Destruction with Heathen, Warbeast, Panzerbastard, and Razormaze [Church, Boston, 5/12/2011]

The early start on this one combined with me getting out of work later than I thought, and a huge amount of traffic, for some unexpected synergy; instead of throwing the car in Cambridge and hiking in, I bit the bullet, drove down Beacon dodging cyclists, scooters, and assholes who leave their BMW in the middle of the street with the blinkers on while they fuck off and do something else for an hour and a half, and parked decently close to the venue since the Red Sox were out of town and the garages south of the Pike weren't charging rates that need to be put on an installment plan. It was a much shorter hike getting over, and if it was $6 more expensive than just parking down back, I also didn't have to negotiate the Church parking lot, which is like a Korean highway except all just sitting in one place. I paid my way in, got a beer around the extremely incongruous regulars/softball team, picked up Razormaze's most recent EP, and was up in place by the time the band got going.

Razormaze [5/7]
I hadn't seen these guys in a while, and in the interim they've taken their game up a definite level. Of newer thrash metal bands from Boston, they've always been the most prone to being written off as "just thrash revival", but while their sound is still strongly rooted in Bay Area classics (a lot of Exodus and a fair measure of Dark Angel -- in tone if not in attitude or subjects -- as it came off on this hearing), there were more signs from this admittedly wicked short set that they're starting to assert a style that's not as easily pigeonholed, and one that can be asserted as definitely 'Razormaze' as opposed to 'dudes who like Testament a lot'. The band's core competency, as before, is playing good thrash metal in a readily familiar style, but when you're opening for Heathen and Destruction, you need to go beyond that a little or risk getting written off completely, and to their credit Razormaze did go that extra notch up.

I also got, unexpectedly gratis, a new mini-strip patch from Razormaze with their new logo, to go with the old logo I got the first time I saw them and the intermediate logo as seen on the CD. Regression towards evil? See below:




Panzerbastard [5.5/7]
After checking back, I hadn't seen Panzerbastard before, but the check is understandable, as I'm pretty sure that I've seen every member (except maybe Keith) playing with at least two other bands. The music, though, needs no introduction or pedigree: tar-sludge thrashpunk'n'roll with touchpoints in every thrash, sludge, or grind band you could care to name, or, more succinctly, Motorhead dropped an octave and even more dubiously civilized. People had been thrashing around for Razormaze, of course, but this is where the pit started to get seriously violent, culminating as they covered Celtic Frost's "Usurper" to close.

They bastards didn't have any merch out, probably as a side effect of selling through everything they'd done up previously on their recent UK tour; instead, I picked up stuff from Heathen and Destruction, and ended up talking extensively with Mike Nachzehrer about a bunch of things, including their upcoming EP, their shows with Nocturnal (there) and Abazagorath (at PSOA, oh well) in the coming weeks and months, and the difficulties of getting Germans to remember things when drunk. Technically, I gave die Nachgezorene a head start on the official RFM, but 1) who cares and 2) I seriously doubt I'm going to run out of pack space.

Warbeast [5.5/7]
Though, as people generally somewhat expect from Texas bands these days -- and to be fair, as promised by the prominent mentions of Phil Anselmo's production role on, um, everything not printed on fabric they had available -- these guys had a few Pantera echoes, most of the set was solid thrash metal in line with the German and secondarily Bay Area traditions. (If I'd known in advance that multiple members of this band had been in Gammacide, this would be self-explanatory.) This was a solid set, maybe not overtopping the locals, but we tend to have some pretty good bands in the Boston area, and the opportunity to go out, open for Heathen and Destruction, and give a good account of yourselves does not come easily or instantly.

I picked up their current record on vinyl after the set wrapped; I was thinking about CD, as it'd've been a lot easier to manage, but as far as I could make out, vinyl was a better deal from the band's perspective, on margin as well as the "actual dollars we get back from carting this stuff around" dimension. This also meant taking a step or two back for the last two bands, but I saw Destruction from contact range a few years back, and seeing Heathen at any depth was something that I wouldn't've expected at all a couple years ago.

