Much like the last time I was down to this place for a matinee show, this was a good gig featuring killer black metal, good attendance, and a lot of beer. Unfortunately, because I got up too early in the morning to hack on some other stuff before class, it accidentally also ended up featuring me falling asleep on the train home and waking up in Rowley, then calling around to find someone awake and in shape to drive while hiking back towards somewhere to get picked up. That wasn't the most entertaining bit of business in the world, but while it's a significant contribution to why this writeup is late, it doesn't have anything to do with the show proper.
After getting out of my last class of the year, I hopped the trains over, still nervous about missing Nachzehrer due to previous experience, but despite rolling up about 4:30, nobody'd started playing yet. I went next door to get a horrible rubbery cheeseburger and some more-or-less decent fries (got to learn some Spanish to try and gull some decent food out of this place) and wait nervously to get burned again. Fortunately, didn't happen; unfortunately, this was because Bog of the Infidel, who were supposed to be headlining, dropped off, but I got to wolf down my takeaway, get in and processed, and put a beer or two down before Nachzehrer started up.
Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
This was their first show, and they came out all guns blazing. It's about as might be expected, from members of Unholy Goatfucker and Razormaze with an 26 Beers stalwart sitting in on the drums, but any time a band's playing their first show ever, there's usually some slack to be cut. In this case, not needed; they trailed off a little at the end, but played absolutely everything they had written (and a cover besides) over those five songs, and set the crowd going with true straight-up black thrash, which is rarer than you might expect around these parts. Someone's got to bridge the divide between the thrash revivalists and the dirty black metal hordes in Boston, and while the lineup difficulties and commitments in other active bands might make it difficult for Nachzehrer to take this full-time, it's a start, and good music at least; we'll see how this develops.
Shabti [6/7]
Shabti came down from Maine again, and again gave a stonnering performance, mixing black metal structures with tech-death elements. Sure, try to write it off to more beer, a closer environment, the band playing directly out of their cabs rather than through a PA, more time rehearsing since, whatever, but the fact remains that this was a definite step up from their set at Ralph's, and, as then, people living south of the Piscataqua should start recognizing that this is a really good band, who you need to see if and when they come around.
I think I got a CD off them, either after their set or at the end of the night; maybe it was off Morgirion, I was kind of drunk at the time and haven't gone through that bag since due to work commitments. Regardless, if I didn't, I need to get after these guys for recorded material the next time they show up remotely local and hope other people haven't looted them out of demos yet.
Morgirion [6/7]
Morgirion continues to impress; this time around, they finally had a bass player in the fold through Connor pulling double duty on bass and keys. Of course, he still had only his normal complement of arms, so this was bass or keys, not bass and keys, but the resulting performance was still on a high level all around. This band is also continuing to get better, so that while the leading lights of NEBM might not have been on this bill, those who were there got a definite earful of the wave behind them. We had an embarassment of riches three years ago, and it's only gotten better since.
Unfortunately, the crowd thinned out over the course of the evening, to the point where after Morgirion's set the place was dead empty. I hadn't been keeping track of time, so this more than anything else was the critical clue that Bog, who had been announced as headliners, weren't going to be showing up. Oh well. After some drunken bantering, it was for nowt except to hike back to the T to the train, and then inadvertently fall asleep going through Chelsea and wake up three towns too far north. For a killer, free-drinking, seven-dollar show, though, there has to be some karmic comeuppance at some point, and the hike back wasn't that awful, especially getting picked up barely an hour into it.
Next gig is uncertain; I want to go to Razormaze's tour kickoff, but that's on a Wednesday at Great Scott and I'm on call that week. Maybe worth chancing it, but we'll see how things shake out. This is, though, probably the last of the year absent some local stuff that may or may not qualify next week; that'll make only 25 gigs this year and 4 festivals, which is kind of disappointing. Of course, it says something when seeing north of 200 sets still qualifies as "need to get out more", but last year was 34 and 3 (ok, maybe I didn't get enough of NEDF to qualify and it's more like 35 and 2) and Boston is still Boston. We'll see about 2010; hopefully, I can make more local gigs, write more intelligently about them, and promote the northeast US better and more coherently at Party.San and whichever of Summer Breeze or Wacken ends up in the other slot.
