Gorguts with Sexcrement, Nemecide, Scalpel, Untombed, and Necronomichrist [Worcester Palladium, 9/8/2013]

Between Russia, moving to a new apartment, several ill-timed on-call shifts, and a bunch of other stuff, I had not gotten out to a show in a long while.  The fact that Gorguts is only just now back "together", combined with this, meant that I was going to have to get down, even though I needed to get on a plane to Canada the next morning.  So I figured out my new pike access, threw my jacket in the car, and headed out, ultimately getting in well ahead of doors and having to sit around in the car and chill/overheat for a couple minutes before going up to get my ticket.

At least at doors, this one was severely underattended, and the staff were a little lackadasical getting the full processing done.  However, with a minimum of going in circles, I got correctly processed and banded, and picked up a first beer, which was mostly gone before Necronomichrist started, more or less on time.

This is what the upstairs looks like now, at least a month and a half out of Rock and Shock.  The "freakshow" vibe is a noted contrast to the previous "dilapidated hole we don't care about" vibe.  And, oh yeah, I has a new phone since last time.  The photos still suck, but at least they're wider!

Necronomichrist [5/7]
It had been a while since I'd seen these guys, and in the interim they've gotten more consistent and more original, but this remains a band heavily inspired, for their best parts, by Hypocrisy's mid-'90s.  I really dig this style of death metal, so it's an open question as to whether I give them a break for their more pedestrian stuff for the occasional shadings of The Fourth Dimension breaking through, or whether I hold them to a higher standard because they've shown the ability to write that kind of music, but don't do it often.  Regardless, this was a solid opening set from a decent band who may be on the way to getting some more traction.  Their new record wasn't out, due to technical hangups somewhere in the pressing process, but I did pick up the promo for it, and am looking forward to being able to listen to it once I get back from this stupid work stand.

Necronomichrist get it going.

It was past seven, so I got my second beer as well as the Necronomichrist promo and a Sexcrement patch.  I have no idea where it's going, as the jacket is kind of crowded, but I should have the time this fall to get this stuff stitched up.

Untombed [5.5/7]
I got a little further forward for Untombed, and while they had a couple technical difficulties, both with the stage right guitar setup that seemed to afflict most of the opening bands and with all of the members being able to hear each other, the resulting hammer barrage was worth it.  They're putting the finishing touches on their new disc right now, but we got a good chunk of it in this set, and it's sounding goddamned killer, even accounting for the Palladium.  There's a little more tech and slam in the mix, really showing off what it's possible to do in this style with an expanded (six-man) lineup.  Good stuff -- any time these guys play "Bloodstained World" second, you know they're really high on the material, and that confidence was vindicated here.

Untombed attack full out.

Untombed, with Dave actually in the picture.

It had filled in a little more; while the venue didn't completely fill up at any point, it was getting towards 2/3 capacity here, and it'd stay that way into Gorguts.  They finished up at 11, though -- serious questions for anyone who left early and didn't have to be at work at like 7.  In this break, rather than beer 3 (timing reasons), I picked up a shirt and promo off Untombed.  Again, I can't listen to that CD for a week, but the shirt design is pretty damn cool, albeit with an overly-obscure backpiece.  The "XXDM" formulation is obvious, and the "B" at the bottom is probably for Boston, but I'm not sure what the top letter is.  The band's membership and main catchment area to date would suggest an "E" for East Boston Death Metal, but it doesn't really look like any "E" I'm familiar with, and I've read a lot of death metal logos in my day.

Seriously guys, what letter is this?

Scalpel [5/7]
If I recall correctly, Scalpel has significantly changed up the lineup since last time, and they're clearly trying to make some other changes as well, working some more technical parts and more ambitious arrangements into their previous combination of pure slam and pure energy.  The arrangements aren't quite there yet, and as a result the technical stuff occasionally loses its way, but there is enough slam, at high enough energy, from Scalpel to make this set a good experience.  This band is in the process of changing into something else, but even as they are, this was a pretty sweet 30 or so minutes.