Heathen [6.5/7]
A "7" set from Heathen includes "The Goblin's Blade", at least personally. This one didn't, but also, at a very immediate level, it is fucking stupid to bitch about any aspect, at all, of a Heathen set performed live in 2011, especially one featuring "Open The Grave", "Death By Hanging", and a large measure of new songs from a new album that largely measure up to and fit in with the band's previous ouevre. The takeaways from this set should be as follows, in order of importance:
1) Heathen is still playing
2) Heathen is still awesome
3) Heathen is still putting out quality new music after nearly two decades, "breaking the silence" as it were DURR HURRR HURRRR.
The crowd got turbulent in places, but for a lot of people, there was as much or more value in just standing, banging, and listening to Heathen live, at last, and the band delivered. Class, class set.

Destruction [7/7]
As with Master in this space, Destruction's set was marked by technical difficulties and a lot of imprecations from the vocalist/bassist against the club's equipment and overall setup. Schmier's frustrations notwithstanding, though, this was an absolutely graveling set of thrash metal that is probably the best outing I've seen from Destruction, definitely the best since that Middle East gig linked a few paras up. Despite international fame, three decades in harness, and a four-digit guarantee, at heart Destruction is still a dirty, violent, down-to-earth DIY thrash band, thriving in spaces like this as much if not more than festival infields. The band might not have been able to hear themselves, but what we on the floor heard was an excellent set well worth the $25 ticket. Some people might have balked at paying that for a bar show, but when a bar show includes kickass performances from Heathen and Destruction as well as solid outings from the openers, you dig yer haun intae yer feckin poakit.

When the club put the lights up, foreclosing on the possibility of any further encores from Destruction, I beat feet out; not too long back to the garage and the surprisingly helpful payout machine, and then back the hard way to the highways north. Though this is late, at least it's done -- and none too soon as, the pre-MDF stretch is coming in.

Acaro with Razormaze, Laid In Stone, and We Met Aliens [Ralph's, Worcester, 10/15/2009]

The lateness of this post has nothing to do with this show and everything to do with being sick over the weekend following from it, probably due in large part to gobbling communally-prepared foods heavily dosed with booze on Saturday. No idea how the Swiss do it -- though not dumping in half a bottle of cherry liqueur is probably a good start.

Anyway.

I ended up having to go home before heading out, but got turned around in time and despite the snow got out to Ralph's shortly after We Met Aliens started. Straight into it; how to do a Metal Thursday, even if it means one less beer.

We Met Aliens [5/7]
It's difficult to put up a concise description of this band - "deathcore with some grooves and some weird parts" is a start - but if we can go with implication, a time capsule to Relapse circa 2003 is probably good enough. They played a good set, and anyone who still has a Contamination sampler from that era will dig them, but though this sound almost by definition can't be generic, it still didn't jump out and grab me. Boarcorpse is a functional superset of their sound, but these guys are some impressive musicians, and they played a hell of an opening set here.

After WMA finished, I went to get beered up, then hit the merch desk and ended up buying Razormaze's very last shirt. I felt kinda weird about this, because that's someone else here for WMA or Acaro who they couldn't turn on to them and also sell a shirt to, but in a way it's also good, because they're obviously moving shirts (saw one on some dude at Satyricon last night) and getting people excited.

Laid In Stone [5/7]
They started out a little rough, as might be expected from a band with their sound who trekked all the way out from Michigan to play this one gig (their tour fell through, except this gig, because Chris disnae fuck around when it comes to booking), but as they grew more comfortable on stage, the crowd grew more comfortable with them, and their brand of heavily Pantera-influenced brutal thrash got people flying around and fucking each other up. New England is a lot more wicked-underground than this at the DIY level, generally, but scene heads anywhere will appreciate a good band playing good music, and they definitely got that appreciation.

