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.

Hekseri with Soul Remnants, Cythraul, and Worms In Women and Cattle [PT-109, **REDACTED**, 8/26/2011]

First off, apologies to those who had shows on 8/18; I ended up missing all of them through a combination of exhaustion from coming back and going on call a week early. Seriously, there were like seven shows in greater Boston on this date, which is a continuing argument for the scene here being as good or better than the next contender.

This one, though, I was done the on-call shift and on full power, so after loading up after work with essential supplies, it was down into the city and over the back roads to the location-blacked-out-as-per-prior-diktats. I was early and with improperly-sized bills, which caused Meg no little grief, but I was able to get in and set up, and also hand over to Larissa the Voivod live set that I'd been holding for like a month. I apparently ran into Meg indirectly at Party.San as well, likely in the fugue state of either Belphegor/1349 or Watain, darkness and disorientation being at fault for me (at least) not making a positive ID at the time. Cheers!

As per normal DIY expectations, WIWC took some time setting up, but did get going a little after the designated start.

Worms In Women and Cattle [5/7]
WIWC presented a cool take on third-wave black metal as it's come to be in the States, not burying their indie antecedents but also never allowing them to overwhelm the traditional elements. The result was something resembling a recital, through that proverbial darkened glass, of the first two Burzum records. This was cool, but maybe wore a little by the end, the band though definitely has the passion and commitment, as shown here, to take this forward, and it'll be cool to see how they resolve that great contradiction of third-wave BM, to diversify without destroying themselves.

It was probably in here that I had to go downstairs and hit the head, in the process discovering that the **REDACTED** bathrooms, male and female alike, were completely out of toilet paper of equivalent substitutes, which was a lot worse for the women waiting to potentially raid the men's room for TP than it was for us. If you go to a show here and think you may have to crap at some point, Asian rules (squat or pack your own tissues) are in effect; the alternative involves ripping flyers off the wall and having a very sure hand with a faucet.

Cythraul [5.5/7]
This was allegedly Cythraul's last show, and a hell of a way to go out. The sound was a little rough at the start, as might be expected from a five-piece with a lot of clean parts at a DIY space, but this got resolved and the band powered on. Driven principally by the Norwegian second wave with touches of Candlemass and funeral doom (at least as my poor not-listening-to-very-much-doom-at-all ears could pick out), this was a sound that we don't get a lot in this area, which makes it more of a shame if Steve's really decided to fold the tents. The lineup apart from him was completely changed up, at least as I can remember, from the last time I saw this band (admittedly aeons ago), but they did get in a partial point of continuity by bringing up a hooded, robed, and very drunk Cody for assistant vocals on some Mayhem and VON tunes towards the end of the set. Stellar outing, lots of smoke, lots of wreckage -- along every possible axis -- you could ask for little more in closing up a good band at an elite DIY space.

I spoke briefly with Cody after, inside and partially outside, and in the course of such he promised some new Bone Ritual material sometime in the short-term future. I might have gotten a deadline on that at the time, but due to front-loading my beer consumption for homebound-roadblock-related reasons, I don't remember if or when.

Soul Remnants [5.5/7]
Changing gears to death metal, Soul Remnants put up a cool, punchy, and macro-structurally melodic set about par for the course over the couple times I've seen them. Movement in the crowd accelerated a little here, though not up to the levels seen during Hekseri. For those who expected some kind of friction, or that a mostly black-metal audience wouldn't also get into it for good Carcass/ATG-influenced death metal, you need to actually go to shows once in a while, rather than getting your information from books about 20-year-old events in other countries.

As kind of expected, I got pumped for a lot of information on the Euro fests by various people over the course of the night. I answered as best I could, but somehow missed out on the critical summation of Party.San: just like this, but expanded by two orders of magnitude. Whether a DIY space with a 60:40 ratio, no pressure, and moderately-famous dudes like Dave Davidson and Colin Conway just walking in and hanging out like anyone else (ok, so Colin was also playing, but the point stands) is a smaller Party.San, or whether Party.San with every beer held in community trust, as much jury-rigging as official construction, and a community that takes absolutely everyone in is the world's biggest DIY space hangs only on what you're more familiar with.

Hekseri [6/7]
Für den Bodhrann-öffnung is gläubig Odroerir oda so schuld. Daran gewöhnt man sich nur in Deutschland. Though some people didn't get or appreciate said bit (some of the jokes cracked over it were funny, though), the band quickly got the audience back into it with a vicious performance of desperate witching black metal. Hekseri, at least on this outing, is not merely back in 2011, but somewhat better than they were the last time that they were active, before Megan hied off to Germany. The audience was super up for it as well, with room-spanning pits that had a habit of wiping out the mic stands, several of which were improvised anyway, but the band kept going at the heart of the chaos. Only for seven songs, if I read the setlist right, but it was a killer seven songs, and I'm pretty sure no one went home unsatisfied.

Eventually, though, that "went home" bit did have to happen; leaving my last vessel in community trust, I hiked back to my car and went back to my own country by a different route. There were a lot more people at this one than for Ash Borer; if PT-109 continues to gain in popularity, its days are surely numbered. Thus the paradox of DIY spaces (and, really, life): anything good will be gone sooner or later, so enjoy it while it lasts, and hasten its doom.

Every Shirt XVIII: Hekseri

shirt: Hekseri
size: XL (US)
vintage: 2007
provenance: band

This one came from Destruction's next-to-last gig in New England, which Hekseri opened; downstairs at the Middle East during that Metal Winter Break extent of February '07. Because of when and how the club decided to do doors, I only saw about half of Hekseri's set, but I'd seen the band several times in the few months proceeding, and they'd sold out of their demo a while before. (Larissa ended up compiling their complete demos for me, but that was later, and she didn't charge any consideration.)

While checking up on an unrelated issue, I found that this band is still technically still active, but that's a big "technically" there; Seth is out, and in Summoning Hate after a (allegedly tumultuous) stint in Herugrim, Megan moved to Germany, and Jason doesn't seem to go to shows, so I've got no idea what he's up to.

Witch Tomb with Hekseri, Baphomet's Horns, and Blessed Offal [Skybar, Somerville, 6/28/2007]

Burned by missing part of Revocation Sunday, I got down right around 8; unfortunately, none of the bands were anywhere in sight, which led to basically just hanging out for an hour and a half. This sort of thing has allegedly been a problem for the Skybar lately; despite being allowed to play out the string, some bands have taken the hopeless view and just canceled, which is really weird as the place is still perfectly open for now. When I heard about this from the bartender, though, I immediately gainsaid it; I didn't know Blessed Offal yet, and it had kind of slipped my mind that Baphomet's Horns were the second band on this gig, but I could definitely vouch for the professionalism and commitment of Hekseri and Witch Tomb. These aren't bands that will back down from a tough gig, or bands that'll just cancel day-of without telling anyone, and soon enough, Cody and then Megan came in minutes apart pushing gear.

