Absu with Hæthen, Bog of the Infidel, Nachzehrer, and Hræsvelgr [Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, 4/9/2013]

As noted, I missed out on Living Colour on Friday (and got stuck at work till like 9 on a production ticket anyways, so not much loss), but I clubbed the recalcitrant client I was working with into submission, got stuff organized, and managed to get in to Central just about actual doors.  There was probably a little too much standing-around time, but estimating traffic loads on a midweek relatively-early date in Boston is kind of a crapshoot, and boredom and awkwardness is kind of the price I pay for knowing I'm not going to miss bands.  I got an early start on drinking that would be valuable later, browsed around the Bog/Nachzehrer table after it got set up, and found some decent real estate to watch the first band from as they started, remarkably, about on time.

Hræsvelgr [4.5/7]
A better 'grade' on this set might be "incomplete"; New England is a competitive area for black metal bands and metal bands generally, and these guys probably showed something, in the process of getting booked, that was noteworthy beyond the broad-strokes Inquisition-cloning on display in this set.  Still, though, that no-vocals, drone-heavy Inquisition cloning is what we got, and while the material did improve over the course of the set, it was not strong enough, on the whole, to carry the full runtime with just drums and one guitar.  There are some good ideas here, but Hræsvelgr are going to need better material, better equipment (to break up the drone via some more variety in guitar tone), or just a better ratio of members to empty stagefront in order to improve them and carry them off.  There was some discussion later that they'd been down a member, which hurts any band but especially one that drops from a three-piece to a duo; hopefully, the next time out, they'll be up to their full complement and be able to present their music as intended.

It was probably in this break that I started in on merch and stuff; I did take a couple pictures, but unwilling to throw elbows to get down front -- most of these bands, I have seen and will see in smaller venues where this isn't a problem, and I already did the "see Absu from contact range" thing -- in a large dark room, none of them came out, which is hardly surprising.  No loss; the blurry, too-small pictures included with these writeups generally come out even less essential or useful than the ill-informed and occasionally flat-wrong words that accompany them.

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
After a while as a four-piece, Nachzehrer are back up to their full historical complement, for a pretty good result, despite the fact that they appear to still be bedding Morgan in at this point.  His style's different from their prior guitarists, so some shakedown's expected, but this has the potential to go in a really cool direction.  This set ran out a good bunch of recent music in a relatively straight-down fashion; some of that's the member change, and some is probably due to the fact that the Nachzehrer guys booked this show under their prod-company avatar, and thus had to avoid getting rofltanked in order to make sure things kept running smoothly.  Regardless, sober(ish) Nachzehrer still has access to the same ripping black-thrash as the more lubricated version, and if this set wasn't as splashy as normal, it was probably a little more locked-in.  Good stuff, and it's going to be really interesting to see how this lineup writes and records going further.

In here I flooded my hat in the bathroom sink for the first time.  I was conscious of the last time I saw black metal bands in here, and while there is no danger of falling asleep to Absu, overheating is definitely a thing.  I should have swapped rigs, since there's nothing to train for this year, but everything's obvious in hindsight.

Bog of the Infidel [5.5/7]
This was also a more straight-ahead performance from Bog than I've seen in the past, and one that resonated with a lot more of the second-wave-German stuff that they have in their arsenal, at least as opposed to what I can recall hearing from them recently.  With both locals that I'd seen before having what felt like a slightly-off night, I started to suspect either the soundboard not dialing each band in exactly (locals for the most part get to take what they're given here), or just me being worn down from the heat.  Regardless, even Bog with an engine governor is good Bog, and good black metal, and as the set went on, more of their better leads cut through, for an impressive end burying "The Corpse of God".

It was probably in this break that I did my main merch, which turned out to be Bog's surprisingly-excellent Live At AS220 -- that Bog of the Infidel is good should surprise no one at this point, but this is a really, really, good live recording, in terms of both consistency and fidelity, made by a black metal band in a DIY club -- a few hemmed, woven Nachzehrer patches (now, to figure out where to put them...), the current Absu tour shirt, and issue #1 of Codex Obscurum, which you should buy at your local DIY show if you're in eastern New England, or at your better-record-store-Andrew-knows-people-at elsewhere.  The staff include most of the smartest-funniest people in eastern-Massachusetts DIY metal, who you've probably heard on record with Panzerbastard/CNV, Composted/TYAG, Dysentery/Parasitic Extirpation, Herugrim, Sexcrement/Neuraxis and a bunch of other bands, and who between them are responsible for almost everything insightful or lulzworthy that has ever been posted on RTTP.  It is definitely worth at least the $2 cover price, and since actual paper zines are both cool and a lot of work, this endeavor deserves support.

Hæthen [5/7]
Hæthen, up from Philadelphia, had the benefit of a slightly better and sharper sound than the bands that preceded them, but seemed to take a step back material-wise.  This was still a good set, but not entirely memorable, especially not leading immediately in to Absu.  They had a little more third-wave in their sound than any of the other openers, which isn't in itself a bad thing, but droning third-wave, as opposed to blastbeating second-wave, needs a lot more support from composition to get to the same levels of immediate audience engagement.  These guys do tour into the northeast fairly often -- I missed them recently with Negura Bunget in Worcester -- so it's quite likely that I'll get another look at their sound sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, this sample is all I have to go on for the time being.  After putting another bunch of water in my hat, I picked up their current release on cassette and CD, reasoning that I could keep the cassette for neatness and collector value and actually listen to the CD, since I don't have a tape player at present that I trust not to destroy stuff.  This didn't work out; the CD has readability issues which also make it a nice piece of artwork rather than a useful music vector, and I get to go scrounge around the internet to see if someone else has managed to get it to work long enough to rip and package the contents.  Is what it is; this isn't the first DIY release I've had problems getting to scan correctly.

Absu [6.5/7]
While this didn't hit all the highlights of that set at Party.San -- your average club show is better than your average festival, but slam-bang on the rail beats the hell out of nearly everything indoors -- it was longer, it covered more material, and in the end supplied a packed house with a full portion of damn good Absu songs.  The band was locked-in and on-target despite a slightly later arrival to the venue and a limited soundcheck, and the well-tuned sound stacked well with the vicious thrashing aggression of the music to latch onto the audience and keep them held through nearly all of the 68-minute (as announced by Proscriptor, who was in rare form for insane banter and awe-inspiring random screams between songs).  Being satisfied with "Never Blow Out The Eastern Candle", I kind of have a low bar for seeing Absu live these days, but those who need more convincing got theirs on "Stone of Destiny", which saw Proscriptor come out from behind the kit to do lead vocals in a fluffy buff coat, in addition to more damaged-amp-feedback-inspired screaming.  At the end, the lights stayed down, and folk stayed in the room for the potential of an encore, but that was ultimately not forthcoming, the hour being late and Cambridge curfews being what they are.  After 68 minutes of Absu, though, you don't really need an encore, no matter how much you want the onslaught to continue.