After they wrapped, the singer went through the crowd giving away copies of their very pro-packaged demo. This was kind of weird to me, because I and probably about 80% of the other attendees -- and this was a large crowd, with the people there for Razormaze and those there for Acaro both still in the building -- would easily have dropped $3 on their four-song EP, both because it's three friggin bucks and because this band came from Michigan with nary a stop in Buffalo or Albany on the way out nor NYC and Cleveland dates returning. Gas is cheaper these days, but seriously, that's like 1600 miles roundtrip. This is New England; we support bands here. As it was, I took a CD and was unable to drop a fiver in the box because the guy kept moving. Maa ii. Hopefully, their next tour will fare better booking-wise than this one.

Razormaze [6/7]
This band continues to get better, with this being probably the peak set that I've seen from them. Sure, small sample size, but at this point, Razormaze is equally as good as any of the doctrinaire thrash-revival bands signed to mid-majors right now. Despite the strong hardcore presence on the rest of the bill, their ripping early thrash got a strong reaction worthy of the quality of the music (and Wren yelling for Aggroculture songs, but that's beside the point) and pleased those who'd made the trek out mostly for them. Probably by intention (like I said above, Chris is kind of a pro at this "booking good shows and getting good draws" shit), this was kind of a dual-headline bill, and Razormaze definitely delivered a headliner-class set.

Acaro [6/7]
Speaking of, Acaro approached things from a different direction, but got an equally impressive and worthy result. This was also the band's anniversary, so we got a bit of history and thankslist between songs; what's more notable is that it's their first anniversary, and that they're this polished and have gotten as much notice as they have. Three years ago, this might not have been the case, but time and changing trends now mean that a band that plays real true New England metalcore, equal parts real NWOSDM and real hardcore, can headline after Razormaze and get hardcore pits out of principally the same people who were circle-pitting and circle-headbanging for the band before. Of course, probably more important is that Acaro is good at this shit, very good, and they would have still stood out back when we had a glut of bands in this style and seven of them were opening every gig at Mark's Showplace, no matter if it was God Forbid or God Dethroned. As a metalcore skeptic, I didn't get their demo before they went on, but this was a convincing performance, enough to make sure I stuck around, picked up the record, gave appreesh to the band, and stuffed it into the inside pocket of my ridiculous anachronistic kutte before heading out into the snow.

On the way back I stopped for my usual dose of black C at the sole Pike rest stop between Worcester and my home base, and ran into We Met Aliens also standing in the McDonalds. I'm not sure that they recognized me, as said jacket was still out in the car, so I didn't want to inject myself into their conversation and produce a weird rockstar moment. Of course, if they did make me (off the Immortal pin on my hat or whatever), it was probably equally weird that I would hang about not talking, but them's the breaks.

Revocation (CD release) with Sexcrement, Razormaze, and Scaphism [Church, Boston, 9/30/2009]

I should lead this with my original Cryptic Warning demo, but I can't be arsed to dig it out of the seven four-foot-deep piles of CDs to be kept still in my closet. Note that these are different from the four similar piles to be "dissolved"; going to shows, especially good ones like this, generally results in you owning too many records.

I got down a bit early, but in a bit late for this one; I was meeting up with my brother, and his train got in a total of 45 minutes late, which turned out to be just time enough to hike past the remnants of drunks and scalpers around Fenway and over to the venue to catch Scaphism's last song.

Scaphism [NR]
This was reason to be burned up about the delay; from what little I saw of Scaphism, they were pretty damn cool, a chunking, worthy, death-grind band that is likely to be getting up to a higher profile in the future. So far, they've mostly been playing out in the Worcester area, but this was, at least from the limited sample that I can attest to, quite the class set for a Boston debut.

The band finishing nearly as soon as we got in the door, I ordered my brother off to the bar for drinks and picked up Existence Is Futile, kind of the whole reason for coming down. I also showed Dave the DIY patch rework of their (apparently according to Blue) Relapse-only shirt design, which got about the whoa-dude reaction I was anticipating. This vest is still far from finished, and with colder weather coming on, it's likely to get worn out less over the coming months, but if they never get a backpatch version of the Empire of the Obscene cover out, this is a pretty good start.