Scalpel get ripping.

I picked up another beer here, and checked again to see if Gorguts had merch out.  I was able to get a shirt of Luc, but he was out of CDs at the moment, so I'd have to come back.  As luck would have it, going up to the merch deck meant that I got back to the floor in what would be about the perfect position to see Nemecide.

Nemecide [4.5/7]
I had seen this band before, and thus had some idea of where to stand to avoid the worst of it.  Their sound is polished, and certainly death metal, but them on a Gorguts bill really highlights how this genre has expanded in the last 25 years.  There are other Palladium shows they will do better on, and those shows will have fewer old dudes in armored jackets standing in the back trying to decide if the technical difficulties that struck in the middle of their set were bad, because the singer had to substitute his rotten stage banter for the music, or good because for the time being at least, the band wasn't playing.

Minimum safe engagement distance for Nemecide.

It wasn't quite 9 yet, but I picked up my last beer regardless, and went up; I had seen some of the tricks Sexcrement had up their sleeves in the preparation, and regardless, when this band plays, you go up.

Evan wins the "Forever Kvlter Than All" competition for the night.  Seriously, if you like this band enough to have their shirt, it's because you bought EVERY death metal album that came out in 1992.

Sexcrement [6/7]
The all-ages environment meant that Adam kept his dick in his pants, and the dancers had to keep their underwear on (and electrical-tape pasties on under their fishnets), but that aside, this was about as good a Sexcrement show as could be expected under the circumstances.  The band's absolutely devastating slams supercharged a pit that had been steadily getting more violent since Untombed, and the technical stuff underlying those breakdowns was absolutely on point.  This wasn't the best Sexcrement set I've ever seen, but it was pretty damn good -- and probably in the conversation for "best Sexcrement set limited to ciswomen dancers and partial nudity".

The stage setup meant that the dancers had to enter and exit through the crowd before and after, and for costume changes; the crowd was sufficiently pasted that a couple people got a little mouthy, but fortunately not grabby.  This remains a general hazard for women in their underwear at death metal shows, but not for women generally; it's progress, I guess.

Luc dodges fanboy questions about his custom.

Colin Marston is ok with his monitor levels.  This is why Gorguts is "back"; the band is now 50% composed of Dysrhythmia members, but for the sake of argument, this is "Gorguts" rather than "Luc Lemay and His All-Stars Play Gorguts".  Touring bands don't put records out, and this lineup did just release Colored Sands.

Gorguts [6.5/7]
I stuck up front for a couple songs, then moved back; this wasn't as incredible a return as, say, Carcass at Wacken, but it was pretty damn quality.  The new stuff is good, and the selections of old material that we got were pretty killer as well; the limitations of playing it live and not going out of time or out of tune probably restricted the amount of Obscura stuff to what we got, but this was always going to be the case.  The main run of the set crushed all for a good long chunk of time, and they inserted a minimum of egregious time-wasting before attacking into a three-song encore.  Then, despite it only being 11, they closed up; Sundays are what they are, after all.  Luc gave ceaseless appreesh to those who stuck to the end, but a large chunk of the crowd had unfortunately cleared out by that point.  I stuck, and ended up comped issue 2 of the Codex Obscurum by Josh Staples, along with a flyer for their (Abnormality; Sarcomancy is on hiatus, and Josh is amazingly not in any other alive bands at present) gig opening for Morbid Angel's Covenant live set, then went upstairs to grab the records Gorguts had on offer.

Gorguts, back for certain values of "back", and in full flow for all values of "in full flow".
The reader is referred to the previous remarks on issue 1, which I bought with my own hard-earned, for confirmation that any positive reactions to Codex Obscurum are not a result of getting it for free.  This is a cool zine and a quality product from quality folks, and worth supporting with your $2/$3/whatever when and wherever you find it.