After the lights came on, I peeled, collected my ride, and headed north; this one took a little longer to organize due to some work commitments, but hopefully those won't hold back the writeup of tonight's speed/thrash timecapsule.  Will Seax be in spandex?  Will Hessian have more merch with cooter on it?  Only time can tell.

Horna with Kommandant, Bog of the Infidel, Nachzehrer, and Sarcomancy [Great Scott, Allston, 6/5/2012]

Great Scott has been far from a favorite -- or even frequent -- venue of mine in the past six years, mostly due to being, well, far from places where you can park without a permit.  For this one, I had to get down, and so on the weekend I scouted out the area while breaking in my new boots, talking the FNG at work through his first on-call shift, and postponing the usual round of football, Irish brekkie, and liver damage.  It came ultimately to nothing -- except to the notion that it is not really all that much further (about a quarter-mile each way) than O'Brien's, which I hike to all the goddamned time.  It was accordingly time to buck up and use my damn feets for a change, and despite starting out late and getting jammed up in traffic, I made the two miles or so in 40 minutes and change, and STILL managed to roll up before doors.  No problems.

"Doors", of course, turned out to be a nebulous concept, further gummed up by the venue's split-out of ID check and entry fee into two stations, which backed up the line a little bit.  There was not a whole ton of time to spare, but I managed to get both a pint and four records' worth of touring support into my rig before Sarcomancy started up.

Sarcomancy [5/7]
It had been a while since I'd seen Sarcomancy, but despite the lineup change, the band has continued on in the same vein as previously; an Immortal emulator with, on this particular outing, unfortunately mortal guitar equipment.  They got three songs, which were pretty well-delivered as long as the guitar signal wasn't dropping out, which did substantial damage to what should have been a cool closer.  The current iteration of Sarcomancy should continue to follow on and develop in the same vein as before -- provided they can work out any ground faults in their cable supply.

The venue was really filling in here, and I went forward kind of out of necessity -- but not so far forward as to stand in front of the little dude who was up front as well.  Any kind of deliberate favoritism would be patronizing, of course, but it takes a real dick to stand 6'3" and deliberately stand in front of someone who's barely clearing 3'6".

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
While they were able to bring Eric back for the last high-profile show they were on, such was not the case here, and so the audience got a good strong sample of Nachzehrer working over what looks to be a full-time transition to only one guitar.  This was kind of a new sound, but one that's still consonant with their recordings, and the quality Great Scott PA and mix allowed all three 'outfield' musicians to pick up more of the weight in carrying the songs forward.  The older stuff lacks a little without the second guitar, but the newer stuff sounds just as good in this alignment, and as the band continues on, more good stuff can surely be expected.

Nachzehrer blasting away, with Alex not looking so much like he's dying up there as usual.

On the night, I also picked up a short stack of Nachzehrer promos to export, which the MBTA Plod did not take off Mike when he got detained.  The RFM is out and about, just watch out where you pull your bulletbelts out of your gear when you're out and about.

Bog of the Infidel [6/7]
I'd also not seen Bog in a while, but they made up for time with a classic set of full-featured, fully-developed second-wave black metal that at this point has thoroughly separated itself from its Norwegian antecedents.  The excellent venue sound only helped in this regard, but the quality of the music is such, at this point, that this set would probably have gotten the same great audience response if it had been played in the dingiest basement, or with the Palladium's most wrong-headed knob twists.  Vattnet and certain trend-streams notwithstanding, it's difficult to see how Bog isn't the next black metal band from eastern New England to make it out to the next level -- and if they aren't, they damn well ought to be.

Bog of the Infidel prepare to unleash satanisms.

It was a while waiting for Kommandant to set up/get strapped into their gas masks, etc, and if I recall correctly I filled in the time happening to discuss the festival climate overseas and do a bit of Party.San boosterism.  The RFM remains out there, and the trip inches closer to planned -- despite the extra expense of having to fly out of goddamned Frankfurt, it's probably less expensive than having to plod all the way back to Berlin from rural Bavaria.  We'll see.

Kommandant [5.5/7]
I hadn't heard Kommandant before, and wasn't sure what to expect, especially after the band came out in costumes reminiscent of Impaled at an early-'90s industrial/fetish rave.  What they brought was a confounding collision between high-level concept gimmickry and stripped-down, ceaselessly-blasting black metal violence.  Relative to their recorded stuff, at least as far as I picked up here, this set came off as less developed and more monotonically violent, but that didn't resolve the visual/musical inconsistency, and the costumes mostly just left the impression that the band badly wants to get on the Bundesverfassungsschutzamt's index unjustly, but without taking the risk of writing anything faintly political.  Their use of forward auxillary percussion was pretty cool, though, even though on a personal level, if you're going to bring out additional drummers on just snares or toms, especially in a band that's putting this much emphasis on visual production, you need to have them in marching harnesses and give the guys playing them something to swing around.  All in all, a cool set, but not one that really required or justified a lot of the visual stuff that went into it.

Kommandant, fully equipped with gasmasks, front-stage percussion, and decent lighting.

Horna [6/7]
Finally, Horna stepped up in front of the packed house, and delivered a relentless and top-class performance.  I was wedged in at the back to a certain degree, so for me there was no obvious piss involved -- just raw, classically Finnish black metal full of tart folkic melodies and steaming, acrid violence.  (Er, ok.  Not exactly sure where that was going.)  Reminiscent of Finntroll circal 1998, before the humppaa gimmick started to overwhelm their sound, this was true, violent, uncompromising black art, worth the wait between tours and the nebulous NSBM vapors that swirled around this gig in advance of it (but never, fortunately, actively condensed).  It was over all too quickly, though; not on any shortage of music, but just the perception that Horna had stopped playing at some point after they started was problematic enough.  Killer from first to last.

Horna, daubed up in sepulchral paint of uncertain composition.