Razormaze [6/7]
Razormaze also put a record out a couple weeks ago, but I missed the show due to some combination of other shit going on, on-call status, and if I recall correctly, the gig being at Great Scott's, which is a pain to get to from my usual car-caching places. Effectively, this was the premiere for me of the new stuff on The True Speed of Steel, and damn if it didn't make a good impression. There was a lot of Slave To The Maze stuff in the set still, but better delivered, even if Dave's guitar wasn't always cutting through the mix on the solos from where I was standing. They've improved significantly since I saw them last, and though they're still working on the great challenge of thrash revival, to do something materially different with the music that their audience can't get from just breaking out their old Testament records again, they're playing good music, which is reason enough to check them out and thrash along on a show like this.

As should be noted, I had a limited range of options on where to stand and how much to thrash at this gig, as it took place less than a week after I broke my finger, which was still of course taped and splinted up and sensitive to damage. Someone with less commitment might have stayed home with his arm in a sling like I was directed to do, but that's not how we do it in Boston.

Sexcrement [6/7]
Unlike the bands bookending them, Sexcrement do not have a new record out currently, but it's in the works; we got a lot of new material in this one, and as expected, well up to the standard of the old: titles built around groanworthy sex puns, lyrics that will probably read smart even if Adam's gurgling is otherwise unintelligible, and tons on tons of unidentifiable-fluid-dripping death metal. This iteration of the band has been nonstop solid, and the coming EP and full-length are definitely to watch out for. Had this been a normal show, this would have been a definite headline-worthy set, but in this instance, the normal cliches about satisfaction level don't apply: no matter how good Sexcrement was, nobody was leaving this place without their fill of Revocation.

Revocation [7/7]
They say a prophet is unknown in his home country. Well, maybe for prophets, but thrash metal bands don't work that way; Church was full at this point and practically everyone piled up towards the stage to knock heads with the band, and Revocation responded by laying out a top-class set of technical thrash-death fusion. They did a good measure of stuff from the new record -- "Anthem of the Betrayed" has "VIDEO SINGLE LOL" printed on it in large letters, and "Across Forests And Fjords" sounds even more immense than on record, even if Dave has difficulties channeling Johan Hegg long enough to introduce it without cracking a joke -- and also some fanservice for the few who've been there since they were in high school (c.f. "Snakestrike"), but also a lot of stuff, particularly at the end of the set, off Empire.... In a way, this was kind of weird, since you'd think, on a release show, a band would close with something off the new one, but when you think about it rationally, it makes perfect sense. Empire of the Obscene is a frickin awesome record, and if the major labels had had their shit together last year, this party would have happened then to push a mostly-gray-covered record instead of a yellow one. Existence... is a kickass record on its own, and will definitely have legs, but I would be more surprised if Relapse doesn't reissue Empire... in the next year or two than if they do.

The set seemed just a little cut off at the end thanks to the mandatory 12:00 curfew that allows Church to continue to do shows without the old ladies in their neighborhood calling the BPD on them, but it was tremendous all the same. Unfortunately, this was the first and last show of the week; I'd gotten unexpectedly switched to on-call the week before and thus couldn't get out to Worcester for Summoning Hate. Next one is probably Parasitic Extirpation at O'Brien's; after that, I need to check and get my shit in order. Not just going to shows; it's looking slightly more likely that the older Coelem demos will get re-translated, and then, who knows, maybe reissued.

Deathamphetamine with Witch Tomb, Zircon, and Razormaze [O'Brien's, Allston, 7/27/2008]

Though I didn't end up picking up any merch for export, this was still a killer show and a first-class personal sendoff before what is shaping up to be about the biggest and best Wacken ever. More on that, of course, when I get back from said fest.

For this one, I got in a little early, despite a bit of traffic and having to do the two-mile march in wearing my normal jacket; it had been raining earlier, and I also needed to get into festival shape of wearing the full-weight kutte despite the heat. It wasn't so bad, and though I was probably about the first paying entrant, it gave me time to sit and rest up before the bands started.