Showing posts with label shabti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shabti. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Darkwor with Cursed For Eternity, Ov Dust, and Shabti [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/16/2009]
When I went out to this I was still fatigued from the previous night's gig. Right now, I'm about 87% dead and taking significant advantage of the fact that my place of employment, being full of French people, has a DIY espresso machine. Six hours' sleep in 50+ and counting -- I'm already in festival mode, and got to see a second awesome black metal gig in the process.
As has been all too usual lately, I left right from work, navigated the Pike out without getting killed, and got in to Worcester just as the rain -- coming from the opposite direction -- was arriving. This was right about doors, so I got to stand and sit around for a bit and generally decompress. At this point, it looked mostly like a lot of Metal Thursdays do early on; not a lot of people, and many of those who are there are in the bands or traveled out with them.
Shabti [5.5/7]
This was a seriously impressive performance from a band that people in New England should definitely start paying attention to. The songs are not the most fully developed in the world at this point, but the musicianship that they displayed has to be acknowledged, as does the originality of their sound. Trying to sum it up for Matt from Faces of Bayon, who didn't get in until their last song, I couldn't do much better than the leftovers of a collaboration between 1990-vintage Cynic and 1991-vintage Dissection: a more or less even blend of tech-death and second-wave-black-metal elements that still felt raw around the edges. If they had CDs, I would have picked one up; unfortunately, all they had were shirts, and I'm not sure that they're "shirt-level" yet. I like the band, and will make a point of seeing them the next time they come around, but I already have too goddamned many shirts at this point.
Ov Dust [5.5/7]
I was wondering what band I'd seen the singer for these guys in before, but figured out while they were soundchecking that it was "none of the above", and that it was just the blown-out platinum hairdo, which you tend to see on about every third or fourth dude involved with a German folk/goth/Mittelalter-metal band. So we're clear, this guy is not the same as the dude from Subway to Sally. Similarly, Ov Dust is not the same as Celtic Frost, though the similarities are a little closer in that vein. They opened up with "Dethroned Emperor", which I didn't recognize at first, just thinking, man, these guys are just all over CF's knob, aren't they. Then the lyrics come in and I realize they're opening with another band's song. To their credit, they did play originals for the rest of the set, and got to a point where they just liked Celtic Frost a wicked lot rather than wholesale biting of their sound and catalog with huge gnashing fangs. They also strongly promoted their Myspace and covered the floor in flyers, which was a good thing, because there was a lot of beer spilled during Darkwor's set, and the extra absorption on the floor probably helped the staff with cleanup.
Cursed For Eternity [6.5/7]
This must have been Witch Tomb offspec week; Bone Ritual the night before, then this outfit similarly crushing all a day later and about an hour to the west. Here, though, the return to the primitive took on a different form: this was pure Black Circle music, neither Pure Fucking Armaggeddon (despite ending with an annihilating cover of "Deathcrush") nor Wrath of the Tyrant but somewhere in the middle, solidly within that musical continuum. It was also by far the best set of the night -- maybe only "by far" because of Darkwor's guitar amp issues, but whether you want to play the comparison game or not, the simple fact is that this set killed.
As mentioned, there were not a lot of people in this venue initially. However, that number steadily increased, to the point where, looking around after CFE finished, the entire frickin place was packed, and at about a 60:40 m:f ratio, which is absolutely unheard of in underground metal. This is, one supposes, a contributing factor in why Metal Thursday is where it is: there were more women in attendance by the end of this gig, nearly all of them actually interested in seeing and into Darkwor, than there were at the end of the EoN gig the night before, counting the posse that showed up from Wonderbar and wherethefuckeverelse solely to ambush Nicholas Cage. This isn't a "dude the CHICKS go to this show!!1!" selling point; it's an indicator of a healthier and more diverse scene.....in which this long-running and successful concert series is also probably a contributing factor.