At the end there was a bit of a punch-up, and then there was a 15-minute wait to use the head (Horna didn't have a green room, so they used the men's room to change, which naturally leads to them pissing themselves on stage.  IT'S IN THE FISHBOWL, BERT!), but one way or another I got out, did the nearly hour-long hike back, and managed to get in to work on Wednesday without dying on either commute.  Density of shows, though, mean this is super late...and the two writeups following it, only marginally less so.

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.

Abigail Williams with Nachzehrer, Dysentery, and Mythology [Ralph's, Worcester, 1/31/2012]

Not being a Thursday, I didn't have as much cleanup to do at work and as a consequence got bored faster and started out earlier. I accordingly got out earlier, chawed the fat with various dudes from the Boston-area openers, drank an extra beer, and in all ways killed more time than absolutely necessary while the bands got set up to go on. Soon enough, though, Mythology was ready, and things got rolling.

Mythology [5.5/7]
The intervening weeks have done the band good; Mythology came out faster, tighter, harder, and better than last time; there were a few desynchs and a couple places where the sound might have used another guitar to keep the rhythm churning, but this was a step up from last time and definitely within the margin of error as regards replicating the power that they present on record. In the first slot, they didn't have the time for as long a set, but kept it vital, with a new song or two in the mix with the stuff from The Impaler, and matching up pretty well. Chris/Gallows expressed the hope that the next time they came back, they'd have a new record out; hopefully, this is more from "we've got it mostly written and will be recording in the immediate future" and less from "we've played here twice in the last 30 days, Chris is gonna put us on OFF THE LIST for like two years". There is, as often noted, kind of an oversupply of good metal bands in this part of the country, and the MT orgas do try to rotate through them as consistently as they can, but there are a lot of Metal Thursdays and MT-branded shows in the calendar, and it's not impossible that Mythology might be back before the leaves fall, especially if they can get a new record done and out by the end of the summer.

In the break, I picked up two records from Abigail Williams, because I wanted to support the touring band, was not down for vinyl, and without listening to their current iteration was not going to endorse them by adding to my shirt pile. At least one of these records was a critical mistake. I haven't listened to the other one yet. More on this further down.

Dysentery [7/7]
Whether despite or because of the fact that they were singularly ill-matched to the rest of the bill (Drew noted beforehand that "this is the grimmest show we've played on in, like, ever"), Dysentery came out with all guns blazing and smashed up the crowd with an explosive, near perfectly-pitched set of tooth-shattering slam-death. Yes, this was completely the wrong audience, and yes, the pit action was so pitiful that Will didn't even bother hectoring the crowd to move around more, but the actual musical performance delivered was complete top class. Via almost perfect lock-in between the band members and skullcrushing levels of absolute volume, Dysentery imposed their will on the audience and left people if not rapt in awe, at least too stunned to resist. The skill and professionalism levels in this band are at just ridiculous levels for a band that still has not quite gotten out of the regional DM underground; expect sets this killer when you see them, expect pit violence on a completely different level, and expect that Internal Devastation and more touring with more performances this good will get Dysentery more national sooner rather than later.

I did get shirts from Dysentery and Nachzehrer, via the perpetually attractive combo of 1) band is killer and 2) design kicks ass. I have far too many shirts and need to purge them in the intermediate future, but as long as good bands keep putting together cool designs, I keep getting stuck buying more of them.

Nachzehrer [6.5/7]
Nachzehrer's sound is really and immediately different when cut down to a four-piece, and there were parts in this set where the absence of Erik's guitar was really, really felt. That being said, though, the material that they brought out was so strong that even with the reduced instrumentation, the quality eventually cut through. The 4/5ths of the band present executed damn well, and covered their misses equally well, allowing the writing and composition to do the talking. "...on the shores of Sheol" may not have made it onto the split with Ipsissimus, but if it's a representative sample of that recording session, that only speaks better for the material that is going in, which will hopefully get these thrashing black satanisms into more ears. Class set even under-strength, and the prospect of performances this good with the band's full complement is something to be looked forward to for metalheads along the Yankee part of the 95 corridor.

Before going on to hear about Abigail Williams, it may be worth checking in with my assessment of the band from five years ago, almost to the weekend.

Abigail Williams [6/7]
Score is not adjusted for apparel; if you want to, then THAT'S A FUCKING 50 DKP MINUS!!!, to mix nerd memes. In contrast to everything that had been bruited about previously in regards "symphonic" black metal, what we got was for the most part a Forest Stream cover band influenced heavily by Agalloch, WITTR, and Drudkh. The Cascadian bands don't tour often, and Drudkh and Forest Stream don't tour the US at all, so having this style come by is welcome, but everything Abigail Williams did in this set was so obviously a remanufacturing of that period of Russian black-doom as to make the performance less a set for appreciating and more for cutting apart to see which riffs came from Radigost and which were more like Painful Memories or Mental Home. People who don't happen to have been steeped in this particular subscene might have found this performance less of an academic exercise, but an extremely unscientific sampling of such individuals (sample space=people snarking in the show thread on RTTP post-facto) finds that these people tend not to like Forest Stream as much as I do, which makes it basically a wash.

As briefly alluded to above in a couple places, this performance bore no resemblance to how they were in '07, and also almost no resemblance to how they originally reinvented themselves on record. The following was stuck to the front of my copy of In The Shadow of A Thousand Suns:



















For the bad at reading blurry writing, that last sentence, which reads "For fans of Dimmu Borgir & Emperor.", is the only part of this sticker that is remotely true for the record it was pasted on, mostly because anyone willing to put up with a subpar remake of Covenant's Nexus Polaris album is probably into Emperor and Dimmu. More important than the lack of quality or any kind of interesting material is the fact that this midpoint shows that the band have now reinvented themselves twice (provided the sample from this gig sticks, and was not just a response to getting the fear relative to their ability to outdo Mythology and Nachzehrer). This is like Spinal Tap talking through their transition from skiffle group to Maiden-in-all-but-name, but at least their taste is improving. In '07, they were a subpar Sacrilege, and by dint of this record they were a second-rate Covenant sometime before the end of 2008....and now, at the turn of 2012, they make a passable synthetic Forest Stream substitute. I'm not holding out any great hope that In The Absence of Light will be good or even interesting to listen to (if nothing else, any surprise will be pleasant), but I'm at least glad I got it to get another data point in.


I managed to successfully avoid to crashing into anything in the pea-soup fog coming home, but it's up in the air as to whether I'll make it out to actual Metal Thursday tomorrow. I should, in the abstract, but concretely this is determined by a multivariate equation involving exhaustion, gas levels, and spare cash. We'll see what's next.