The new route was good to me on the way back, and I got back home a little after midnight, then hit the hay and in the morning, bashed this out waiting for the plane to Canada.  No shows these five days -- the area of Toronto where gigs take place is too far, and all I have are goddamned khakis -- but next weekend, Alcest if I can get in the door, or Internal Bleeding if it isn't cancelled.

Septic Flesh with Krisiun, Melechesh, Ex Deo, Inquisition, and Untombed [Middle East, Cambridge, 10/15/2012]

.....and just like that, I finished up my second on-call shift in three weeks and came clear till the solstice.  This was written near on a month ago, but work got in the way, and then a bout of violent depression at missing first Suffocation, then Deiphago for work reasons.  So it goes.  Hopefully, more in the pipeline in the six weeks ahead.



It had been far too long since I had been able to get out to a gig, for a variety of reasons, and despite the deadweight on this bill, and the thorough well-poisoning that Septic Flesh had done in advance, there was more than enough reason to get out of work quick and over for the early start.  Due to good old insane congestion on 93, I rolled up a little after doors, so there was no line, but there was still Untombed and everyone else's good buddy Rafe out front, and he ended up having an extra ticket, which saved me five bucks on the inbound, and probably a little time.

Untombed [5.5/7]
Thanks to this, I got through the patdown before Untombed had gotten too far into their set, and I saw a long slice of a damn class performance.  The band keeps improving, and the Middle East PA let them show off the full capabilities of their sound.  There was a little trickery -- see Dave standing in the lens flare in a gas mask -- but the main point of Untombed remains, as ever, the straightforward provision of solid, brutal, grooving but not over-slammy death metal.  Good stuff, and despite the black metal balance of the bill, an excellent opener.

Untombed roar out of the gates.

As referenced above; Dave cosplaying as one of the dudes from Kommandant.

I went forward for Inquisition because space opened up, and I wanted to get the best possible experience I could in a shorter slot.  Just not falling asleep wasn't going to cut it.

Inquisition [6.5/7]
Inquisition's set did end up significantly cut, but I was in the first/first and a halfth row for all of it, and what we did get was choice.  It balanced a little newer, but they did still get everyone fist-pounding along to "Empire...", and the split of folkic melodies, evil drone, and storming true black metal hit exactly the damn spot.  The great attraction of Inquisition right now, though, is not really any of that, nor their purist devotion to Satanism, so much as that the whole sum of this is that the band is basically the band that Immortal has not been able to be for most of the last 15 years: not overshadowed by an epochal record, or bound by "line between clever and stupid" with regard to their paint, attitude, and presentation.  If Inquisition has an ATHOW on the way, we will cherish these intimate sets in small clubs -- and if not, we'll be getting even more of them.  Either way, win.

Inquisition stirring the pool.

Dagon delivering some croaks.

Starting the intro into "Empire...."

I moved back for Ex Deo, because they had been weighed and found wanting on a previous occasion.  Some may blurt out here, BUT U R WOP HOW CAN U HAET ROM, but in truth, my blood is far more, by volume, of that of Boudeicia, Hermann, and Saladin than of the Caesars...that and this band is basically modern Kataklysm doing Gladiator cosplay, and my feelings on that topic are well known.

Irony?  The eagles on Ex Deo's Roman standards are pretty obviously the same as the ones we saw on American flags in school every day growing up, which would make an interesting commentary on American military dominance and national decline, if there was the faintest suggestion that this band was self-aware, let alone politically-aware, enough to do this intentionally.

Ex Deo [5/7]
While they didn't play anything especially gripping or interesting -- justifying my decision to cut out in the middle for a food break -- Ex Deo did put on a decent show and delivered a high-test, professional, set.  Mauricio is no longer capable, it seems, of playing good or interesting music, but he is a goddamn professional, on stage as well as booking these tours, and the execution here was as high as anticipated.  Decent escapist fun, but the band is lucky that their boss is also about the most competent and professional booker/tourmanager operating in North America, or they would have no chance, on the merits, of getting onto bills like this, or getting this kind of audience.