Darkwor [6/7]
Originally I thought that I couldn't hear the guitar because my ears were blown out after Cursed For Eternity. Then other people, some of whom I'd seen wearing earplugs at the show, confirmed that there was a problem with the amp at the start. Either way, Darkwor didn't get off to as clean a start as they might have liked, if only due to technical reasons. They did get cranked up over the course of the set, though, and did up some killer music...that I now don't have the most concrete recollection of, because they didn't have CDs (in "tiny jew cases" or otherwise) available, but mainly because I was pit-tanking throughout their set, which is always a challenge at this place. The usual supsects (modulo Chris, on IR at the bar for this one with a concussion) went completely nuts despite the large crowd, and the janitor/assistant bartender for the club was motivated to climb up one of the poles on the floor and hang upside-down from the light rigging before jumping off and getting circus-carried around the pit by Dan. The dude in question always gets into the bands, but this was a lot more over the top than I've seen before.
Somehow, when they finally finished, the conclusion was universal that it was too soon, and there was much bellowing of MOOOOAR! at the band, but the damn lights went on anyways, and the show was concluded. Already having a belle copine and definitely, in any case, having to work in the morning, I did not stay to work the room but hit the road, and despite extensive construction and humidity high enough that I had to run the wipers to keep the windshield from fogging up, I made it back in time to catch a two-and-a-half-hour nap before the alarm clock rang and I had to be moving again. Show was worth it, though; they usually are, as you can generally leave the sucky ones long before you have to sacrifice anything in terms of rest or stress.
I may or may not be going to Summer Slaughter; I go on call tonight for the next week leading up to when I hit the tarmac at Logan, and I may have other commitments as well tomorrow. Other than that, maybe hanging with the perpetually-expanding-their-universe-of-affiliated-bands originally-Downfall/Summoning-Hate crew Tuesday night, and definitely that last-chance show in Revere Thursday. And somewhere in all this I get to walk a 1/4 marathon, finish packing, and hack up a pair of BDU pants for overseas use.
As has been all too usual lately, I left right from work, navigated the Pike out without getting killed, and got in to Worcester just as the rain -- coming from the opposite direction -- was arriving. This was right about doors, so I got to stand and sit around for a bit and generally decompress. At this point, it looked mostly like a lot of Metal Thursdays do early on; not a lot of people, and many of those who are there are in the bands or traveled out with them.
Shabti [5.5/7]
This was a seriously impressive performance from a band that people in New England should definitely start paying attention to. The songs are not the most fully developed in the world at this point, but the musicianship that they displayed has to be acknowledged, as does the originality of their sound. Trying to sum it up for Matt from Faces of Bayon, who didn't get in until their last song, I couldn't do much better than the leftovers of a collaboration between 1990-vintage Cynic and 1991-vintage Dissection: a more or less even blend of tech-death and second-wave-black-metal elements that still felt raw around the edges. If they had CDs, I would have picked one up; unfortunately, all they had were shirts, and I'm not sure that they're "shirt-level" yet. I like the band, and will make a point of seeing them the next time they come around, but I already have too goddamned many shirts at this point.