Impiety with Nachzehrer, Obsidian Tongue, and Blessed Offal [Ralph's, Worcester, 10/20/2011]

Despite getting stuck in a little late at work and the concern that this would end up packed, I got out in good order and over to Ralph's just about doors. There was a while till the bands started, but with a bill likely to draw this well, better safe than sorry.

Blessed Offal [5.5/7]
While this probably wasn't the best show I've seen from the band, it was probably the best-sounding. The Ralph's sound carried every instrument forward in good balance, really bringing out the blacker elements of their sound, which hasn't come forward as much in the past but was really obvious here. It seemed like they were running out of steam a bit towards the end of the set, but this was a dropoff from 'great' to 'really good'. This band has really established themselves on the last year or so as now one of the legit top Boston death metal bands, and they're only going to keep improving.




Marcus' beat-to-fuck China in front of Impiety's banner captures the dirt-level don't-give-a-fuck-ness of the balance of the bill.

It was about here that I did most of my merch, deciding against the Impiety shirt (in favor of a patch and about the most expensive CD-EP I've ever run across) because it would kick too big a hole in what I had in my wallet. One day, I'm going to remember to get loaded up cashwise before going out to see bands from far away on infrequent tours, but that day was not this time out.

Obsidian Tongue [5.5/7]
This was probably the best set I've seen from this band, as they continue to overcome their limited numbers with creativity and cabinet buildout. There were still a few sticking points that show they don't have all the answers yet, but they were greatly outnumbered by long stretches of the sublime. OT aren't quite yet in the top rank of black metal bands locally -- mostly due to intense competition -- but if any two-piece outfit can get to that level, they will.




Obsidian Tongue jamming with the lights on. Ralph's doesn't always render blue inside.

Having spent less than all my goddamn money on Impiety, I was able to pick up Blessed Offal's CD (having honor, I didn't rip the one that I brought over this summer), and at least pay for an Absu ticket off Nachzehrer, which by the time this is getting written up, is already in the post. Result.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
A strong return to form for Nachzehrer, though for the pessimistic, Nachzehrer playing at all, with all the members they had at the start of the month, might alone have qualified for that. Their thrashing black metal set things up well for Impiety, but more importantly was a kickass outing in its own right, and on any other Metal Thursday would have capped off a good and varied night of the contending definitions of NEBM. They justified their relative place on the bill, as much as that ever means at the local level, but in fairness all the locals were pretty close to this level in setting the bar for our guests.




Nachzeher keeping on rolling.

At this point, I was out of money thanks to grabbing a Hollenthon record off Bill Zebub's distro that I wasn't sure even existed, but Bobby, settling an old debt unprompted, set up my last drink of the night, something heavily alcoholic in a tall glass that didn't end up screwing up the drive home. Double result.

Impiety [7/7]
Of course, you don't haul over from Singapore (or, ok, well now, Italy), even just Shyaithan alone, to play slapdick shows. The stand-in sidemen held up well, and the result was a kickass and undeniably true Impiety set that justified the late hour, the long haul, and the room packed brimfull of damn near everyone in blackish metal in New England. When bands that don't tour play out, you go, because when they do play, they destroy.




Impiety tuning up.



More setup.



Shyaithan faces the audience.


After "Blood Ritual Defamation" led into "Torment In Fire" and the deliciously unlistenable tones of Anton Maiden took over the PA, it was time to split, dead skint but rich in music and experience. That part where I had only three bucks in my pocket prevented me from getting out to GWAR on Friday, but even I don't have infinite resources, and after I discovered that I was confused about the openers (I blame the Impaled guys for lying about the band's origin, Creepsylvania != Bulgaria, so obviously Ghoul != Corpse, despite the marginally similar logo, or maybe this is something that only morons get confused about), the Thursday night show was definitely more of an attraction. After the nine billion Halloween shows this coming weekend, next real gig is probably next Thursday....and then like every night in the first week of November, there's a Palladium show. Hello Mayhem, Cynic, Exhumed, and Anthrax (headliners, in that order, Sun thru Tues and Friday), goodbye cash.

(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.

Nocturnal with Witchaven, Sarcomancy, and Nachzehrer [Ralph's, Worcester. 5/24/2011]

No latency on this one; I blasted straight out from work as a result of getting held over there till 8 on a customer call that was probably indistinguishable from the world's stupidest and most complicated ethnic joke ("So this Pole, a Taiwan Chinese, and an American white guy call in to help an Indian and a mainland Chinese install some French software on a German server at a client in Canada, and...."). With the natural lack of traffic at this hour, I got in in good order, and got a decent amount of beer down before the bands started up.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
Another day, another quality set from Nachzehrer. Despite the title of their demo, this set showed the band as they've actually become, thrashing black metal rather than the thrash that would go up later. It can be a pretty fine distinction, and prone to more than a little I-know-it-when-I-see-it-ism, but to the extent that it actually matters, there you go. The unimpeachable musical quality (and as a bonus, antics such as Mike stormdetonating at least one beer all over/through his Beard of Disease) of this set (again, heavily new material) was and should be the real point; if you hear this band and get your pants in a twist because they play thrashing black metal rather than blackened thrash like it says on the label, you're probably too true and ultra-kvlt to go to shows in the first place.

Here, I did merch part 1 and bought a shirt, CD, and tour EP (Das war missbewerbt! 180/200 auf Werbungskopie, und dann ist meins noch 130/200! ANKLAGE!!! ... (hatte ich trotzdem gekauft aber....)) off Avenger, in German, and as in the prior experiment with MDF-bound bands, he didn't appear to notice or react weird. Learn languages, avoid getting ripped off overseas, inject surreality to touring bands' shows in your area.

Sarcomancy [6/7]
Sarcomancy continues to get better and better; on this outing, someone else might have dinged them for going too far towards ATHOW + Mithotyn/early Borknagar/late Enslaved parts, as the set was fairly dominated, in feel and tone, by impressions of Immortal in that period. The reason I don't, though, is that anyone who doesn't think that record is one of the best black metal albums, if not metal albums, period, of its decade, needs a rock bounced off their skull. The musicians in Sarcomancy are too good and accomplished to continue to clone Immortal forever, but as a place to start as regards composition and musicianship, cloning classic Immortal this well is a hell of a place to start. We have a lot of raw black metal bands in New England of varying types, but not many that can put together these kinds of song structures, and fewer still that can do lyric composition and still keep it true.