The positive of the bands taking so long to get in and set up was that I had the time to paw through the distro table -- or maybe this was a negative, at least from my wallet's perspective as it was estranged from a majority of its cash. I got three tapes and three CDs split between Angkor Vat, Attacker, and a couple other bands that I knew more by reputation than actual music, and if it wasn't for concerns about it getting broken, I might have picked up this Sabbat 7"; buying vinyl at the start of an often violent underground show is a real throw of the dice -- in this case, it would have been OK with regards to movement down front, but there's seldom an easy way of knowing that. I also saw that they had a copy of the Adolf Satan record in the rack; I thought about picking it up, but decided not to: I don't have a driving interest in the band, and there's been a lot of chatter on RTTP lately about people wanting it and not being able to get a copy for love nor money. Better to let it lie in that case and let someone who wants the record get it; sure, I hog rarities, but only rarities that I have a strong interest in listening to.

The really raw part of the deal, though, was that I didn't pick up Toxic Holocaust's album because I wasn't sure if I already had it or not. I have good recall over most of my nearly-1400-record collection, but it's not perfect...and in this case, it prevented me from getting the CD, because it turns out that I don't own it already. I'd almost think about getting a PDA to put my catalog on to refer to in situations like this, except for the fact that this would be the lamest thing ever.

Eventually, all the bands got in and got their gear assembled, and the show got going in earnest.


Blessed Offal [5/7]
The only band on this bill that I hadn't seen previously, these guys blasted out a tight, compact set of dirty, necro NEBM that may not have attracted as many people as the headliners who followed, but definitely caught people's attention. Unfortunately, some of that focus may have been artificial, as they barely got 15 minutes as a result of the performances starting so damned late. The passion and the potential are definitely there, even as seen in this small sample, and though their sound at this point tends to establish stuff that's been done already rather than break new ground, this is definitely a band that I'm interested in seeing a full set from, not restricted by time constraints.

Baphomet's Horns [5.5/7]
It wasn't until they announced themselves from the stage that I remembered that Baphomet's Horns was supposed to be on the bill; I certainly didn't recognize them setting up. Of course, the only time I ever saw them before was almost 6 months ago at DeeDee's, and though I'm not positive, I think they've had some lineup movement since then. This set was more solid than I remembered from them (well, yeah; five months has a lot of time for improvement), and though their influences from Celtic Frost and the Black Circle showed through rather transparently, the external elements were well-blended, making a sound that's almost completely this band's own -- and at the very least very well-executed. In sound and skill they've come a ways since their split with Amputator; this is definitely a band to look for on the rare occasion that they play out in this area, and any future recordings will also be worth looking into.

Following this set, I had officially seen more bands in the first half of 2007 than in all of 2006. I'm off the "see more sets than days in the year" pace I was on earlier, but the difference made by being in a country that does local shows and being motivated and able to go to them is striking.

Hekseri [6.5/7]
Tonight saw Hekseri back to their full complement, but more strikingly, this was one of the best solo guitar outings that I've ever heard from Megan. I've seen shows where her lead playing could only be charitably described as "Kerry King-esque", but in this set she was dead straight on, nailing everything and really taking the performance to the next level. With Jason back and the lead guitar basically on fire, their sound shaded more towards Immortal than I recall hearing from them previously; the dirty roots are still there, but the epic is lurking in the way that the riffs go together, and this set like few previous that I've seen really brought it forward. They had to cut a few songs from their set for time, but this didn't really detract from a fairly incredible outing.

Witch Tomb [6.5/7]
My initial impressions were that this set was incredible, but not quite the 'peak outing' they had opening for Watain. Then I went back and checked my notes, and found out that I had rated this one significantly better than that. While Witch Tomb wasn't as concertedly visual on this outing (Cody and Mike somewhat blacked up, but still in their normal clothes), the music was simply crushing, and this is what made the difference. The keys and samples are more streamlined into their material, and the new stuff, both from their forthcoming Martyrvore split and from the rumored full-length to succeed it, is really cool, combining their vitriolic black metal with ten-ton death grooves. The fusion works, as music an sich and within the context of the rest of their material, and the result is quite impressive.

Right around midnight, the bands closed up, and then it was back off to the north for the night. There's another black/death/grind gig down here tonight, and while I'm still hoping for a good time, I'd be flat stunned if it reached the levels of this one, despite both Hirudinea and Watchmaker on the bill -- though of course it would hella rock to be proven wrong.


June is wearing down into July, and thus festival season approaches. Unfortunately, this is Boston, not Gelsenkirchen, so "festival" does not mean tents and mud and bad smells and astronomical amounts of beer under the open sky, but smallish, crowded clubs, beer doled out by the bottle, and long tired drives home with a different kind of stink. This aside, there are four fests in the planner for July, with something like 50 bands total playing, in addition to the usual salting of normal gigs. That's basically one a weekend, but there are actually two on the second weekend; the final weekend in July is at the moment show-free....though I kind of need it that way to rest and pack up for the fifth fest of the summer.

three shows due to laziness

There are three show reviews in this one, because I am lazy and spent the past week-and-a-half doing other stuff like sleeping, going to shows, and cleaning my house. Let's fuckin go:


This one is from the weekend after I came back from Texas; a good show at a good venue in Haverhill.

Shroud of Bereavement with Hekseri, Burn My Remains, and Wings Never Shattered
River City Billiards, Haverhill, 3/24/2007
--

So after the exhaustion of the previous night's mostly mainstream show, it was down into the underground and off into the snow and gathering darkness for this one. Given the bands involved, at least the last two, it fit perfectly, though it was a little rough to drive through on the way back.

I got up in time and got in just around when the bands were supposed to be starting, but due to the circumstances around the final lineup -- Id was supposed to be playing this, but their guitarist got clipped by a car the day before and Wings Never Shattered got added hours before they were supposed to go on -- the setup ran on for most of the next hour. This gave me some time to hang out and start drinking, and also to browse through the Oak Knoll table, which is a convenient euphemism for "lose all my money". The gig turned into a free show due to issues with door control -- the venue wanted to keep their normal bar custom as well, I guess, and had another room on the second floor that they needed to have open -- but I still feel bad about not compensating the bands, as this was a good show at a venue that has a fair degree of potential.

Wings Never Shattered [4/7]
Fittingly enough, the replacement band came in at replacement level, which shows why the term exists; if WNS was better, they'd have been on the bill initially, instead of coming off the figurative bench when Id had to scratch. They were okay, but as metalcore goes, fairly generic; there were some good parts, but more that everyone has heard already five thousand times before. The potential is definitely there for this band to diversify or otherwise distinguish themselves, but this step just hasn't been taken yet. Also, the vagaries of their genre mean that whether or not they decide to take that next step up, they could be on the main stage at Metalfest next year, or they could spend their entire career playing gigs no bigger than this one. When the rules for success are so ridiculously nondeterministic, it's very difficult to see the effort to become more than 'good enough' as worth the candle. They were entertaining and they drew well, but the sets did strictly improve as the night went on.

Burn My Remains [5/7]
I'd heard a fair bit about these guys due to interest in other North Shore/Merrimac Valley bands, and they certainly didn't disappoint, pounding out a strong set of brutal death metal, filled in with just enough neoclassical melodics to really set themselves apart. I'm hoping to see them again in the future, though it doesn't seem that they travel much outside their home range -- though this is less of an issue if there are more good shows up here in the Blight. The only real issue here was that I couldn't entirely hear the bass; the bass lines tracked mostly with the rhythm guitar, but for a 8x10 cab, there ought to have been a little more sound coming out of it. The sound guy was also a last-second fill-in, but in the main did a good job, fillips like these aside.