Ov Dust [5.5/7]
I was wondering what band I'd seen the singer for these guys in before, but figured out while they were soundchecking that it was "none of the above", and that it was just the blown-out platinum hairdo, which you tend to see on about every third or fourth dude involved with a German folk/goth/Mittelalter-metal band. So we're clear, this guy is not the same as the dude from Subway to Sally. Similarly, Ov Dust is not the same as Celtic Frost, though the similarities are a little closer in that vein. They opened up with "Dethroned Emperor", which I didn't recognize at first, just thinking, man, these guys are just all over CF's knob, aren't they. Then the lyrics come in and I realize they're opening with another band's song. To their credit, they did play originals for the rest of the set, and got to a point where they just liked Celtic Frost a wicked lot rather than wholesale biting of their sound and catalog with huge gnashing fangs. They also strongly promoted their Myspace and covered the floor in flyers, which was a good thing, because there was a lot of beer spilled during Darkwor's set, and the extra absorption on the floor probably helped the staff with cleanup.
Cursed For Eternity [6.5/7]
This must have been Witch Tomb offspec week; Bone Ritual the night before, then this outfit similarly crushing all a day later and about an hour to the west. Here, though, the return to the primitive took on a different form: this was pure Black Circle music, neither Pure Fucking Armaggeddon (despite ending with an annihilating cover of "Deathcrush") nor Wrath of the Tyrant but somewhere in the middle, solidly within that musical continuum. It was also by far the best set of the night -- maybe only "by far" because of Darkwor's guitar amp issues, but whether you want to play the comparison game or not, the simple fact is that this set killed.
As mentioned, there were not a lot of people in this venue initially. However, that number steadily increased, to the point where, looking around after CFE finished, the entire frickin place was packed, and at about a 60:40 m:f ratio, which is absolutely unheard of in underground metal. This is, one supposes, a contributing factor in why Metal Thursday is where it is: there were more women in attendance by the end of this gig, nearly all of them actually interested in seeing and into Darkwor, than there were at the end of the EoN gig the night before, counting the posse that showed up from Wonderbar and wherethefuckeverelse solely to ambush Nicholas Cage. This isn't a "dude the CHICKS go to this show!!1!" selling point; it's an indicator of a healthier and more diverse scene.....in which this long-running and successful concert series is also probably a contributing factor.
Darkwor [6/7]
Originally I thought that I couldn't hear the guitar because my ears were blown out after Cursed For Eternity. Then other people, some of whom I'd seen wearing earplugs at the show, confirmed that there was a problem with the amp at the start. Either way, Darkwor didn't get off to as clean a start as they might have liked, if only due to technical reasons. They did get cranked up over the course of the set, though, and did up some killer music...that I now don't have the most concrete recollection of, because they didn't have CDs (in "tiny jew cases" or otherwise) available, but mainly because I was pit-tanking throughout their set, which is always a challenge at this place. The usual supsects (modulo Chris, on IR at the bar for this one with a concussion) went completely nuts despite the large crowd, and the janitor/assistant bartender for the club was motivated to climb up one of the poles on the floor and hang upside-down from the light rigging before jumping off and getting circus-carried around the pit by Dan. The dude in question always gets into the bands, but this was a lot more over the top than I've seen before.
Somehow, when they finally finished, the conclusion was universal that it was too soon, and there was much bellowing of MOOOOAR! at the band, but the damn lights went on anyways, and the show was concluded. Already having a belle copine and definitely, in any case, having to work in the morning, I did not stay to work the room but hit the road, and despite extensive construction and humidity high enough that I had to run the wipers to keep the windshield from fogging up, I made it back in time to catch a two-and-a-half-hour nap before the alarm clock rang and I had to be moving again. Show was worth it, though; they usually are, as you can generally leave the sucky ones long before you have to sacrifice anything in terms of rest or stress.
I may or may not be going to Summer Slaughter; I go on call tonight for the next week leading up to when I hit the tarmac at Logan, and I may have other commitments as well tomorrow. Other than that, maybe hanging with the perpetually-expanding-their-universe-of-affiliated-bands originally-Downfall/Summoning-Hate crew Tuesday night, and definitely that last-chance show in Revere Thursday. And somewhere in all this I get to walk a 1/4 marathon, finish packing, and hack up a pair of BDU pants for overseas use.
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