Witchaven [6/7]
I hadn't heard Witchaven before, and must admit to being pleasantly surprised. As an old guy and one who was kind of ambivalent about Anthrax the first time around at that, the progress of the thrash revival, as it has gone, makes it unfortunately inevitable that a bunch of young guys from Cali are going to get looked askance at. Apologies, dudes; those who have come before you have poisoned the wells. Along with some straightforward if well-worked borrowings from the Black Circle (Mayhem especially), Witchaven laid out a set of solid thrash metal with readily apparent roots in Slayer and Dark Angel rather than the more usual suspects. Though we got a lot of material off their fairly politically-charged Terrorstorm record, Henry played these themes down somewhat on the mic in favor, mostly, of party-hearty banter to keep the floor riotous. Not that it was strictly necessary; Metal Thursday always responds well to thrashing music, and what we got from this band was not just a classic-styled thrash band doing something new with it via the genuine blackened parts, but doing it pretty damn well.

After Witchaven wrapped, I picked up some patches and a CD off Jorge and Erik via a sequence of events that is difficult to understand and far too stupid to be related here, the stupidity coming mostly on my end and the classic banter on theirs. Nevertheless, CD GET, so I get the excuse to talk further about Terrorstorm. This is a really "correct" CD, from someone whose main interest in thrash is the "culmination" period between 1986 and about 1992. In addition to the musical stuff discussed in the bit about the band's set above, there's the sharp, brutal lyrical focus on socipolitical issues and the 100% oldschool layout and liner notes content in the booklet. It looks and "smells" right, and there's enough substance to it that you can discard the thesis "well, the band just really likes that period of musical history too, so they designed the booklet that way to look like a Kreator insert from 1989, not because doing what they want to do has the end product of looking like a Kreator insert from 1989." That doesn't wash. Full marks for the old-kuttentraeger audience.

Nocturnal [7/7]
There are points to pick that maybe this set shouldn't go quite this high, but it's better than a 6.5 and I try, admittedly without much success lately, to avoid split ratings. Also, everything they played after, about, "Merciless Murder" is difficult to put much below this mark, so grumpy persons can fuck off. Coming off as closer to Destruction than Desaster, as far as the Germanic black/thrash axis goes, Nocturnal laid waste to the room with a brutal onslaught of fast, screaming, DIY blackened thrash metal. The turbulence continued even after the dude who was falling about like Sergio Busquets on fainting-goat pills (or, in reality, half the bottle of whiskey he snuck in with him) got ejected for mosh fail, through the end of the set, the preceded-with-minimal-bullshit encore, and the band's closing rendition of Manowar's "Kill With Power". (This marks the first time that I've seen a Manowar song done live by a band not from the North Shore; Koblenz isn't on the north shore of jack shit.) After this, the venue ops put the lights on, and it was sadly made clear that the band wasn't getting any more time; so it goes, at least for those of us who weren't going down for MDF.

I picked up another Nocturnal single on the way out the door; either there was a communication breakdown or I for certain won't be harassing them in their campsite with a slab of Radeberger on my shoulder at this year's P.SOA. Wenn so, so gehts, wenn nicht, Saufwettkampf! I made it back in good time and in one pice, but unfortunately had to bag Born of Fire due to camping prep; next show is coming up quickly regardless, and the tour after that, almost as fast. Enjoy MDF, you lucky feckers, I'm off to drink in the woods.

Morne with Now Denial, Blood of the Gods, and Nachzehrer [Church, Boston, 5/14/2011]

Despite being technically on call, I made my way in for this, because 1) Morne; 2) nobody called during the period of maximum danger; and 3) if I stayed in the house, I'd continue to subject myself to a risky and fattening food experiment that will be detailed in a future post. Regardless, T in, T over, and then some time killed sitting around on the sidewalk, as the club didn't open up the doors when they allegedly said they would.

Doors did come a little after 1, and, ensconcing myself somewhere that I wouldn't get in the way of the bands loading in, I tucked into a plate of BLT and fries and a couple Gansett porters. Dark beer, meat, bread, and veg, and the damp chill of midday as the bands get set up; like I'm getting started on Party.San a couple months early. This meal set is seriously recommended for other people at Church for day shows; no doubt the rest of the brunch menu is cooked to the same standards of quality, but this sandwich is also a bargain on volume at $7, and the beer's in a container that won't injure anyone if you end up accidentally bouncing it off the floor later.

Presently, the bands started up; Nachzehrer first due to some external commitments.

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
Built mostly out of new material (seriously, look up the new stuff on the band's various social-media and other sites, the new record is going to be killer), this was a solid set that was probably limited a little by the early hour and drummer fatigue -- between Nachzehrer and InTheShit, Alex had done, when this set wrapped, four sets of blastbeat-heavy material in 36 hours. Going forward, endurance and quick turnarounds are going to be important for the band, but that kind of workload's ridiculous and not to be anticipated. Exhaustion and opening slot aside, this was still a quality performance of black metal vitriol to go with the crust-death, doomcore, and sludge-death hateblasts on the remainder of the bill.

This was a day show, so there was Serie A on the TVs, AC Cagliari. In this break, the game started, and the Isolani got an excellent chance through, but the forward with the ball stopped with it rather than one-touching it at goal. That's how you place 11th, idiots: not shooting at AC Milan when they hand you a golden opportunity on a plate. This is a legitimate reason for swearing at the TV for five minutes straight, even in a game between two teams you don't care about, rather than another sad symptom of the unquenchable rage tap.

Blood of the Gods [5.5/7]
Another sharp but not transcendent set, this was a step up from the last time I saw the band, and a little more easily identifiable as crust from the increased prominence of punkier elements. This set, like Nachzehrer's (and, actually, all of the openers), felt a little short, but it was pretty class all the same; looking forward to seeing these guys again, but I'm not exactly 100% sure on when that's going to be.

BOTG wrapped after about 25-30 minutes, and the fitba was at 3-0 for the home side at about 36 minutes in. Genarro fucking Gattuso was on the scoresheet. This is what happens when you don't pull the fucking trigger against the big clubs.

Now Denial [5.5/7]
Continuing the punkward swing, these guys set out a decent set of doom-rock obviously more grounded in hardcore than the metal that provided the base for the other overlapping bands on the bill. Despite the tangential North Shore connection (the guy listed in the liner notes of their Fuck 12" as a member for "Immoral Support" is a friend of friends and, more importantly up here where parochialism is everything, from my town), I'm not sure that I'd go seeking this band out, based on the style they play, the bands they usually play with, and the general direction of my interests, but they did a good job here and put up some pretty class music.