Hekseri [6/7]
Though there were some issues with Megan's mic initially -- like it wasn't on or someone moving equipment across the floor had kicked the other end out of the soundboard -- this was a thoroughly strong and dominating set of thrashing black metal that even drew in the bouncers who were supposed to be watching the door to the upstairs to marvel not only at girls driving a sonic tornado, but also at Seth's relentless blastbeat pace. The floor was thinner for them, at least initially, as the only non-local band, but it filled in properly in short order, though some weaklings might have been intimidated off by Larissa getting on the floor and attacking people with her bass (a good time for the rest, though). While their set was a little clipped at the end -- the bar wanted the bands over at midnightish, maybe due to noise ordinances, so the delay in startup made a definite difference -- it was still pretty fully developed, and definitely kickass.

Shroud of Bereavement [6/7]
This is where the time limitations really hurt; Shroud came right out at an amazing level, and had this set run as long as it was probably intended to, would have gotten into the top echelon. Though the stage was crowded with the six bandmembers, including three guitarists, it definitely made a difference, as this sort of doom metal really requires that kind of wall of sound to crush over the audience and get their full attention. The strongest comparison is probably to Novembers Doom, as a similar inheritance from multiple sources strongly reworked, but there were also parts where I couldn't help but notice the resemblance to Nightingale. Since he lives in Sweden and doesn't tour so much any more, local bands that can evoke a similar depth and maturity are definitely worth your attention. Though they did get cut off a little, this was still a great performance, and I'm going to make a point to see them in the future.

Unfortunately, I didn't stick around either to pick up Shroud's CDs or to go to Dan's after-party, both of which I should have; like a goober, I parked at the T station again, and like a goober, I was worried about getting towed or shit. I've got to either start parking smarter or caring less, as I still had to scoop slush off my car and drive home over windy back roads, but I did it short two discs from an awesome band and without further metal socialization. Not fun.


Now, shows from this past weekend:


1349 with Goatwhore, Nachtmystium, and Averse Sefira...and Mortis Deveia, Aura of Aquila, Zircon, and Cold Northern Vengeance
Mark's, Bedford, 3/31/2007
--

I had to bag a party for one of my high school friends in order to get up for this, but friends who've stayed around where they've been their whole life will tend to stay there; 1349 comes and goes, and the chance to see them on a small stage rather than out in front of 20,000+ ragers through crappy PA towers (like I will this summer) is something that does not occur a whole lot. However, as things panned out, I probably could have dropped in and said hi before going up, but of course there was no way to know that at the time.

Doors were reported for 6, and I got up there around 6:15, fully expecting to go in and find that I'd missed a couple local openers, because this is Mark's, and their ridiculous pay-to-play policy and its attendant circumstances have led to the running gag in the scene that doors for any Mark's show are at about 10 AM on the day before, and that by the time anyone actually gets there, they have already missed half of the 1500 local openers. Your band has just been added to this show, and you need to sell 15 tickets, even though this event is now in the past. However, wonder of wonders, the local support had been frozen at four bands, all of whom were quite good, and doors was actually delayed for soundchecking for the touring acts. So I stood around outside for a bit and talked some with Henry (Mortis Dev) and then briefly with Paul (CNV), who was then working on rounding up his band and understandably a little chafed about having to go on first. Given the circumstances under which CNV got on this show, it's perhaps not surprising that the club would do this, but looking at this bill and how the lineup fell together -- and also, to a lesser degree, what kinds of performances were delivered -- it makes a lot more sense commerically than it does artistically or socially. Somebody always has to go on first, because otherwise the show just fails to start, but on this occasion it should not have been CNV.

Eventually, they let us in, and after getting a beer I went down to the second-stage end to make sure that I didn't miss any CNV. I didn't, even including their initial start, which got cut off because they were still soundchecking up on the main stage. Though they were able to get their sound dialed in, they were notified after this that they'd start playing in 20 minutes. This is far too long to leave metalheads in the vicinity of three full merch and distro tables; I need to train my wallet better so that it doesn't immediately jump up and start vomiting money all over the dealers' hands in this situation. I'm more than satisfied with picking up everything Moonsorrow's ever done that I didn't have yet, plus some other rarities, but it was tough slapping it down enough to still be able to support the local and touring bands. Sure, it's all the same metal scene, but direct support is a lot better than having it routed through some sub-licensor label in Russia.

Eventually, CNV started around 8ish. If I'd dropped in on Jay's, I probably could have seen most of their set, but I had no way of knowing a Mark's show would start this late, and I'd feel pissed about missing any part of CNV in any case.

Cold Northern Vengeance [6/7]
CNV's Arising Dungeon Cult is one of the best black metal records from the North American continent, in its clarity and atmospheres as much as in its rawness and starkness. Live, with imperfect control over their sound (the second stage at Mark's is really good, but it's still a second stage at a bar), the stress is more on the raw aspects, presenting a different sound, but one no less cool or less black metal. Though it still hadn't really gotten dark when they started, if you closed your eyes at any point in the set, it wasn't hard to immediately infer the kind of frigid and snowing night as when they should have played supporting Enslaved. It was a great experience, probably the truest set of the night, and, of course, full of kickass music; they closed with "A Past Forgotten", and there was not a song the rest of the night more frigid or more epic.

As good as this set was, though, their support for Watain and Angelcorpse in Boston next month should be even more interesting, as there are a lot more antifas in Boston than in New Hampshire, so some might show up, even though you very seldom get antifas at a black metal show. I believe Paul in his assertions that CNV isn't a political band, and because I also believe in Amon Amarth's live-and-let-live-as-long-as-they-also-live-and-let-live approach to the right, I'm not going to stir shit with their more politicized fans, but some of the more political on the other end might. Burzum, Nokturnal Mortum, and even Graveland kit I can understand, but when you show up to a black metal show wearing Skrewdriver gear or shirts explicitly advertising racially-oriented forums, it's pretty obvious that it's being done for polemical or recruitment purposes. People have a right to believe whatever they want, as long as they aren't forcing it on others, but I'm not sure that the streets of Cambridge will take that view.

Political bullcrap aside, CNV is still awesome, and I'm still, obviously, looking forward to seeing them again, even though Boston in May is necessarily going to be much less grvm than New Hampshire, anytime.

Averse Sefira [5/7]
The venue was still filling up, so I was able to basically turn around from CNV and walk straight up to the stagefront. This was good and bad; I was, indeed, right the hell up front, but as a result I'm not sure that I got the optimum sound out of the experience. This was still a really good set, but they had the misfortune to be bracketed between two stellar locals, and while they aren't as thoroughly derivative of early Emperor now as on the earlier recorded stuff that I've heard from them, they haven't completely differentiated themselves either. If Zircon hadn't been on the bill, this would have been the most death-driven set (well, of the actual black metal bands, anyways), but unfortunately, they had to cut in between a band that evokes the spirit of old Norway better than they do, and one of the most complete crushing machines that the Northeast has to offer. After another record, they'll probably have their feet under them better, but on this night, Averse Sefira was just really good in a setting where there was a lot of greatness available.

