Inquisition with Abazagorath, Morgirion, Nachzehrer, and Herugrim [Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, 4/28/2012]

Saturdays normally I devote to hiking, fitba, and excessive alcohol consumption in and around Cambridge; this show threw that for a loop, but it was an exception I was glad to make, especially as it turned out to be what will surely finish off as one of the highlight shows of the year, if not the top of that stack.  It'd seriously somehow been nearly 3 years since the last show at the Middle East Upstairs, but it's a space that's personally associated with really good kvltic black metal shows -- Sigh in '02 and Watain in '07 being particular highlights.

Getting in presented a fair minimum of hassle and delay, and left me enough time to scoop Inquisition's available catalog, though not a shirt (out of fat bastard sizes), and waste several minutes racking my brains to try and remember if I already had Nachzehrer's Pestilence... on CD.  I never did recall corectly, but it turns out I didn't; oh well, have to pick it up off them at Horna then.

Herugrim [6/7]
The Halley's Comet of Boston black metal came around again, with a significantly different lineup than four years ago, but to the same impressive, high-grade effect.  The Black Circle casts a really long shadow, to the extent that most of the bands on this gig, like most black metal bands going even now, can be described as having Norwegian elements to them, but there are few that carry that sound forward as legitimately as Herugrim does.  This was real black-water-in-the-crag music, even without the woodwind elements (well-done and definitely vindicating the decision to play all of it live on real instruments rather than resorting to keys or playback), and it made a strong impression on the rest of the audience as well.  We only got three songs, but Herugrim songs tend to run longer, and the real point is that Herugrim played a show again, which is something that should happen more frequently than it's tended to in the past.

Wilford Grimley (kidding, Steve) leads the line for Herugrim.

I picked up a Herugrim shirt afterwards, but unwilling to stiff the band the last dollar (blame venue beer prices for leaving my wallet out of phase), I doubled up and got a second, which is going to get lugged over unless the band needs their XL back and wants to swap out for a smaller size.  It was also around here that I also picked up Abazgorath's available recordings.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
Nachzehrer was up from last time back to five members, at least for most of this set, and it manifested itself in a better and more familiar sound, at least once Eric had gotten his axe restrung after blowing a string midway through the second song, and once the band (as per Mark afterwards) had gotten used to the unusual experience of playing with actual working monitors and being able to hear themselves.  This was a good, strong, Nachzehrer set, still thrashy but unrepentantly black metal, and if they've done better in the past, it's a certain indicator that they will do better in the future -- in all likelihood, including that gig with Horna and Kommandant next month.

Nachzehrer spitting fire.

This incarnation, at least, of Nachzehrer as a five-piece properly belongs to history; Eric's moved across the country, and that's a bit of a commute for doing local shows.  We'll see if they go on with four, or if they decide to get another guitarist in on a permanent basis.

Morgirion [6/7]
It had been less long since the last time I saw Morgirion, but this was another strong step forward for another really good band.  They've ditched the keyboards (at least in this outing), but not the abrasive attitude, or the piss-and-vinegar intensity that characterized this set from start to finish.  This was an excellent set of balls-out black metal that stood out even on a night like this where there was a lot of that on offer, and on this evidence, it's more likely than not that Morgirion will follow Ipsissimus (who they were filling in for in this slot) out of the CT scene and into wider recognition.

Connor attempts to devour the mic.

Abazagorath [6/7]
Abzagorath took the sound back in a more Norse direction, generally, over the course of a long, quality set.  Some people apparently felt it was too long, and it likely did push the end of the show out further, but I didn't notice much, partly due to gooving on the music and partly due to already, thanks to the heat and the effort spent getting up too early and running around all over the place in the morning, being on the point of falling asleep standing up.  It was a slight down-step after Morgirion, but cool music nonetheless, and I wasn't going to begrudge them the time spent playing it.

Nit-pickers will notice that the four arbitrary numbers pasted next to the band names above have all been identical.  This does not and should not suggest identical performances, just the truth that what all of these bands provided was within the same generally-wicked-good range.  Those who were there will have enough information to impose a total order on what they saw, and those who didn't, well, what the hell was your problem, this didn't finish selling out till like two weeks before.  (Those not in the Boston area are exempt from this requirement, but their interest in a total ordering of subjective reactions to this or any other performance is in itself suspect.  Read the words, check the bands out on Youtube, and decide for yourself if said words are a load of baloney.)

Inquisition [6.5/7]
This set didn't quite get up to the full mark, but it is likely as close as a relatively conventional band like Inquisition is ever going to get as a two-piece.  Despite the hypnotic necro-folk nature of a lot of Inquisition's stuff and previous exhausion issues, I didn't fall asleep here either, and got the full measure of an excellent performance.  Inquisition can carry off their stuff live as a duo, while Darkthrone apparently can't, and the music only benefits, in the live setting, from less-froggy vocals and the opportunity for mass crowd participation.  Maybe it's not kvlt to pound your fist to black metal, but if you're concerned about that, you don't write with such lyric folk rhythms, and you definitely don't make the chorus to "Empire of Lucferian Race" something that some idiot who's never listened to your band before can sing along to after looking at a poster literally once.  Fun times, and despite the no-mosh regs and the Cambridge PD showing up to enforce them, nobody got arrested, despite some declarations of intent.  Not quite Sigh for capping off a show here, but definitely comparable to Watain.