Ex Deo receives the acclaim -- but not the salutes -- of the audience.  Amazingly, everyone here kept their right arms from doing socially obnoxious things, even when this band gave them ample excuse to troll.  Standards are slipping.

Melechesh and forward again; I'd been on the rail at Party.San, of course, but here would be still closer.

Melechesh [7/7]
Most of the set was not quite at this level, and in truth there was not a ton of separation between them, Inquisition, and Krisiun to come.  However, they ended in grand, aggressive style, pumping out a pure fury that got them up to the mark; not a bad impression for the first US tour.  The material was heavily biased towards their newest record, but I'm not sure how much off Sphynx, let alone As Jerusalem Burns... people would have recognized anyways.  Should they come back, they'll do better keeping the whole level high, but their attitude and intensity in delivering what has always been class and deep as well as violent music can stand no complaints.  Killer.

The hood only lasted for one song here too....

....but as shown, it isn't the same guy.

Ashmedi bows his guitar with a drumstick for some interesting sounds.  Only one intro with this, but it was pretty cool.

I stuck for Krisiun, as I'd never actually seen them this close in a room this small.  The only space that compares is the Palladium upstairs, and the front there is an audio killzone as well as permanently hogged by kids and other tryhards.  No chance of that in Cambridge.

BRAZILIAN BAND SO TEHY WERLD CUPS HURR DURR

Ok, for real; Moyses tuning up.

Krisiun [6.5/7]
Krisiun, of course, delivered, with the immense sound, ceaseless brutality, and undying professionalism that has made them legends (as well as punchlines) for fifteen years.  They don't look it, and the performance is even less weighted by years on years of small rooms and violent crowds.  They built on the openers, who had some motion, but really took the pit up to another level, as expected from the first actual death metal band since Juan and co. packed up to let the touring bands on.  Some people may have left due to it being a Monday night and Septic Flesh's disastrous prior performance in Providence, but Krisiun sent them out the door with a legit headliner-quality set that, even without the last band, was eminently worth the admission price.

Brutal music demands brutal lensflares.

Alex gives ceaseless appreesh to the crowd.

Cameraman getting stuck in; several of the bands on this one were filmed, so watch out for a DVD from this tour, either independently or bundled with the physical release of their next albums.

Ultimate devastation.

I was also a little worn, and backed up in order to bail if necessary, but I wanted to give Septic Flesh a fair shake.  They got it, though as Melechesh might say, mene mene tekel upharsin.

Septic Flesh [5/7]
I tried not to be influenced by the bad reviews from attendees and supporting bands on the PVD gig.  The thing was, I could see exactly where they were coming from.  Playback Flesh put together a decent bit of execution, but it was so overwhelmingly from the sound board as to make the band's presence on stage of questionable necessity.  I can understand the economics -- especially coming from Greece -- of not paying for a live keyboard player, but when you have string lines that are not being played by guitarists for lack of a goddamn pedal, it is really, really pushing it.  They're probably better on record, where the playback element isn't as disruptive, but so is Therion, and Therion isn't going to draw me to a headlining tour either.  Septic Flesh were not terrible, but in the last analysis every single band on this bill put up better results...and that's not where you want to be as a headliner.

Septic Flesh concelebrate "The Great Mass".

Eventually, Septic Flesh stopped without degrading their score any further, and I hit the road, eventually getting this posted more than a month after the gig in question.  Hopefully, this won't hold for coming shows...which I also hope to actually, like, get out to between now and the end of the year.

Mausoleum with Engorge, Blessed Offal, and Untombed [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/26/2012]

As I continue to do ridiculous things to get physically ready to stop being a largely-abstemious desk jockey and spend two weeks as a full-time, hard-drinking, outdoor-living metalhead, a phrase continues to repeat: this also is training.  This show, not as much as the frequent long-distance hikes around Boston carrying heavy gear loads poorly balanced, also fell into that category: with the weather promising apocalypse, me being on short rest from Agalloch the night before, and a bill consisting of locals I see all the time and touring bands that I've not been inspired by (I remember giving Cadaveric Displays of Ghoulish Ghastliness a dismissive 4/7 back when I was still writing album capsules, but apparently that one never got publicly posted), any other time of year, this would have been a coinflip.  As it was, though, I headed out without any hesitation, and managed to both get in before the lightning blowing up the sky ahead of me to the south and west outbound on the Pike turned into much actual rain, and get all the way through the show.