Having heard Now Denial, I went and picked up the aforementioned record and did merch generally, getting a CD from Morne and a patch basically free from BOTG for buying some Appalachian Terror Unit and After The Bombs material off their distro.

Morne [6/7]
Morne, as anticipated, completely crushed. Dark floods of graveling sludge, death and and grind melted down into a suffocating paste of aural violence. They may not play out so often, but performances like this definitely make it worth the while. A night show might have had a different feel, but this set on a dismal, grey afternoon hit the spot just about exactly. Full on killer.

Things having closed up, I started hiking back into the transit system, and eventually back to the north. I wasn't completely recovered for this show, and knock-ons from this (and the stresses of the on-call stand) essentially knocked me out for the end of the week following; I missed Summoning Hate, Bone Ritual, and Defeated Sanity (to endless regret) on three succeeding nights. Nocturnal is tomorrow...and then I go camping at the weekend, and probably miss Revocation in fucking Foxboro the night before.

Nachzehrer with Soul Remnants and Dethamphetamine (not Master) [O'Brien's, Allston, 3/2/2011]

Because Master dropped and I got in on what would have been early for the four-band bill, I can't really read most of the minimal notes I scrawled at the show. Good thing this is going in now rather than three months from now when it's completely forgotten.

Deathamphetamine [6/7]
It was cool to see these guys again, now realigned into a three-piece and with a different balance than they'd had as a five-piece, while still playing a bunch of the old songs as well as the new ones. As intimated, this is almost a whole different new Deathamphetamine, but this set from them was debatably the best I'd seen since their original vocalist left -- though, truth told, he did come back for a couple of songs in the middle. The influences are still all over the place, but if they can solidify this mix of death, thrash and hardcore into something strong and consistent, they're definitely going to be a band to watch again.

Soul Remnants [5/7]
Though their demo attests that they've been around for a while (and I think maybe as Chopwork for some of that time, I definitely remember that name from flyers a while back), this was the first time I'd actually seen them live. Their punchy old-school death sound was about the best match to the original headliner of the three bands that did end up showing, but at least in the current configuration, they aren't at the overall level of the other locals. Some of this is the weird balance the bill ended up with, but some of it is likely practice; they fuckin' killed it on a cover of At The Gates' "Blinded By Fear", and more time with these members and the same members (recent additions including Colin (Frozen, ex-Cannae) Conway) will probably take the current and future originals up to the same level.

It was probably in this break that Robin filled me -- and probably anyone else he passed in the crowd -- in on the reasons for the cancellation; Paul brought his whole normal Czech band over this time rather than recruiting American sidemen, and one of them got turned back at immigration. So the band went back to the Czech, allegedly without a phone call, and word was passing from hand to hand, night to night, across the country, that Master wasn't playing the next night in the next town either. How it goes....and likely a reinforcing experience for Speckmann in his decision to emigrate to the Czech a few years back.

Nachzehrer [6.5/7]
If the last show was good, this was a definite step up. The band was back at full power, fully flowing, still raw, but all the leads that were there when Alex was in the band back in their right places as well. It's difficult to see how they aren't the next metal band out of Boston at this stage; the only reasons I come up with are kind of contingent on underrating the exposure that Black Pyramid and CNV have gotten thus far. This wasn't a perfect set, but it was about peak for the band as I've seen them so far, and if it's repeated on a regular basis, you're going to also be able to see this band by you sooner rather than later.

On Master: yes, I'm bummed that they cancelled, and yes, I'm not sure that I'd've been down for a Masterless bill coming in on a Wednesday night. But I've got the flyer at least, which I did not get the last time they were around, and when I was discovering this band a decade and more ago, there was no chance that I'd see them at all in the next ten years. Death metal had moved on and Paul'd moved to the Czech. And yet here we are. Universal access to rars of every album ever made means nothing languishes out of print any more, and better scene connectivity means any legitimately good band isn't going to stay forgotten for long. Master are back to stay, and who knows, maybe even back through on tour sometime in the next five years. For now, I have that one set in '08, and the poster from this one with some scribbles on the back.

On the hike back from this one, I got pelted in the back with something. I looked back down behind me to see what it was, barely breaking stride, and saw a nearly full bottle of maple syrup. Sure, it beats the hell out of getting bottled with something frangible, but still, lolwut? Who packs along maple syrup in their van, and who, packing maple syrup in their van obviously because it's a cheap and efficient calorie vector on tours where you aren't earning any money, bungs a day and a half's rations for the whole band at some mook on the sidewalk? Just Say Ok, I guess.


After this I was on call for a whole week and then preoccupied chewing my nails about the situation at Fukushima, so no No Life, which means no accounts of the drama that, likely, everyone reading this thing is well aware of. Only this to be said: as an adopted scion of the North Shore, I could have told everyone in advance that moving part of this fest to Revere would automatically turn it into metal Jersey Shore. This is what happens when things are in Revere, and people who live south of the Route 60 interchange should really be aware of this by now.

Next gig is Woods at Metal Thursday if I don't get killed by drunks on the highway (to or from), and then I need to remember to get Agalloch tickets before dumping all my money at Armageddon Shop north....because there surely won't be enough if I try to do that in reverse order.

Nachzehrer with Obsidian Tongue [O'Brien's, Allston, 2/24/2011]

After a short but still unacceptable delay, here's the writeup of this Born of Fire gig; with what's slated to go in today, I should be up to date.


Obsidian Tongue [5.5/7]
Though it's almost getting to be a dirty word in the dirt-raw Boston scene, this duo put up a cool set of highly atmospheric black metal that in its spaces and stylings verged on the dare-we-say it "Cascadian". :eyeroll: The sound still came raw as well as hypnotizing, though, and combined to cool effect, especially from just guitar and drums. There were a few technical fillips, as might, really, be expected from a band that's using a lot of pedals and controls to transform their sound rather than separate instrumental lines, but the net effect was still killer.

In addition to the band's own demo, I also picked up the new Blood of the Gods record, since a) it's out and b) the drummer in this band is also in that one, playing "crust" that is separated only with great difficulty from early Entombed. Bethatasitmay; good music anyway.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
While this outing was rawer than the last time I saw them (it was Draak (ex-Unholy Goatfucker)'s first live show with the band, as I found out later), the integration was still smooth and the sound still cool and ripping. They didn't have anything new out this time, but talking with Mike/Hrasvelg after, they're close to getting a new 10" out through an English label, as well as some discussions about another split that is truly councils-of-the-wise-and-great stuff not up for discussion in scurrilious reportage like this. If it comes off, though, it'll be great exposure for them, and definitely not undeserved, whether on this performance or their history in general.