Zircon [6/7]
I was playing around with the idea of doing split scores, and had I actually gone through with it, Averse Sefira would have come out with a 5.5 and these guys with a 6.5. As the last time, they absolutely slaughtered; just an excellent performance, little short of the transcendant. If you live in New England and like the sound of a Naglfar-Dissection-Zyklon fusion, you need to get to the show or shows that Zircon is doing within easy driving distance of you over the next two weeks (don't ask me where, just check your local bills, everyone knows Zircon is on every show); everyone else, either hit up the Oak Knoll mailorder or wait for Jeremy to upsell them to Candlelight or Relapse or something.

Nachtmystium [6/7]
I hadn't heard anything from these guys, but was looking forward to seeing them anyways; new and different music is always a good thing. of course, it's debatable how much was new and different in the set of black'n'roll that they cranked through, inheriting more from Celtic Frost than from what Goatwhore would do a little later on, but it was quite well-executed and the crowd actually in front of the stage -- I was off to the side again, ahead but out of the way of the people who wanted to be front and center -- was thoroughly into it. If the black'n'roll sound puts down permanent roots in the US, so much the better, especially as a contrast to the current dominating school in USBM, but I really need to get out my Vried disc again and be sure what and how much the differences are. Of course, Vried wasn't on this bill, and this was a really good set regardless; I'll have to see them again at Metalfest to be sure that there wasn't any acoustic-shadow bits getting in the way of my understanding of their sound.

Aura of Aquila [5/7]
These guys are actually from my area (Danvers, close enough, even in ultra-parochial New England), and Jim was allegedly in [Endless] Ruin with Ryan and Danny et al (I don't really remember him, but I only saw them once and it was like 4 years ago). Though they had an interesting sound, it wasn't always completely together in performance, and anyone who knows anything about the New England black metal scene would have to conclude that they were slotted where they were for commercial reasons, pushed this late so that people who bought tickets from them would stay at the club, buying drinks, at least through more than half the gig rather than seeing them and leaving early in order to avoid driving an hour and more home at Police Harrassment O'Clock in the morning. They were decent, and I have to pick up a CD from them at some point -- forgot this time -- but even considering their innate qualities, and that this was the bass player's last show, they should have still gone on earlier rather than later, if only in favor of the more high-profile bands on the local half of the bill.

Goatwhore [7/7]
Your eyes are not deceiving you, though I sure thought my ears were while watching the set. Despite the fact that Goatwhore at this point is, as commented (by the bassist from CNV), total Celtic Frost worship, there's nothing wrong with such when it's delivered with such absolute power and such amazing clarity of sound, especially since Celtic Frost isn't exactly doing this early-period sound themselves any more. About equal parts black'n'roll and old Frost, even down to Tom Warrior-style "ugh!" exclamations, this was by a long ways the best performance that I've seen from Goatwhore, and while they aren't particularly revolutionary in anything they do, they're definitely always entertaining, which is the goal to be aspired to for such perpetual road warriors; sometimes you just get a decent set, and sometimes you get an amazing one like this one, but you know they're always going to at least put on a good performance.

Mortis Deveia [5/7]
The Henry Khiev Show [7/7]
While the comments outside the show before doors from some of the other fans that Mortis Dev "didn't fit" on this bill were good for lulz -- because Henry and I were standing less than ten feet away from the people making them, apparently invisible or something -- they were also true to a certain degree; Mortis Deveia is not a black metal band, and they were principally on the bill for two reasons: first, they kick ass, and second, they draw a lot of people from the Valley who might not otherwise show up for a black metal show. Accordingly, they went on a lot later than I was expecting them to, to keep those extra bodies in the venue and drinking and tipping as long as possible. Their set was decent, and fairly high-energy, but there was very much the feeling of a fairly standard-form NWOSDM-driven thrash band riffing out, with occasional intermissions where Henry would do something incredible with his axe. It's not at the Joe Stump level, but it's also not nearly as balanced as some of the other local bands with sick lead guitarists that I follow. As a career pessimist, I can't see this as having good implications for future band chemistry, but there were some external factors that may have led to this being a down night for the other four members; I know I've seen better overall sets from them in the past, and hope to continue to see good sets from them in the future.

1349 [6/7]
The sound at the beginning of their set was oddly really quiet, much as with Dark Funeral the last time I was up here, and additionally I was standing over at the side of the stage, in a bit of an acoustic shadow, which pushed the sound that much lower and less clear for me. Despite this, the band soldiered on and eventually got properly dialed in all across the hall after a couple songs, unleashing their take on the oldest and coldest of Norway over all those in attendance. It may be me misremembering Dark Medieval Times, but the feel as far as I could compare was closest to a more closed-in and aggressive early Satyricon -- though Frost was not on the drums, at least at this gig, for reasons of undisclosed origin that might be personal as well as legal. (Frost allegedly beat the crap out of some guy over a girl or something back in the early '90s, and as a result has a felony assault charge on his rap sheet; perhaps not as significant as Jon Nodtveit or Bard Eithun's Murder Two convictions, but still problematic for the INS or whatever they're calling it these days.) It was still a kickass performance and a fitting capstone to the night, even if it wasn't quite as well-presented as Goatwhore's unexpectedly killer outing; black metal, even the kind that crosses the seas to play gigs, thrives on making people fight through the circumstances to the quality music beneath, and there was certainly plenty of good stuff here.

Eventually, of course, they had to close up, and since Mark's has learned their lesson about putting local bands on after the headliners (at least when the tour is as relatively inexpensive as this one), it was time to head home through the cop-ridden roads and highways down to the border and freedom from dunnage. While Louis from Goatwhore is certainly right that as soon as you stop supporting shows, you'll start bitching about how nothing good ever comes around any more, it's better for all concerned to support shows at places besides Mark's. The security is inconsistent, not patting people down but throwing people out without warnings for moshing, the local support has to pay for the privilege of playing (on an admittedly well-tuned PA setup) at the back of the hall to mostly the same people who would be there at a bar or basement show that they would be getting paid for or at least not losing money on, and on leaving, people have to deal with New Hampshire's finest, who are an obstacle not only to those who are legitimately too impaired to operate, but also to anyone else they happen to decide is a likely mark. This may strike some people as harsh on NH cops, but these people don't have anyone in their family who got a $300 ticket for reckless operation for pulling over when directed by a police officer on an empty highway. New Hampshire extracts enough revenue from Massachusetts by selling liquor on Sundays and without state taxes; it's not strictly necessary to supplement this by pulling over anyone with Mass plates that they think they can hang a violation on, but it still happens.


This last one is from Sunday at ye goode olde Somerville watering hole & Chinese dining room. Note: the Skybar does not actually serve Chinese food, but they don't mind people taking in takeout from the Chinese place next door.


Deathamphetamine with Dominatus and Volatile
Skybar, Somerville, 4/1/2007
--

In sharp contrast to the previous night's black metal festivities, this was a firmly grounded thrashout, but no less cool or possessed of less good music. There are a lot of high scores on the books for this weekend and nothing average or lower; maybe my standards are dropping, but the more likely conclusion is that the bands this weekend were just really that awesome.

Chastened by previous weeks, I made it down earlier and got there right at doors, in time to check in and go next door to pick up some Chinese, then come back and eat it before Volatile started up. It was a little close, but helped by the fact that the band delayed a little, potentially waiting for more people to show up, which I don't understand. The people, not the bands' reaction to them not showing; it's a Sunday evening, there's no football, so you come down, get some good Chinese food, drink some beers, and are done and can stand up sometime during the first band's set. It's not hard, y'all, and for the most part -- this one definitely included -- the Sunday shows at the Skybar have been really cool.

