was giving the band guff about it. :roll: In the middle of their last song, they took a bit of a break to crank through "Nightcrawler", one of my favorite Priest tunes and also one that more people ought to be more baffled as to why it isn't covered more often. On both the originals and the cover, the execution was top-notch, and though the mix could have brought Al's vocals a little further forward, there isn't that much better that could be asked for.

Unless my memory is totally deceiving me, Jay, the 'new' bass player, was previously in Ravage a couple years ago, which may explain why they did relatively more old stuff than new. Of course, I could also be completely wrong, which would not be a first.

Graveheart [6/7]
This is the band for Legion of the Dying to look to as they try to refine and balance the traditional and extreme elements in their sound. Graveheart's smashing blend of thrash and melodic death metal pulls in a lot of traditional HM elements, especially in their lead-swapping guitar pyrotechnics, but there wasn't ever any tension in the direction of the sound, just singleminded domination. Of course, this band has plenty of experience -- they cracked out an old tune from their Blistered Earth days, which was just absolutely razor-sharp -- and LotD is just starting out, so a similar flowering could well be in the cards. If I were to be really picky, I'd give this the edge as the best set of the night, but by a narrow margin. They closed up by bringing up Al Ravage to guest on two Priest songs -- well, more like one, but he did sing over "The Hellion" as well as on "Electric Eye" where there are actually lyrics. More cool times.

Candy Striper Death Orgy [6/7]
I have seldom been more sorry to be without knee braces than during this set; CSDO's Slayer-driven thrash creates the inevitable lust for destruction, but I couldn't go throwing myself around and running the risk of snapping one or both pegs. I did what I could to keep those who were moshing moving around, but it frustrates me to no end that I wasn't able to get things circled up and moving oldschool-style. While CSDO is not exactly the most original band in the world, they're rock-solid technically and compositionally, and use that perfect thrash lock-in to kick extreme amounts of ass; one has to wonder why they're only just now putting out their debut full-length; maybe they weren't this practiced back when Meliah Rage and Wargasm were the core of the scene, but thrash has been 'back' for a while now, and they gig enough that somebody should have noticed them. I'm currently slotted to see them opening for Testament in the middle of next month, and the kickass set they laid out here in Worcester definitely makes me more likely to drive down to friggin Southbridge and catch that one.


After CSDO closed up, there came the announcement that due to continuously outstanding turnouts -- due both to the venue's attractions and the awesomeness of the bills -- Metal Thursday is going to start going bi-monthly, with the first "second show" in two weeks. This is what happens when people support shows; more of them happen and we all see more bands, who have more opportunities to practice their craft and get better. Everyone benefits; hopefully, we'll be able to see those benefits in Boston and get some non-Sunday shows at the Skybar by patronizing the hell out of the Sunday gigs.

Next show is Doro (kickass) at Mark's (blech) on Saturday, then Skybar on Sunday. I'm trying to pull people along for these from the North Shore, but haven't had much luck so far...gotta try harder, both to get people in other regions into our native bands, and to try and overcome this damned blight.

The Accursed with Revocation, Extinction Agenda, Graveheart, and Mechannibal [Skybar, Somerville, 11/11/2006]

O'Brien's in Allston is, effective Monday, closed until February for renovations/deshittification, so the Boston scene has to find another hole to hibernate in for the winter. If Saturday night is any indication, the Skybar will do just fine. Of course, any bar that sells beer at reasonable prices and will put up with people crowding the floor with equipment would probably do just as well; it was the bands, not the venue (though it definitely has its attractions, described later), that made this show so awesome.

For once, the drive in was reasonable, and the directions were pretty much ok...modulo having to get through Harvard Square, which as always is messily arranged, and having to guess my way around the rotary at the end. I got in a little after doors, but this turned out not to matter so much because the bar's sound guy was late, and the show was delayed a little, letting me drink down a couple beers, soak up the atmosphere, and catch the Michigan score, which I'd missed due to Chinese class. Next week may be rough due to such factors, but class gets out at 4, and there's a bar like, right next door to BLI.