Razormaze [5/7]
Probably more due to bad luck than anything else, I hadn't seen this band yet -- and based on this set, not seeing them is something that metalheads ought to generally avoid. Drawing from old Metallica, mid-period Testament, and classic Iron Maiden, this was a ripping set of old-school thrash that, if it didn't exactly provide much new (or, admittedly "noticeably different from Warbringer or, say, Fastkill"), still definitely rocked. Very few of the thrash revival (or, to kill a meme flat dead, the NWOHSTM -- new wave of high school thrash metal) bands do melodics the way these guys borrow from Maiden and Ride The Lightning, which will help set them apart to the point where they find more of their own voice instead of the echoes of yesteryear.

I love thrash metal, and I think that people playing it in the old style in the present day is awesome, even when they're significantly younger than me and weren't alive when Reign In Blood was released. I'm not sure why old thrash has come back; hopefully, this isn't just a trend, and these bands will continue and develop, and maybe take their later direction in a different, but just as interesting path, than the way that thrash evolved at the turn of the '90s.

Since Razormaze had patches, in addition to more normal merch, I had to pick one up; unfortunately, I don't have the time before I hit the road tonight to figure out where the hell I can fit it on one or the other of my jackets, let alone do the requisite sewing. If you buy kutte parts, people will make more of them.

Zircon [7/7]
Wow. I hadn't seen Zircon in nearly a year, since their gig with Wolven Ancestry at Ralph's last year, which was the first show after Wacken 07, with this being the last one before the 2008 iteration. In that time, they'd been pretty quiet, mostly known for members being out on loan to bigger bands. Anthony may be with Belphegor near-full-time, and out of Zircon now, but Scott is back, and the time spent as the voice of Vital Remains definitely shows. The band had amazing presence, putting up large-hall force in a dive bar, and the music was viciously awesome, covering, if I heard it right, mostly new stuff since their last split, as well as some older stuff. The tone may be reminiscent of Immortal in some places, but that's seldom a bad thing, and the music is Zircon alone. Looking ahead at the show calendar, it looks like these guys are going to be active again, and, like Revocation (get well soon Anthony) extended activity at this level is going to lead to interest from good labels if any kind of justice prevails.

Witch Tomb [6/7]
Zircon set the bar damn high, but Witch Tomb nearly equalled them, putting forth a top-class set of raw, dirty black metal. As either a concession to the heat, or an assertion that the music dominates over the visual, they weren't blacked up, not even Cody, which is interesting considering how their more usual visuals meshed with the music, and was probably the one implementation of corpsepaint that actually worked in an American underground context. It, of course, didn't have any negative effect on the music, but the one significant takeaway from this set was that it felt too damned short. Though I eventually appreciated getting home earlier, another 10 minutes from Witch Tomb (and also from Deathamphetamine, later) would have made the later time worthwhile.

Deathamphetamine [6/7]
At their last last show, back before the Skybar closed, Deathamphetamine was a five-piece; they're down to four now, more thrashy with less death and hardcore, and looking for a new name to distinguish the new era of the band from the old. It's tough picking a name that's both good and original, but in point of fact the band has a bit of freedom in this regard given how good their fusion of thrash, death, and hardcore is. Again, as with Witch Tomb, it was a little surprising and disappointing when they closed up; I really thought they were good for another couple songs. Abstractly, it's better to leave the audience wanting more than to leave them glad you finally stopped, but the way these guys were going on this show, it's difficult to think of someone who could get bored with them, and more difficult to consider this hypothetical wet blanket coming out to O'B's in the first place. There will be other shows, though, and this one certainly didn't lack for awesome.

Afterwards I hung about talking with some of Summoning Hate's crew -- and apologizing because I'm gonna miss them at the Midway on account of At The Gates opening for Carcass opening for Kreator 4000 miles away -- and then stumped back across the bridges to go home. Good show, and my gear is packed; barring luggage loss, injury, or other accidents, I'll have notice of how Wacken went up in about a week, and pictures and a full writeup after.