Fires of Old with Katahdin, Mythology, and Crypter [Ralph's, Worcester, 1/5/2012]

I got moving out about normal, with a minor delay to gawk at the Bruins kicking the crap out of Calgary in Barca-vs-pub-teams-in-the-cup fashion; it was 5-0 when I left the sub shop at the start of the second period, and 9-0 by the time I got out to Ralph's. The run this team was on, frustrating losses to Vancouver aside, has been just mindblowing.

Beer in, it wasn't too long before the bands started up.

Crypter [4.5/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, though they've been playing out a lot recently, and was concerned that they might be just another thrash-revival band. This fortunately was not the case: Crypter does have a strong revivalist streak, but the world could use more young bands who are thoroughly convinced that Scream Bloody Gore is the best record in the history of ever. The ideas are on the right track, even if the writing and arrangements aren't fully matured yet, and the turn-of-the-century Immortal tone that cut through on their more developed leads made for a nice contrast with the faster and rawer parts. On the evidence of this set, Crypter doesn't quite have it all together yet, but they are frustratingly close, and are going to be damn good when they get themselves shaken out.

There was a bit of longer downtime here while Mythology set up their gear and figured out how to hang their banner off the hardpoints on the Erol Otus-inspired monster backdrop that's become a Metal Thursday regular of late, and I scored some beef jerky and a can of expired, non-reliably nonpoisonous energy drink off Yosh, as did several other people. The beef jerky part, at least; Yosh's jerky is pure class, and most people are too smart to take the free cans of Cocaine.

Mythology [5.5/7]
I'd missed seeing Mythology a couple times here, and was glad to finally be able to not miss a show they were on for stupid reasons. Despite a bit of ring rust, they set out a killer set of Norwegian-inspired black metal with a few Germanic touches, done at a level that wouldn't be greatly out of place from the actual Norwegian second tier (see Keep of Kalessin, Den Saakaldte, etc). The band's currently gearing up to be more active again, which is a good sign not just for more people seeing Mythology, but for how they see them: the slack parts in the set were about 70% down to the band resynching with each other rather than inherent to the music. Good signs.

This is wicked late, but part of the delay is kind of on this band; it took some disciplined recall to work out what their set really was after a solid week of spinning their Impaler record. Why? Look, go listen to "Rebuilding Poenari" and tell me you wouldn't have this stuck in your stereo a week straight.

The whole disc is not quite this good, but it's a lot better than skeptics would expect of a concept album about Dracula by an unsigned black metal band. Definite support.

Katahdin [6/7]
More than the openers who I hadn't heard yet, I'd come out for the last two, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Pure slashing fire, third wave without a hint of hipsterism, and as good a set as I've seen from them so far. They had some major technical difficulties with Kyle blowing a cable or something, but Eric was able to hold down the melodic fort alone, and the set barely took a dip. Straight killer.

In here I did merch, picking up Mythology's Tepes and Impaler records despite the duplication (the first is the demo version of the latter), and not only the new split but also Katahdin's first LP. All of this is highly approved; The Black Hours is about the most diverse BM split you'll hear, and a solid package in the tradition of Black Death.



















Fires of Old's mic stand is now almost completely unhandleable, a jagged upright pile of spikes and barbed wire.

Fires of Old [6.5/7]
Maybe it was the slot allowing more time and thus more old stuff, but this set was a lot rawer than I've seen from these guys lately; the ripping Satyriconesque stuff "of old", though still allowing room for the more expansive Primordialisms of "V" and "Majestic Death". Both sides complemented each other, and the result was another completely killer outing that no amount of wannabe critical detachment could keep off that mark. Still excellent, and the sooner they get some recordings done/available again the better.

From there it was back home, with subsequent shows missed to work, on-call, and work drinking; this is done at last, and next was supposed to be Untombed before the football stress and beer consumption made driving in a nonstarter; fortunately, there's no game next weekend and no shortage of tasty shows coming.

(Kallathon) with Nachzehrer, Deathamphetamine, Axeman, Katahdin, and Ramlord [PT-109, **REDACTED**, 10/1/2011]

Earlier in the day, I'd been hiking around Boston, picking up some stuff from Armageddon and having some interrelated adventures that would have both positive and negative results. The negative was that due to insufficiently hardcore socks or insufficiently repaired boots, I ended up with a two-euro-sized blister on my heel that was on the verge of turning into a two-euro-sized hole in my foot. The positive was that, stopping to fix that on the steps outside the Museum of Science, I ran into two Brits as I was getting up who commented on my Tankard hoodie. This led to a brief exchange of information, not only about the record shop I was coming from, but the gig I was going to, and while Dave and Emma didn't end up coming out, it's always good, in a new city, to find out where the metal stuff is -- and Armageddon and PT-109 (the exact address I didn't provide and can't remember, having forgotten it as soon as I memorized the navigation) are pretty damn good as regards record stores and DIY venues, respectively.