Volatile [6/7]
lol Volatile moar liek Vo-latile amirite lol
Now that the Encyclopedia Dramatica-style description is out of the way, it's time to be moderately serious, as the band is; they're not doing a 3 Inches of Blood-style piss take with their interpretations of primal thrash, but they definitely still are having fun with it, as it's fun music. If you go through your collection in alphabetical order you can find a lot of similarities: Venom, Vio-lence (viz the joke above), Volatile. While the focal point is still on their covers and the frantic passion that they execute them with, their originals are steadily improving, and there's a few that can stand in with their takes on Slayer and Kreator's early periods without losing out in quality or intensity. They're still developing as an original band, but they're already fully formed in their handling of other people's material, and the good reaction to their insanity in executing it seemed to feed forward into their confidence and project the later originals in the set stronger. Volatile may not ever stop playing a long slice of covers, but there may well come a day when people will wish they didn't, in order to give more time to their original work.

Volatile played as a four-piece, though I could almost swear that they had another guitarist when I saw them at Great Scott. The sound wasn't materially degraded for it, but if they're currently normally a five-piece, they're just the latest in a long string of bands playing the Skybar a member down.

Dominatus [5/7]
Like Deathamphetamine, Dominatus is currently in lineup flux, but unlike Deathamphetamine, they weren't able to persuade the exiting member to show up for this gig. The bassist search continues, and the consequence for this set was an occasionally confused sound; the composition was strong enough that the absence of the low end tying things together did make a difference. The impression was of a decent death metal band in the brutal style most common to this area -- Bane of Existence is probably the closest -- trying to play with one hand tied behind its back, though the sound did get better and more together as the set wore on. They also made an interesting exception to the regular practice, covering "Hermod's Ride to Hel" off Amon Amarth's most recent record, which they did a good rendition of. Metal bands, as with practically everyone else, cover mostly old standards, with contemporary material rarely getting played; it's not really possible, in the age of the internet, to do like Metallica did and clone some far-off band to wow local audiences, but nobody's really doing that, either. This will hopefully lead to more contemporary covers in the few non-original slots available; there's a lot of good deep cuts out there that the bands who wrote them don't do live, and someone might as well play the ones that strike their fancy.

This one incidental bit definitely inspired me; if I revive Coelem with actual people as opposed to a studio project, any shortfalls in the set will be filled with uncredited (except in this notice) endZone and Solar Signs material, both because it's really cool and to see if I can get away with co-opting stuff from ten years ago in Russia that never even made much of a stir there. It's not going to happen, but that doesn't make it not a cool idea.

Deathamphetamine [7/7]
Slightly less epic and slightly more crossover-driven than when I saw them last, Deathamphetamine left nothing on the table for Ben's final gig on vocals before moving out of state. Though there was a lot of commentary from the band members about how much stuff they were fucking up, it wasn't immediately noticeable, as the band for the most part stayed together and in time, and throughout laid down a battering barrage of variously-influenced thrash-death. They also got one of the longest sets I've seen from a local show; chalk that one up to three bands on a nearly-three hour timetable and quick setchanges. The result was a mad frenzy of headbanging and flailing limbs, driven up in intensity by action as well as invective from Rich (IWEIPH), who is also not long for this coast. It was a great set, one of the few at this place where the band has gone down off the stage to thrash along with the crowd, and the second-craziest in terms of forward motion to the last time I saw Goreality here, because this time I was the one getting knocked into the table, and I was able to catch it before it fell all the way over. Good times, and hopefully the band will pick up a suitable vocalist in short order so that they can continue rolling on. It'll be tough to replace Ben, but that's also what they said about Taneli Jarva, and Sentenced did okay once Ville got on the same page with the rest of the band.

Though things got over kind of early, despite the long sets, I still left shortly after nabbing Deathamphetamine's CD, overdue by about 5 months through nobody's real fault, except maybe the band's, indirectly, for not realizing how fast their awesomeness would run through their initial pressing. Can't go wrong with 18 tracks of Deathamphetamine for 3 bucks, but I also did have to go to work in the morning and finally take my car in for repairs; after it gets the new bumper, I can start subtly stickering it, which I hadn't done before due to the fact that it was popped and needed replacing.


In other show news, Revocation has been added to the NEMHF. This is the best news about the festival since I found out that there were a lot more bands that I didn't care about playing than bands that I really don't like. They're playing Friday, and they're probably going to be mired on the second stage, but they're still going to be blowing large cavities into the poser hordes and hopefully catching the ear of some of the industry types who are always about. The only downside to this is that now I need to add two offensive-lineman-style knee braces to my festival expenses. \m/.

Hekseri with Goreality and Abnormality [Skybar, Somerville, 3/18/2007]

This is a little delayed because I had to spend all of yesterday going to Texas, but it still doesn't impede the fact that this was an awesome show. Unfortunately, I got in late due to having to prepare to travel Monday, and missed almost all of Abnormality.

Abnormality [NR]
I hate giving bands a null rating. This isn't because it gives my life some perverse obsessive-compulsive critical meaning to assign relative weights to bands' sets, but because it means that I saw the band, but not enough of them to give a fair assessment. In this case, I got in to the Skybar just at 8 PM, just in time to see Abnormality's last song, which turned out to be just enough to get me disappointed that I couldn't get there sooner. Despite the absence of a bass player (no idea whether this is their normal configuration or not), the death metal sound was nice and thick, not quite as dense or frenetic as Goreality, but still pretty crushing all the same. I've got to try and see a full set from this band sometime.

After their set, I got a beer and hit the Pathos table; as usual, Dwyer had about 87 time more interesting or cool-looking records than I actually had money for, but I was able to pick up some Horn of Valere and Cianide that I didn't have, and he recced me two more cult German albums....none of which I've listened to yet, or will listen to for another week, because I had to keep the weight of my gear for this trip to a minimum.

Hekseri [6/7]
Assuming that Abnormality usually has a bassist instead of using their guitarist's 7th string for the low end, this was the second band of the night to show up without their nominal bass player. However, unlike the last time, I saw Hekseri without Jason, Larissa switched over to bass, presenting yet another version of their sound. It looked like she was mostly just transposing her normal rhythm lines down rather than duplicating Jason's more gymnastic attack, and the result was a slightly simpler sound, but one that in its evolution of folkic melodies out of ripping noise recalled the best of true black metal. The best part, though, is that this is still a band that can evoke Dissection as easily as Darkthrone, and even though recent shows have shown that their sound is still very much under development, they're still creating quality music and putting up kickass sets.

The reason that Hekseri played second, despite setting up the show and nominally having top billing, was that Goreality's singer didn't show up until the end of their soundcheck. The Skybar is a little difficult to get to, but only the Harvard rotary and the turn at Porter Square are technically challenging, and the band has actually played here before (with Godless Rising, back in January). Be that as it may, though; the band did get in place with their full lineup, just in time to start blasting.