Anyway:

Mechannibal [5/7]:
This was one of their first shows, and it showed to a certain degree as they started slow, but finished strong. People on RTTP have been comparing their grind-thrash sound to all kinds of bands, but for me, the consonance was strongest to something like early Hirax and/or classic Napalm Death. Short, riff-driven, highly focused songs with a lot of power, though the band is clearly still working on their identity. With further development, they could be really good, though it's by no means a lock that every promising new band will achieve that promise. The guitarist/vocalist of Reverend Grundarr and the Unholy Trinity is on the drums here, and quite impressive; unfortunately, they don't have anything recorded yet as far as I know, but they're really just getting their footing as a band, and this may change in coming months. Good stuff, good set.

Graveheart [6/7]:
Formerly Blistered Earth, this band not only pulled off a very cool and tight set of thrash, but also really pointed up several things about both the genre and how to listen to it in this kind of setting. While this band is most simply described as thrash, "blended thrash" may be more accurate; a lot of their sound is inherited from NWOSDM and its descendants, but it's strongly mixed with a thick dose of the old Bay Area sound. The result is really cool, but the way to get it, at least for the present, is live only; they're going to be doing their first recording this coming week. I should have asked about any Blistered Earth material that they need to unload, but they were really impressive here and I'll probably at some point be seeing them again.

Of course, it was only this impressive because I recognized early that you have to watch the guitarist's hand action if they're playing a solo and you're standing in front of the rhythm guitarist, a problem throughout here with two-guitar acts. The solo guitar really needs to be turned up to slice through the riff that the rhythm guitar and the bass are laying down, but a lot of the time in a small venue, where the PA is getting totally ruled by the musicians' cabs, it just doesn't happen. This is where CDs make a difference, and let you know who you need to be burned up about them not getting support slots in larger halls.

Extinction Agenda [5/7]:
This band was noted as "German-influenced thrash" on the flyers that I saw, and the early Kreator sound was apparent from the first riff -- as if the singer's Tormentor shirt wasn't enough of a giveaway. (If there's another Tormentor that has never had Mille Petrozza in their lineup, let me know, but this is my context.) This was some good stuff, but unfortunately they also had a few organizational problems with their arrangements that were also reminiscent of some of Kreator's first work. It was a good set despite the slack or weirdly-structured parts, and this may just have been a down night for them, but for me this is no more than a suspicion: I haven't seen them before, and I wasn't able to get a CD. This is all my fault, though, because instead of immediately hunting down the band to get their demo, I went next door for some Chinese food, and by the time I was in merch-buying mode, they had gone back to New Hampshire.

These are the principal advantages of the Skybar over other venues: unlimited reentry, and a decent Chinese restaurant next door. Of course, I should have eaten before drinking rather than after, but at least it worked out. I devoured my zhongguatsai and got back in plenty of time for Revocation.

Revocation [6/7]:
If you want, you can call this a 6.5. This was an even better performance than two weeks ago, with a much better and cleaner guitar sound, despite Dave snapping his D string in the middle of the second or maybe third song. He finished the song, swapped out for his backup axe, and continued to devastate. As before, it's no coincidence that members of this band consistently wear Dark Angel shirts to their gigs; the influence is strong, but it is consistently getting more difficult to talk rationally about Revocation without mentioning the A-word. You know, the A-word from Florida that's irrationally awesome and ends in "theist". Of course, they're not quite at Atheist's level yet, but the influence is obvious, and the degree of development, even from their recent demo, is similarly undeniable. Definitely a band to watch; they debuted a new song without lyrics at the end of their set, and if this is an accurate foretoken of their next recording, it's going to be really stellar.

The Accursed [6/7]:
Though they weren't as technically outstanding as Revocation, they definitely brought a long share of intensity in their mix of thrash and melodic death, though things were a little slack at first. This was probably because most of the crowd was either outside or on their way home after Revocation, but a good number did make it back in and thrash it up. It was a good performance, with a lot of participation from the guys who'd traveled up from New Bedford for them in the front row, including a special-guest performance on guitar, giving one of their guys a break for a song. It was a cool set, but it did necessarily lose something to the hometown heroes; I still picked up their merch, as they were one of two bands with stuff generally available, and I had already picked up basically one of everything from Revocation two weeks ago.

Hirax tonight with another strong slate of local openers; review will be up tomorrow or so, and the book will probably be finished by Wednesday.