Having gotten back home, I stupidly didn't dress the hole in my foot before heading in again; some of this was time constraints, but a lot of it was just the casual disregard for life and limb that I normally go with. I cached my car and stumped over, and despite the wounded-bird limp, got over well ahead of doors and had to hide out for a bit before eventually holding the door open for Ramlord and getting on inside. Bad timing is worse on DIY venues; most of the time, you're locked out, and then have to not be seen for a couple minutes to avoid pulling aggro.

Eventually, of course, I got in and hanging out, and should have paid for, well, something at this point, but Mike Nachzeher ended up comping me their cassette that was being released at this show and refused my fiver to get in. As with prior incidences, I tried not to let this color show impressions; $5 is not a lot to pay for a show of any kind, especially a good one, and the money I saved here ended up getting recycled towards the unexpected touring bands, so things kind of worked out in the end.

Ramlord [5/7]
I hadn't seen these guys before, but from their merch setup, they have some member overlap with Ultra//Negative, which kind of showed in the music. Looking much more like a crust/punk band than a black metal combo, they smashed out raw, mostly simplified black/crust in line with that punk ethos. This kind of apparent "crossover" would have been impossible a few years ago, but in modern days punks have also figured out what the historians of black metal noticed as soon as Norway started diversifying: black metal is punk rock with an escape hatch, where you can play raw, brutal, violent music, then develop that into more melodic or more rarefied avenues without losing the raw DIY audience that shows up to gigs like these. Ramlord took a couple of these turns, of course, bringing in touches of punk, hardcore, and third-wave in various places, but still of course to good effect. Ramlord is nothing resembling a standard black metal band, bridging several scenes with those elements, but whether you define them as more black metal or more punk, they're a pretty good one, regardless.

That this opinion was shared by the audience here was made obvious by the conditions of their merch stand later; by the time I hit them up, they were out of Ramlord music, so I ended up nabbing an Ultra//Negative tape and a couple Ramlord buttons. Maybe not quite patch-level -- and I'm running out of space regardless -- but still cool.

Katahdin [5.5/7]
Katahdin sounded notably better than previously in this space, even beyond me just being in the building for their whole set. They kept the raw sound of the room, but were either more in tune or more consonant than before, producing a better final effect. They're still short a bassist, but in only a technical sense: Katahdin works fine without a bass player, and I'm pretty sure that nobody actually missed that dimension here.

Axeman [6/7]
I was running low on beer on this point, and thus pretty well oiled, so I wasn't immediately sure which of the several possible Black Twilight Circle bands that had been discussed as late adds to this bill was actually playing. I recognized some of the dudes from Volahn way back, but that's hardly a definitive indicator given the rat's-nest member pool of this group of bands. As it eventually came out, this was Axeman making a rare live return, and the violent, hard-hitting black metal they provided meshed in well with the rest of the bill. There were some comments made about excessive space-rock-isms on some of these bands after the fact, but Axeman's guitar tone didn't sound that way at all: either it wasn't, or the long-suffering PT-109 PA system was hitting critical levels of abuse.

It was wicked packed at this point, and on after, so I wasn't able to go get what ended up being a Volahn tape and patch until much later (after Nachzehrer had stormdetonated like, the entire venue, but that's a story that's coming in a few grafs). Mostly for a lack of Axeman merchandise and a lack of familiarity with the totality of the BTC catalog rather than any special preference; I want to support the bands, I know I like Volahn, and when I eventually manage to corral a working tape player that won't destroy its inputs, I want to have a souvenir of this show that I'll determinatively dig listening to.

Deathamphetamine [5.5/7]
This was about the drunkest and most hardcore set I've seen out of Deathamphetamine, digging back to older material from before my acquaintance with the band as well as more modern stuff. Despite guest spots all over the set from Mr. Evan Williams, they stayed solid and on point for most of the set, including some other special guest appearances from Eric from Katahdin on bass to cover some Poison Idea, and Mike from Nachzehrer on Mel Gibson well, pretty much everywhere. DIY, motherfuckers. The crowd was starting to get earnestly violent as well, aided by more space, allegedly from "tourists" vacating since one BTC band didn't immediately follow the other.

Nachzehrer [5/7]
As befitting the nominal headliners of a release show at a DIY space, Nachzehrer set things off immediately, and to devastatingly chaotic effect; it could be argued that this was maybe too devastating and too chaotic, because Mike's movement, and later the crowd's reaction, generated a host of human and environmental casualties in its wake. This was still decent, despite the loss or effective loss of a couple members at several points, and cabs getting punched over and stuff; full credit to Alex, Paul, and Erik for pulling things through and keeping things locked down under some trying conditions. Nachzehrer have definitely played better than this, and may have preferred this set to go down differently than it did, but they still put up a decent representation of their sound to those people who may have come along for the touring bands despite the circumstances.