Goreality [7/7]
This was not as superlative a performance as the last time I saw them here. However, it was still completely awesome, both in music and in the audience reaction, and so simply well-refined that you really have to wonder how on earth this band is still toiling in such relative obscurity. Of course, ultra-brutal gore-death is never going to get you on the Billboard 200, but people on other continents into this scene should know who this band is; hopefully, their new record will get them over that mark, especially if Dwyer is able to get it out in good distro channels and reviewed by some high-profile sources. The new stuff that they played is just as awesome as the older material; all that remains is to get it out into people's ears.

The audience reaction mentioned above is no joke; the Skybar is not generally a huge moshing venue, but it's also not a no-mosh venue either, and the front got pretty turbulent for Goreality. I did my best to keep people from flying into the tables, and while this wasn't completely successful -- though I was able to catch the two guys who knocked that one table over before they fell down on it and its sharp-cornered metal foot -- it was still fun as hell and a great addition to the music. There were also a good number of people in throughout the show, and hopefully more of them will start coming regularly to Sunday gigs. The genres vary, and some shows are more awesome than others, but it's still always a cool time, and always gets out in plenty of time for people to get home and get enough sleep to face work (or a plane ride to Texas) on Monday.


Next show, presuming I don't get held up here, is on Friday at the Palladium, where I'll finally get to see DT; next underground show is on Saturday up in Haverhill, with Shroud of Bereavement, Hekseri, and probably some other Merrimac Valley bands that I ought to be keeping better tabs on. Of course, I have to complete my mission here and get back out of Texas, but it's some pretty simple stuff that I have to do...as long as things don't go sideways.

Hekseri with Revocation, Witch Tomb, Volatile, and Mortalis [Great Scott, Allston, 2/13/2007]

This should have been up earlier, but with the storm and all, this was kind of a tough week. Driving on ice sucks.


Despite the high marginal cost of this show in terms of driving effort and nearly brewing up my car skidding in a snowstorm, this show was worth the hassle; the bands kicked ass, and I didn't get towed, get frostbite, or actually bang into anything on the way back.

I thought I was getting in about on schedule, as it wasn't snowing yet, but I somehow got turned the wrong way round getting off Storrow Drive and had a time of it finding Comm Ave again. I still like Boston; I just get really exasperated with driving around it at times. I ended up parking about 6 blocks away from the venue in one of the few zones that didn't threaten interlopers with towing, and got down to the club probably close to the start of Mortalis' set.

Mortalis [5/7]
I think I saw most of their set -- set times were shortish and pretty uniform -- and they gave a good impression, doing some cool groove-death. This band is still developing, but they've definitely got their feet under them in terms of skills and riffage. Though they were probably the least immediately different band on this lineup, they still put up a good performance and left a positive impression. I'm bummed that I didn't catch their whole set, but hopefully I'll get a chance to see them again -- and at that time, they'll hopefully have something recorded.

Volatile [5/7]
You don't see too many bands, especially on this continent, playing primal thrash metal with high vocals. The best comparison for this band is probably "3 Inches of Blood except not a gag"; the rediscovery by modern thrashers of the first wave of power metal -- King Diamond, Grim Reaper, Helloween, Grave Digger, etc -- and the accompanying realization that done right, this stuff can be pretty cool. They opened up with Slayer's "Tormentor", setting the stylistic tone; it's always cool when people cover stuff off Show No Mercy, though I'm still waiting for someone to do "Evil Has No Boundaries". This was a fairly loose set, but still well-performed and fun to thrash along to, even if they didn't dust off their Grim Reaper to close with.

During the set break, I talked with Dave from Revocation and got the approximate location of the basement gig they're playing on Friday. It sounds like a cool show, and I'm almost not sick any more, but whether I get down is going to depend a lot on the conditions of the roads. If the various DPWs involved get their shit together, it's a definite possibility, but if the storm hangs around or the state/city halfasses things, I won't be crazy about taking on 93 and Storrow under such conditions. (I didn't end up going...more due to still being sick than road conditions.)

Witch Tomb [5/7]
Another cool set, and it was definitely interesting to see the band still set up in burnt cork and sunglasses despite the change of scenery to a much larger and better-maintained bar (the last time I saw them was about the last show that DeeDee's had). The innate black metal vibe from the surroundings was gone, but the band's own black metal spirit soldiered on and put on a cool performance. To my ears, the sound system here didn't quite treat them as well as DeeDee's' necro setup, but this might have had as much to do with where I was standing at each venue as anything else, and it was still a cool set. It felt a little short, but this was the only point that could really be picked in an overall good performance.

Revocation [6/7]
Hooray, Just Another Awesome Revocation Set. Dave didn't throw any new guitar wrinkles into this one, but the total performance was great enough that they weren't really missed, and he's also leveled up his stage banter, providing more lulz around the totally sick thrash epics. There were some calls for "Mother Man" during their set, showing that I'm not crazy, and other people also can't help thinking of Atheist when hearing these guys. The Atheist-driven elements were especially prominent in this set, so it's more understandable why people should start yelling for it now. They were discussing adding some Unquestionable Presence material to their repertoire with some of the people who had been calling for it after the set, and while I'm sure they'll do a decent version of any song or songs they end up working up, having seen Atheist, there's not a lot of stuff that you can do from Atheist without having two guitars to play the two guitar lines. The more new stuff that Revocation gets together, though, the more they construct and develop their own vision of that same idea of technical insanity, so it's a moot point: either they spend time working up some Atheist, or they put that time into originals and parallel evolution takes them on the same path, to the same levels. The awesomeness is the same regardless.

Between Revocation and Hekseri, I got my last beer of the night, a Pabst, and the regret was immediate. Contrary to my prior perceptions, I'm still not healthy enough again to get away with drinking stuff that's not nach dem Reinheitsgebot. Aus mit schwulen "Wasser mit kunstlichen Biergeschmack", wir wollen echtes reines Bier! Given my Tankard spree of late, I'm really questioning why I didn't just correct the bartender. Fucking chemicals.

Hekseri [6/7]
Megan's protestations to the contrary, this was not the worst set that Hekseri's ever done. Of course, it could have been better, but this is largely an intellectual conclusion; I've seen Jason play with them, and he wasn't there last night, so obviously it would have been better had he been on hand slaughtering his bass. However, I can't really think exactly where those lines might have gone that would have resulted in an obvious improvement. As a three-piece, Hekseri feels perfectly balanced between black and thrash metal: on this gig, as of late, they seemed to favor their thrash side more, but the treble-high focus of the sound without the bass guitar kept the black metal vibe current. It wasn't the best set I've seen from them, but it certainly wasn't the worst either, and in any case it was a cool take on their sound.

I wanted to hang around, but environmental factors pulled me away; I had to get back north before the snow turned the highways into skating rinks. I collared the ten-dollar parking fee that the BPD left on my windshield (cheaper than some garages), then made my way back. I nearly achieved my objective; just after getting into Danvers, I came out of about the last technically demanding turn on 128, then went slaloming for about 100 yards or so; fucking climate iced the road and then put snow down on top of it. Unlike last year, I didn't spin out or hit anything; this was greatly aided by the fact that the closest car was about half a mile behind me when I hit the skids, but it's all improved technique (or, more likely, improved luck) that I kept the nose facing forward and was able to recover as soon as I slowed down enough that the tires would bite again. This was not fun and put a bit of a damper on the night, but I didn't damage myself, my vehicle, or anything else, and did manage to make it back in one piece.