Bands finished, it was off to hike off the beer and get settled to drive home. Easily accomplished, but then I was distracted by other stuff from Bobfest at the weekend and didn't get out again till the "Master" show to be accounted here.

[Scaphism] with Led To The Grave, Coffin Birth, Nachzehrer, Untombed, Forced Asphyxiation, Nocuous, and Sauriel [Midway, J.P., 12/12/2010]

This is stupidly late due to end-of-year congestion, me working on other stuff, and general laziness. With effort, it's not going to happen again.


The first show at the renovated Midway since they finished expanding it, there was a little uncertainty surrounding this going in, since it was set up as a nine-band show, eventually dropping to eight. There was a fair bit of snark floating around in advance about this -- for why, look back at the days of Mark's Show Place -- but things stayed mostly on schedule, the bands were good, and the crowd was decent despite the rain, go date (Sunday afternoon-evening), and the small venue; apart from Tony the Yeti's baws, there won't be many who were at this who'll have cause for complaint.

If I recall correctly, it wasn't long after settling in, watching the Pats plug away at the Bears -- oh halycon days where the good team in this matchup was still on course to a conference final -- and getting a beer or two in at the new wraparound bar, that the bands started up, as they kind of had to given the size of the bill.

Sauriel [5/7]
A newer band featuring guys who've been around for a while (most prominently in The Accursed and Withered Sun/Graves Over Autumn, but older heads will remember Inflicted as well), this was a departure for those who, based on antecedents, might have been expecting Gothenchusetts-styled material. While black metal was an important contributing influence to NWOSDM, this was a more straightforward black metal performance; a little formula maybe, but not totally, and well-delivered regardless. "At the Heart of the Nightside Eclipse" isn't completely unfair, but the emphasis should be on the quality of the execution.

I picked up their demo, which was pretty much of a piece with their live performance: good, solid music, well-delivered, but not completely differentiated yet. It's going to be interesting to see how this band develops; the members may not have the kvltest credentials in the world, but they do have a good track record in delivering quality music.

Nocuous [5/7]
I hadn't heard or seen this band before; they're apparently mostly a studio project, so this is not super surprising, but more active bands is always better than the alternative, especially more active decent bands. They had a really, really, weird turn at the start, with most of their first song eerily evocative of old Heaven Shall Burn (think Whatever It May Take, not the demo with the Bolt Thrower ripoff title where they were an actual hardcore band). I actually like HSB (ohnoes, skelp aff my Black Witchery and Holocauso patches), so this was cool, especially in application, and whatever the actual intention or influences, it definitely set up the rest of the set, a solid outing of nice lead-driven thrashy black metal, really well. Definitely a band to watch out for, even considering the plethora of newish and newly-active black metal bands in eastern New England lately.

Forced Asphyxiation [5/7]
At this point the sound changed up a little, going over to death metal rather than black. Forced Asphyxiation maybe dragged a little in parts, but still provided a lot of quality grooving death metal, and took a step up from the last time I'd seen them back in April. This set also put forward a less generic and more developed sound from them; it's going to be cool to see where this goes once they get something recorded -- or more likely, I bodge up and get ahold of said recording, since it's been like three months since this show.

Untombed [5.5/7]
While not as lightning-in-a-bottle awesome as that April gig, this was still as killer as you'll expect from this band, despite being down to one guitar from two. (Not sure if this is a one-off thing or if it represents an actual lineup change; we'll see how they line up next time out.) The sheer death metal power evolved despite the limited instrumentation was remarkable, overshadowing the fact that Dave (Vicious Insanity, formerly behind the skins for Summoning Hate) spent most/all of the set as a second vocalist. This was a cool wrinkle that isn't seen a lot in death metal around Boston, but while it added to the band, it never distracted from the smashing that the instrumentalists were laying out.

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
The bill swung back over to black metal without dropping quality or missing a beat in this set from Nachzehrer, who were still as raw and thrashing as ever, but mixed in some dual-leads as well. As previously noted, neither black metal nor thrash metal in Boston has any especially active "scene police" (well, that wouldn't get roundly laughed at by this audience, anyway), and if you've got guitarists this good, you might as well use them. The result was good here, and it's going to be cool to see how twists like this make it into the sound of future recordings. Black Thrash Ritual was a good demo, and the new songs they've brought out since have been a solid step up from there.

This is so late that in the interim, Alex (Razormaze) has left the band (amicably, SMNR), been replaced, and his replacement has trained up to the level that the band's able to get out gigging again.

Coffin Birth [5.5/7]
This was, amazingly enough, the first time I'd seen this band, who have been around in New England long enough and prominently enough that the Canucks with the same name don't have name priority. They haven't been super active in the last couple years, but they do play shows; just not, as it's happened, ones that I get to. The fan on the floor seemed more to blow Anthony's hair back than for ventilation (despite being the Midway, this was December, and the larger room meant more air movement and less stiflingness), but you pick up habits like that touring with Belphegor. Silly staging pick points aside, the black metal that these dudes kicked out was nice and grim, and probably, on balance, the best set of the night on what was a really good and balanced bill.

Indeed, if all you look at are the largely arbitrary numbers (done at the show for marginally less arbitrariness), the bill looks even more balanced. This is what happens, though, when you get a lot of good local bands to play on a big bill: the overwhelming likelihood for each and every band is that you'll get a good set rather than a halfassed or epic one. If the highs were lower, so were the lows higher; no wasted time at this gig.

Led To The Grave [5/7]
Making the turn back from black metal towards Scaphism's grind/death was LTTG, still kicking out solid if not spectacular brutal thrash. They've solidified a little since I saw them previously, and they got a lot of good movement on the floor, but the music is pretty much in the same place it's been since February of '09. It's still good thrash metal, and people will still dig it, but they're one of the few bands on this bill who I have multiple data points for that appear to be standing still. As noted, this information's potentially three months out of date, but since they're not on either Bobfest or No Life, another sample is not in the immediate offing.

Unfortunately, while the show had stayed mostly on schedule, there was a certain amount of slippage that had to be expected from DIY. I left before Scaphism, regrettably, as I would have missed my train connections otherwise. This means that I missed their set, and also that I can't comment firsthand on the incident where Tony got kicked in the balls. Didn't see it, unwilling to draw conclusions or make a statement on the politics or logistics of it. Fortunately, no permanent damage appears to have occurred -- either to his organs or to the cohesiveness of the Boston scene. "Alcohol, cause and solution to life's problems" appears to be the watchword, and internally, maybe some Afterschool-Special learning experiences, but being uninvolved, it's not for me to spell those out. SMNR, as above.