Despite the risk of getting branded a tourist, I had to bail at this point; I had to ferry my brother to a race in New Hampshire in five hours, and I was having a tough time standing up thanks to the hole in my foot. It hurt to miss Kallathon, but not as much as soldiering on with a huge undressed wound and crashing into a tree in the morning would have. I limped out, picked up my whip, and headed home for a brief nap before the alarms went off again. About the drama subsequent, I'm keeping mostly schtum as it's none of my goddamned business. What can be observed is not much more than this: there are a multitude of ways to do DIY music. The bands that are successful, either at the DIY level or in breaking out of it, tend to sooner or later get everyone on the same page as regards how the band's going to approach DIY. Those that don't tend to end up on the casualty lists. We'll see which way this Wendepunkt weht.

Next up, Metal Thursday -- and enough training at work tomorrow that I really ought to be able to get that out on schedule. There's still technically a hole in my foot, and I've still got the same boots on, but fucking duct tape, how does it work.

Ash Borer with Ruin Lust, Blessed Offal, Nachzehrer, and Katahdin [PT-109, **REDACTED**, 7/17/2011]

--
This show report has been edited by the Punk Rock Ministry of Information in order to eliminate the potential distribution of sensitive state secrets to agents of unfriendly foreign powers. As noted at the actual show, an impression pretty readily confirmed, PT-109 is probably the best DIY space in Boston, and if you like going to shows here, keep the address schtum. Loose lips sink ships, khed.
--

Anyway, so I was a little late between gorging on clam strips and threatening a friend with building a bar in his shed (long, and also stupid, story) and then traffic on 93, despite the late hour on a Sunday. Fortunately, there weren't any exits closed -- in what must be a first for Boston highway repair, they somehow finished the bridge before the end of the day, leaving clean sailing past about route 28. This was clean sailing, though, through a sirocco of concrete dust still blowing around on the road, which you don't really get in this part of the country. Not exactly kvlt, but verfremdend enough to go along with getting you out of the normal and into the alternate space of the DIY show.

Off the highway, I navigated through the streets to **REDACTED** in **REDACTED**, where I drove around in circles for a while looking for somewhere I wouldn't get towed from, then stumped around the neighborhood, knocking twice on the wrong door. Fortunately, I figured out the actual location before I blew the game, and followed the signs **REDACTED** in to the show, **REDACTED**, and got set up by the trash can left around for **REDACTED**. Amazingly, despite all this bullcrap, Katahdin still wasn't finished.

Katahdin [5/7]
I'm pretty sure that I caught only the tail end of this one, the last couple songs, but I'm also fairly confident that I got enough of the band to paste on an arbitrary number. Something just seemed off about the sound, at least from where I was standing -- it may be the room, but the music didn't completely build up to the standard that I remembered from the the last time. This was still a good set, as much as I heard, but just sat differently.

Nachzehrer [6.5/7]
This sort of dirty black metal is pretty much custom-built for closed-in rooms like this one, and by some trick of fate Nachzehrer were still non-drunk enough at this point to fill out the promise of the material and setting. As alluded, the sound for them was pretty near perfect, and they gave us a nice, long, solid set of blackthrashing. There may not have been as much crowdthrashing as the band might have liked, but with a black metal audience in a cramped space like this, you pretty much take what you can get.

Blessed Offal [6/7]
As noted previously, this was a good weekend for really good death metal sets, and between one thing and another, this was probably the best total performance that I've seen from Blessed Offal. They had some technical issues -- among other things, a bottle of tequila somehow got wedged in the band, which probably had the most significant effect -- but still hammered out a pure quality performance of old-school death metal beatings, including likely the most crowd- and other-band-participation of the evening. This, again, was likely the room; both the close quarters and the atmosphere, which got Scott doing more hardcore-styled tricks than I've seen him do when playing in commercial venues. Great stuff.

Later on, Marcus gave me a single copy of their current record to take over, under instructions to give it to "the dude who likes old Incantation the most", who will probably be found at the bar at Party.San during Morbid Angel's set, cussing about "Hardcore Radikult" in Franconian dialect. I didn't make that particular musical association live -- because I suck at listening to old records -- but in retrospect, the mix of brutal speed and even more brutal slows makes the connection obvious....and if you like old Incantation, you could do a lot worse than hunting up Blessed Offal material.

Ruin Lust [5.5/7]
As advertised, Ruin Lust put out a punishing performance of primitive, raw death metal heavily colored with black metal blastbeats. "Primitive", though, does not always imply "tuneful", and despite my known admiration for Thrones and Lugubrum, this set was occasionally trying to listen to. It was still pretty good, within the limitations imposed by the style, though, and they both had a decent amount of diversity in the straight-ahead deathblasts and closed up before it started to get old. I'm not sure I'd go see them headline yet, but a tight 20-minute set in a DIY space is well worth the time.