Much more of a buzzkill was only getting 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up, play car tetris, and go to work...hopefully, this junk will clear off and this won't be a problem for either Revocation this weekend or God Forbid onTuesday. It's a shitty time for a show, but at least the Middle East is pretty accessible, and I'll get to see them, Arsis, and Goatwhore again -- and get one of those "The Real Black Metal" shirts, both for the cool factor and potentially to wind people up with at 1349. Of course, this is is presuming that they notice it under a jacket that currently has four Immortal devices on it, plus a bunch of kit from Sigh, Mayhem, Celtic Frost, and Dissection.


I went through my parents' basement over the weekend with a fine-toothed comb and found my old demos; there's like 80 minutes of crummy music on those, so now all I need to do is get a MD player, and I can convert them into crummy digital files, potentially to be released as a long and terrible CD-comp. Of course, I haven't listened to them in forever, so I'll have to do that, along with probably some post-prod cleanup, before I make the decision on whether to inflict them on anyone else.

Metal Winter Break part 2: Destruction with Into Eternity, Municipal Waste, Defcon 4, and Hekseri [Middle East, Cambridge, 2/4/2007]

When I left, the Bears were up on the Colts by like 14-6, which would probably be the last time they led in this game. I didn't care, though, continuing to navigate south. I got in a little before doors...well, if doors had been at 8 as originally intended, and not at 8:30. This lameness probably cost Destruction a few songs and definitely pissed the audience off, because shortly after 8 we were shepherded outside into the subfreezing temperatures to wait for the official Einlass. This was pretty freakin' ridiculous, but not the lamest thing the club would do this night. In the process I got a discounted ticket from one of the guys in CSDO; it was probably a legit extra, because there's no way Ticketmaster would let an eighteen-dollar ticket out of their possession without a service charge that would make 'scalping' it for twenty bucks profitable. So I saved five bucks to drop on merch later.

Eventually they let us by drips and drabs in the fucking building, and I got in, processed, and drinkin'. It only took Hekseri a little while to set up once people started getting in, and from that point, the bands were go.

Hekseri [5/7]
This was a decent set, though their sound wasn't as good as when I saw them the last time, despite that being in a much smaller venue. It may be just where I was standing, but everyone was similarly within a few feet of the stage; it may be just that they were the first band on, but it's also likely that basically everyone inside was down for Hekseri, it's just that the staff wasn't letting people in the fucking club. Seriously, doors were some fucking bullshit. This time around, the sound seemed a little more thrash-oriented, though the black metal elements are still obviously present; this, though, probably is just a function of the bill. Good stufff, and they need to re-press FDHB so I can get a CD of it instead of just the shirt...for which I inadvertently gave Rich a hard time; I'll spot him some PBR the next time I get a chance.
It's germane here to mention that Jason is the best-kept secret in Boston heavy metal. Nobody ever notices him because in this band, he's on stage with two very good-looking and seriously talented female guitarists, but the dude can fucken play. I was parked in front of him for this set, and as a bass player couldn't help but notice his annihilating speed and technique. Just monstrous. The next time you see Hekseri, stop staring at Megan and Larissa for a second and look over at Jason; it's definitely worth it, and you won't question why you're looking at a sweaty dude instead of the other options available.

Defcon 4 [5/7]
Because I had stepped back to go through the merch tables and get some more beer, I was a little ways back when this band started playing, which was probably for the best; there were more people in the venue now, and those with more of an interest in this band's grindy style of hardcore deserved to get closer up rather than some old dude with prominent Blind Guardian patches on his rig. The band put up a good set, though not really one that was going to be immediately memorable for me. This has more to do with the style than the band; their execution was dead-on, and the crowd reacted well to them, finally getting the pit going on their second song -- though in fairness, there weren't really enough people in the building for a viable pit until the very end of Hekseri's set.

Municipal Waste [6/7]
It was between Defcon and the Waste that I got my Hekseri shirt, so by the time I got back to the floor, I was further back than I've ever seen a show in this building. The floor was fucking packed with both punks and metalheads, save the huge pit in the middle, and the Waste did not disappoint. They ripped through a bunch of old shit, but also tossed in some brand-new songs, and for those worried about them now doing "gay breakdowns" since they'll be recording with Zeuss, this is absolutely not the case. It's still good old kickass crossover, because it's still fucking Municipal Waste!
The only thing "gay" about this set was the behavior of the club security. Not only were they ejecting people for crowdsurfing, they confiscated the fucking boogie board. This is by far the lamest behavior I've ever seen out of secus, and not only have I been to both Mark's and Tabu, I was also at that North-Shore-infamous VFW show in Manchester where the bands got read that bizarre riot act before the show started. If you book a thrash or hardcore show, you are going to get crowdsurfing and intense moshing. If you book Municipal Waste, you are going to get people riding around on boogie boards. If you don't want to handle this, don't book the show! I can understand the venue's need to avoid liability from people cracking their heads open on the floor, but there's no need to eject people instead of just running them to the back of the hall, and it's not cool to confiscate band equipment.

In addition to the obligato shirt and patch, I also got the tape re-release of Waste 'Em All, mostly for the Tango and Thrash EP. I'll probably convert that tomorrow to listen to later; it's almost definitely the best EP based entirely on Kurt Russell movies ever released.

Into Eternity [5/7]
I and basically everyone else in the room would much rather have had Sadus, or instead that Hirax and Municipal Waste had both gone for the full run rather than splitting the third spot. However, this meant that as the floor emptied out, I could go over, get a beer, and get right up to the front pretty much unchallenged -- where I could not only see the band, but also hold down floor space for Destruction. Into Eternity put on a decent performance, but they'll fit much better with Dark Tranquillity and The Haunted when that tour comes around (Metal Spring Break, end of next month) than they did on this bill. In this lineup, they were out of place in style as well as intent, but there were still a bunch of people into them.

Destruction [7/7]
They didn't play quite as long as I'd ideally have liked, but I really don't know how this set could have gone much better on this continent. I was right up front, it got nice and violent, and the band freakin killed. They played a good mix of old and new stuff, and the crowd, in a good sign for a reunited band, knew stuff from both eras very well and about in equal measure. It was a nice long set, but cut off by a 12:30 sound curfew; if the freakin club had started the show when it was supposed to, we would have gotten more Destruction, and less time turning into metalheadsicles. Still a great show; all the Metal Winter Break shows are looking to be.

I'm going to have to look at the Wacken lineup again; if they have enough of the other people in place to do "Alliance of Hellhoundz" live, it will be freakin sweet.

two nights, two shows

Fortunately, it's only snowing now, not over the weekend, and it's not enough that the snow ban lights are on. This means I can stay in and collate two show reviews here instead of having to go drive somewhere, or be worried about moving my car off the street.


Revocation and Deadlikedeath
Caralilly's, Quincy, 1/19/2007
--

Technically, the bill should be flipped, but Revocation did put this show up, and the two bands here were about equally supported. Two bands on a DIY bill, the order basically doesn't matter.

I got down roughly on time, though before most of the band members got there, despite the usual 93 shenanigans and a couple blocks of walking to get over from the North Quincy T. The venue in question is a nice place, normally a piano bar, but it converts well into a DIY venue. It's a decent place for a local show, and proof that we do have the technical capabilities on the North Shore to host 18+ and 21+ shows...provided that someone gets off their ass and does it. Someone who isn't subject to randomly getting shuttled off to the ends of the earth, just so we're clear on this.