This is finally out, and there is one more archaic show review in the pipeline. Then two months of nothing, and then I write up tonight's Born of Fire if I don't die of pneumonia hiking back in the rain. Shit is getting back on track. Also, I'm writing/recording for a new Coelem thing, which when it gets done will get a bandcamp if the new shit turns out to be not absolutely horrible.

Sewer Goddess, Nightbitch, and Nachzehrer (supporting Midnight with CNV, Witch Tomb and Martyrvore also) [Anchors Up, Haverhill, 6/19/2010]

I'd been waiting for this show for quite a while, and by all reports it lived up to its billing for those who stayed for the duration. Unfortunately, much to my chagrin, I had to bail for a decent if ultimately run-of-the-mill party that resulted in a miserable hangover in addition to missing more than half of the bands on the bill.

I got up a bit early despite having to do some other errands on the way, and the gravel lot by the venue was great craic as might be expected, something that continued on throughout the gig because, utterly as expected, cramming 40+ people into Anchors Up on a hot summer night turns the place into a sauna. Much fun was had by all, with the new addition of the wooden fence and gate at the top doubtless contributing. I'll keep an eye peeled for Jesse/Carmine's crew at Wacken this year; it's good to know that even if, as I suspect, this is going to be my last year at that particular fest, there's going to be people from this area carrying the flag forward.

The gig didn't start anywhere nearly as early as planned, but people had a good enough time hanging out waiting for the bands to get in, and Nachzehrer got things rolling soon enough.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
They were a little off the pace from the last time I saw them, but some of that can probably be put off to the PA setup, and the rest down to natural variance. Nachzehrer set out a quality performance of hammering black thrash that provoked the most floor movement of the three bands I was able to stay in for: some of that is that the musical style fits it more naturally, but you also have to credit the band for playing well in that style, and also the singer getting out on the floor (as before, so it's not entirely because of the very limited stage area) and getting things going.

After Nachzehrer closed up, I hit the merch table area to see if I could do some financial-supporting, because I was going to skip out before half the bands on the bill played, likely, and was feeling guilty about it. I picked up some Sewer Goddess and Witch Tomb stuff; nobody else had anything out yet, and I had no idea how I'd managed to not buy Crippled Messiah up to this point. Seriously, I go to enough Witch Tomb (and associated bands) gigs; how did that even happen?

Nightbitch [5.5/7]
I was really interested to see this band, largely because Ryan (aka His Emissary) has a rather distinctive approach to guitar composition that, at least in Ipsissimus, results in an immediately distinct sound....and one that it's difficult to immediately see meshing into a "rock" context. Mesh it did, despite a somewhat weird start that occasionally sounded like Roger Waters fronting a No Prayer For The Dying-era Iron Maiden (seriously, that's what the guitar tone sounded like, though the identification isn't quite as anorakish as it sounds, because I actually like that record and regularly listen to stuff off it). As the set went on, though, the sound got more unified and more rockish, though, as observed elsewhere, anyone using the Motley Crue definition of "sleaze rock" has, to turn a reference appropriately on the band's final song, another thing coming. (No, they did "Never Satisfied", but same band, still counts.) Good stuff, any way you cut it.

It will be interesting to see how this band goes forward, with Ipsissimus coming off hiatus and a "special announcement" in the works that has probably been spoiled for anyone who saw the flyer for that band's gig supporting Destroyer 666 in Providence. I'm not going to add to the spoilage here, just note that anyone, really, should have seen this coming after picking up The Three Secrets of Fatima, and will withhold congratulations until the band makes it official.

In this break, I pawed through a couple distro tables and came up with, among other stuff, a Bestial Mockery record and some tapes from Vault and Revenge, which I need to get a working tape player again in order to use. It's for this reason (and, also, already having the demo on CD) that I didn't get one of Nachzehrer's tapes; also, other people may appreciate having the mag version more than I would, and I owe it to them to give them that chance, in addition to not using the word "Pokemans" in reference to the way they assemble their music collections. Srsly, I buy worn-out Iron Maiden recordings mostly because they say "Harvest" on the back, I'm nobody to judge.

Sewer Goddess [5/7]
I could have cut out before this combo started, but remembering back to January, I was pretty sure that they weren't going to go more than 10 or 20 minutes. Ten minutes was what we got, but it wasn't a completely optimal ten minutes, as I'm sure the band will be the first to agree. The crowd was more up for it than earlier this year; some maybe knowing more what to expect, but others more drawn in by -- at least as I remember by comparison -- a much more accessible set. The hate and spite were still there, but not as much of the deliberately and aggressively unlistenable that is the serious draw to this kind of music. Hence the rating, where the prior performance wasn't; some of this is probably intentional to play this selection in this venue, on this bill, and some of it was probably due to outside factors.
Those there no doubt noticed Paul CNV hopping up on stage at times and communicating with the band, and the negative body language that followed; no bad blood or drama here, though, just the extremely unfortunate reality of the HPD being on the prowl, and the venue ops not wanting their show space closed down. This cut down on, presumably, the selection available as well as the volume: the point of this kind of industrial music is to synthesize something creative and independent out of a lot of very loud and very threatening noises, which happen to be the kind of noises that attract cops, who aren't much for the way of standing still and letting the synthesis form. In a different environment, Sewer Goddess will be less restrained; here, the constraints applied to the sound made it less exhausting, and should have led to a longer set, but that wasn't possible either.

At this point I cut out, missing, regrettably, Martyrvore, Witch Tomb, Cold Northern Vengeance, and Midnight in order to show up at my brother's moving-out party, which ended in the aforementioned miserable hangover (protip: don't pour Irish cream liqueur onto a "base" of cheap industrial-chemicals beer, and especially don't eat uncooked shit ravioli after). Really, really, not sure it was worth it, and I need to make it up to the bands involved at some point in the future. For CNV, the most I can do is a hearty hail; they're leaving for their Euro tour in the near future and won't be getting back till about right when I leave to go over.


I picked up some Darkwor CDs to pass out overseas from the band at this gig; there's still space left, but that as well as time to get stuff into my pack is running short. Next show is Metal Thursday tonight, and after that there will be a calendar of remaining opportunities.