Ash Borer [6/7]
This wasn't a one-song set -- I timed it out as about 40 minutes, and I'm pretty sure the band doesn't have anything quite that long -- but it came close. The compositions involved were as long, as involved, and as ferally noise-saturated as you might expect from the band going in, even if, listening to the music, they might have benefited from a little clearer sound. Though third-wave black metal inherits from the lo-fi start of the second wave, and the stuff that I've heard from Ash Borer on record is fairly lo-fi even among third-wave, it's a more precisely mediated lo-fi that would probably be better brought forward in like an O'Brien's setting rather than this kind of room. Regardless, though, this was a strong, class set that definitely stood in with the locals and justified the headlining slot.

With everything wrapped up, I picked up a demo from Ruin Lust and Ash Borer's split with Fell Voices to go with the shirt I'd grabbed earlier, then headed out. My car hadn't been towed, so I slung my gear in, swung a uey, and extracted over **REDACTED** out to **REDACTED**, getting back home not much past 2. Weekend complete; now that work for the week's been mostly tanked through, it's out to Metal Thursday, and then gear checks and other prep for the tour.

Oneiric Realm with Katahdin, Vaitarna, and Sarcomancy [Champions', Everett, 7/10/2010]

Hideously late, but here goes, as I clean up two weeks' worth of shows so that it won't be past all hope by the time I get back from Europe.


I came in by a different route for this time than I did last time due to the Saturday slot (so I wasn't coming from work, just from putting my Germany shirt away after the victory), which resulted in getting lost and taking some minor detours around the back streets of Revere and Everett in order to get back on line and over to the venue. Nevertheless, I made it in good time and was able to stand outside for a bit, and also get some beers drunk before the bands started.

Sarcomancy [5/7]
A new band featuring several scene stalwarts, this was their first show, and while they didn't have a lot of material prepared, it was good stuff all the way through. The sound was very heavily and obviously Immortal-influenced, but there was more than a little early Enslaved in there as well. Four songs isn't a whole lot to judge any band on, but they executed well, and with this kind of lineup, they've definitely got the potential to build on the stuff they presented here and develop it further. One to watch out for, provided that the members' other-band commitments don't ride roughshod over this project.

The blessing and curse of this show was that, to avoid policing requirements, the organizers had to move a table to block the bar off from the stage area. This meant that you could not get a beer and then just go in to watch the band, glass in hand (the Everett PD would have wanted a detail officer in the bar in that case, the expense of which was the reason for the table jammed into the doorway), but it did induce people to go outside as much as possible, getting the audience fresh air and venting out the venue every so often, keeping it from getting too hot inside. A decent tradeoff, but it would've worked better if in this country like most others, it was not a problem to take a beer out onto the sidewalk. Plastic cups + trashcan (+ organizers giving aggro if people tossed their cups in the street) = sorted.

Vaitarna [5/7]
Up from Connecticut, these guys had a decent traveling support and some good, solid riffs, but the connections between the riffs, and the overall songwriting structure left a little to be desired. Without either vocals or the sense of structured repetition, this set felt at times like a mostly-black-metal extended jam session; musically good stuff, but still needing more in the way of song structure to bring everything together. This is kind of a problem in general with this sort of instrumental post-metal, really, and these guys definitely did have good chops, so the set, all in all, was still pretty decent and still a good time.

Katahdin [6/7]
Though for whatever reason they didn't bring their bassist up, Katahdin still put on a kickass set of solid black metal with pagan leanings reminiscent of the eastern-European sound (potentially due to the way the sound was balanced without the bass, but still). Unfortunately, they didn't have their new record with them, as it came out the following week; oh well, but if the quality of this performance and the quality of the response it earned is any indication, they'll be back in greater Boston soon enough, and this won't be an issue.

I did however, get a shirt, because I wanted to support the band and because the design (just the bandlogo) was pretty cool. Unfortunately, they didn't have change for my $20, so this turned into a shirt and a round for the band, and me being more skint than I expected faster. It's still a frickin nice shirt, though.

Oneiric Realm [6/7]
Capping off the night (since Anticosm, who would have played after them, pushing Sarcomancy off at the front, had to drop due to vehicle problems), these guys closed in style with a nice set of melodic black metal that still retained enough of an edge to keep it out of post-black territory. Though, really, the bands don't sound terribly much alike, and nobody actually has Wait Me At Dusk, a good point of comparison in what they're doing with the general black metal sound might be Solar Signs -- hopefully, they won't fall off the map like those guys did, as this is music that deserves a wider hearing. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything recorded available, so that dimension is going to have to wait for a bit.

Things having concluded, I headed home; the next day, between a friend's housewarming, the World Cup final, and another cool show, was going to be pretty eventful.