Before the bands got going, I unwittingly provided some opening entertainment by ordering a beer that had to come out of the wrong cooler. Said beer was partially frozen, and detonated on opening, covering the bartender and a fair stretch of the bar in an explosion of beer slush. She was a good sport about it, though, and it gave everyone something to laugh about while the bands were setting up.

Revocation [6/7]
Another show, another casually awesome performance from Revocation. This performance presented more of a relaxed, Bay-Area feel around the more technical or death-influenced parts of their sound, but the set was still unmistakeably in their usual style. Dave brought out some new guitar tricks, Anthony didn't take his shirt off, and a large number of people bought CDs when they finished; I wasn't anticipating this last, because their disc's been out for a while, and Revocation doesn't exactly hide in the forests building their kvlt credits as opposed to doing shows. This band is so good and performs so relatively often that you'd think most people who go to local shows in the Boston area would have Summon The Spawn by now. Regardless, a bunch more people have it now, and well they should.

Deadlikedeath [5/7]
Midway through their set, Murph likened following Revocation to pissing into a wind tunnel, but it wasn't as bad as all that. DLD gave a good performance, more grind than last time I was them either because that's how they're developing, or more likely because I've been listening to more grind lately and know what to listen to. They didn't seem any more or less comfortable in this venue than at the Middle East, but they were definitely a little looser. There were some stops and starts, but mostly just a kickass set. Unfortunately, I couldn't -- or more accurately, didn't -- stick to the end of it for the car-related reasons mentioned above, so I missed probably about 15 or 20 minutes of rockin' and a light fixture getting whacked. Next time, next time; this one, even just what I was able to stay for, was still a cool show and a pretty sweet Friday night.


Hell's Infinite 6 with Baphomet's Horns, Hekseri, Martyrvore, and Witch Tomb
DeeDee's, Quincy, 1/20/2007
--

After talking a good game about not parking at the T station like last night, I turned around and did it again. This of course was enabled by the fact that this venue is located directly behind the Wollaston Red Line stop (which I know of old), and there was no easier option. It also helped that it shortened the walk in sub-freezing temperatures in a non-insulated kutte. I can do this grim-and-frostbitten-north thing, but it's physically draining to do for too long at a time.

I didn't get in that early, but still got time to sit and regenerate before the bands started. I wouldn't sit down much the rest of the night, not only because there was a minimum of latency between bands, but also because the place filled up gradually throughout the night, to a level that most people probably wouldn't expect for a local black metal show -- provided that people can get over the idea of a local black metal show even happening.

Witch Tomb [5/7]
I was very impressed by this band, despite not hearing much about them going in. Their mix of drone and aggression was the closest that this night would offer to the 'typical' sound of USBM, but different enough to announce how the rest of the show was going to sound. They had a good long set for an opener, which the first three bands would all benefit from, showing off their abilities well.

Martyrvore [5/7]
Another good set, though more pointed and driven, despite being the first of the 40 percent of bands on this bill not to employ a bass player. Black metal by nature is treble-heavy, and the sound worked for both these guys and Hell's Infinite 6, but srsly, we may need to get a union going or something. The singer of this band, at least, is in Cold Northern Vengeance, but unfortunately I haven't listened to the CD I got off him yet, so I can't point to any differences or similarities in sound. Still a good set, plenty abrasive, and the rest of the audience was also into it.

The first two bands here are doing a split sometime in the near future, so something to watch out for.

Hekseri [6/7]
This slot on the bill was about right, and does credit to Megan for putting her own act in the right place while also putting up the show. However, the real story here is the performance that the band put on, a solid set of raw and dirty black metal highlighted by some excellent guitar work. Megan's solo style is clearly rooted in Slayer, but it blends well with the rest of the band's attack, which was at a comparably high level. This was a performance that built up rather than immediately starting and staying awesome, but this shouldn't diminish the quality of the music or its delivery. Very cool, and of course as gimmick-free as expected.

Baphomet's Horns [5/7]
There seemed to be a crowd surge for this band, with more people packing into the floor immediately in front of the stage to see them, then fading back when they finished. They were definitely worth everyone's full attention, providing a cool and fully developed set of nice brutal black metal, though it's always better, from a general scene standpoint, when fans of one band stick around for everyone on the bill. This is of course nothing on the band themselves, who gave a great performance that managed to feel cut off at the end; I'd gladly have watched them go on for another 15 or 20 minutes, but maybe next time. Next time, definitely, I'll get a shirt off them, as their designs are pretty killer, but all I got from them merchwise was their split with Amputator.

I also missed out on Hekseri stuff, but I'm definitely seeing them in like 2 weeks opening for Destruction, so I should be able to make it up at that time.

Hell's Infinite 6 [6/7]
Another ultimately killer set from a cool band, but also one that didn't employ a bassist. The dual guitar sound worked well, and the blending of riffs and feedback/general noise definitely enhanced the experience. Despite two guitarists and one of them wearing a Dissection shirt and a Dissection-derived arm tat, they held mainly to the brutal line that hs dominated the show so far, and did turn out a cool performance that also felt cut off. I'm not sure whether my internal clock starts going off after 23:00 or if it's just different expectations for headliners, but for whatever reason, this band also overcame a slow start to a point where I could have gone for another 15 to 20 once they finally closed up.

I probably could have hung around for a little after, but that would probably mean at least one more beer, and then more time off before driving, and I was again concerned about the Quincy PD booting or absconding with my car. I've got to plan better and/or find different places to park, but these Quincy venues are so convenient to the mass parking lots of our mass transit system that it's difficult to not be lazy and just use them. There's been some post-facto comments about the sound at this show from the bands, but I didn't notice much wrong with it; necro sound is something I've grown accustomed to from black metal, and all of the bands on this bill sounded fine with the sound as it was. Of course, that does mean that they'd all probably come off better with a good sound system, but that's something to look forward to; this show, now in the past, was pretty cool and a definite good experience to look back on.

In other news, I got my ticket for Enslaved off CNV, and several people, including one of the guys from Hirudinea (who was one of several with a better-built kutte than mine there), were rumoring about Rotten Sound playing at some Elks lodge in the area. No idea on the timeline for that one, but if it's north of the MA southern border, I ought to try and get to it; probably going to see them at MDF anyway, but that's pending how much vacation I have to take for Metal Winter Break.


Next show is hopefully going to be on Wednesday -- Godless Rising, Goreality, Downfall, and Mortis Dev down in Somerville -- but I'm fighting a cold right now and don't want to be fucking sneezing all over people. If that fails, I might go up to Metal Church at Mark's on the weekend, but I really don't want to go to a P2P show without getting a ticket off one of the bands. Sure, if I went I'd grout through everyone's merch table, but it'd still feel like I was picking Ravage or RAOV's pocket. Of course, the better step is to simply get rid of P2P shows, but as long as good nationals keep getting booked into them and good locals keep knuckling and playing them, it's going to be a devil's choice. Most likely I'll do the Wednesday show, then take the weekend off to regain my health (there's no way I'll see a better set from Metal Church than I got from the first row at Wacken this year) and hope to corral Ravage's CD releases later.