Rather than hanging around in the vain hope of an encore, I decided to split, aided in this decision by the fact that I was on the point of passing out from exhausion.  Somehow, I got out and drove back without falling asleep behind the wheel or bouncing the car off anything for any other reasons, and slept the sleep of the dead well into the second half of the last OF ever (hopefully).  More lessons for the summer; this was a long and strenuous day, but it was done in long pants and a longsleeve under my full-weight jacket, and two out of those three parameters are going to be otherwise in Schlotheim....and in Dinkelsbuehl festival composition means I'll probably not have to stay up for the last headliners.  Coming next: Metal Thursday, in which Graveheart releases an album OMGWTFBBQ -- and ahead of schedule.

Witch Tomb with Herugrim and Die On The Steps [O'Brien's, Allston, 6/13/2008]

This show took a long and torturous route to get where it is from wherever it started, and if I recall correctly, wasn't even initially on this date, but at every step of its evolution, it was a solid bill and a sure promise of a good time, and this it definitely turned out to be.

The last lineup change was Blessed Offal dropping off, and not getting replaced, and while this was kind of a downer in that I didn't get to see them, I was able to get moving a little later and still make it down to the venue in plenty of time. There were already a few people on hand, but this show was one that filled up gradually as it went on, rather than starting off packed and dropping down as in a couple other gigs I've seen here. The bands set up (two at the same time, since Die On The Steps is kind of modular gear-wise), I drank some beer and watched some baseball and wrestling, and eventually dropped a fair bit of change on obscure music, and presently the show got underway.

Die On The Steps [5/7]
This one-man project was a late add to the bill, with even the band unsure of how exactly it'd translate live. Fortunately, the answer to that was "really well"; a guy singing over a four-track playback of mostly synth instruments is not automatically the most successful opener to a black metal show, but Die On The Steps pulled it off well. There was a fair bit of post-punk/darkwave to be heard as well as the black metal and oi elements, with the ultimate product being an interesting fusion the likes of which you really have to see at a show like this to get at all. The world needs more bands like this, though maybe playing fewer Skrewdriver covers, even if "this isn't a political project, it's a personal one". Of course, who the hell am I to talk -- I not only knew all the lyrics to "Hail The New Dawn", but sang along nearly all the way through, me and the giant Metalheads Against Racism patch on the shoulder of my featherweight kutte.

Herugrim [6/7]
The good stuff continued with Herugrim's first Mass show, and about their second or third overall, which may have set a new high-water mark for the overall quality and awesomeness of a two-song set. Rising from the ashes of several prior black metal bands and drawing inspiration from the rawly epic early works of Borknagar and Enslaved, they poured about half an hour into two songs and made it abundantly clear that this particular style isn't an exclusive preserve of European bands. Though this performance was really good, it wasn't perhaps quite their optimum setting; think about it: Cold Northern Vengeance, Herugrim, and Aura of Aquila, maybe Wolven Ancestry and/or Ancient//Master in the picture as well, up in an adirondack on some mountain in New Hampshire, big pagan bonfire a ways back, a gas generator for the PA set back in the woods to keep the noise from cutting through, towards the end of October as the frost comes in. It could happen -- probably won't, but still could.

Witch Tomb [6.5/7]
This was one of the better outings I've seen from Witch Tomb, and given how good they've been in the past, this is definitely saying something. Their black/death chaos was dead-on and graveling, the samples that they had been working in previously now seamlessly integrated with the sound. Herugrim left them a high standard to match, but they did manage to overtop it, and if the set seemed a little short at the end, it was probably either just club rules or that the audience just didn't notice the time passing for the music. I still haven't run across their split with Martyrvore, but that's no excuse for those who don't have it yet not to run down Mocking Jehovah from the band or other fine distributors of underground music.

The festivities concluded, I stumped off on the two miles back to Cambridge and the car park. Maybe I should bite the bullet and learn to park closer, but the exercise is a nice bonus, and the 40 minutes or so gives me a little leeway in when I need to safely stop drinking; otherwise, I'd just have to hang around at the pub after the show to dry out before heading home, and past experience shows that I generally stop drinking at a bar only when I leave said bar, and breaking this habit when buzzed and hanging around with a bunch of metalheads who may only have to walk home doesn't look to be an especially successful endeavor.


Next show's tonight, a fundraising gig for Autumn Above before they do their first East Coast tour, and after that, probably Metal Thursday next week. If you know me IRL, catch me at one of these gigs, I'm trying to move my brother's Iron Maiden ticket since he isn't going next Friday. More WOE TO YOU O EARTH AND SEA for the rest of us!