Untombed [5.5/7]
As they've done frequently of late, Untombed started a little slow, but built through the duration of the set, kicking out a solid, quality outing of chunky, brutal death metal.  Persistent problems with Dave's mic, mostly relating to the cables' tendency to either not work or get themselves snagged on stuff and unplug themselves, prevented this from being as smooth as it could have gone, but this turned out to be a good Untombed set regardless.  I'm not sure that the last time they played out here, they had the two-vocal lineup, and Ralph's doesn't see a lot of bands with two mic-gripping vocalists (at least not on Metal Thursdays) regardless, but in the future the sound guy will at least know what to expect when routing wires.

Untombed radiating extra heat to render super red.  No, not really.  This is just my phone camera being bad at it, as usual, but it was extremely hot in the upstairs, hotter than the week before despite lower external temperatures.

I spent most of this break doing more "also training", which to go into in greater detail is really TMI.  The normal SOP in the US is to avoid crapping at shows, ever, because the toilets are 99+% of the time a disaster area, but it's unavoidable at festivals, and beer placement and not dropping stuff down the john is also a levelable skill.  No more on this one.

Blessed Offal [5.5/7]
Others have commented that Blessed Offal stole the show on this night, and while I'm not sure I agree 100% with that (see arbitrary numbers pasted next to bandnames), their development continues, despite replacing Scott with Paul from Nachzehrer.  This was his first live appearance, so it's understandable that the overall effect was a little off peak, but this will be remedied with time, and it's not like this wasn't a damn cool set regardless.  Blessed Offal continues to thrive on lows and thick, punishing brutal death metal, but this sample showed a few more blackened touches than they've had recently, for a thoroughly cool overall effect.  They've been steadily cutting themselves a place as one of Boston's better death metal bands for a while now, and it's going to be really cool to see where they take this sound going forward.

Blessed Offal on the verge of melting down.  Camera resolution is inadequate to show Ross dissolving all over his guitar.  Did I mention it was super hot in here?

I picked up Mausoleum's new record and a Scaremaker disc in this break, and got comped a Kommandant promo and a bunch of stickers, which may or may not get into the merchpack.  I didn't drop a ten and clean Blessed Offal out of their promo CDs, partly because I'm queasy about buying stuff in order to give it away (implies endorsement or something, beyond the implicit endorsement of carrying it in the first place), but I did buy a shirt, which is getting worn across the pond for advertising purposes, especially if weather conditions more resemble '09 than '10.  I continue to have too many shirts, but when bands put stuff out in different base colors, I can rationalize it away by defining the current state as "too many black shirts".

BASS NERD ALERT BASS NERD ALERT.  All this time, and Steinbergers still get the same reaction.

Engorge [5.5/7]
By the usual means of "not finding out about touring bands until they go on, because I am a lazy overnighter who works too much", I didn't make the connection that this Engorge (and worse, there is only a couple of them, unlike other bands that match 'grep *gorge*', compounding the fail) is the one with Kyle Necrogod in it; this runs good and bad, bad in that had I known, I'd've been more motivated to go to the show, and good in that had I known, I might have had expectations that might have gone unmet.  As it was, with no expectations, I got a good but not superlative of blended first- and second-wave black metal with some death touches, though one that came off as a little short, maybe because or in spite of occasional blackouts from some combination of heat and exhaustion.  This was a decent set, and I'd like to see them again in some setting that doesn't involve the risk of falling asleep standing up, but I'm sure that I did miss a little just on not being able to keep my eyes open.

Engorge roaring away.

I'd had this happen before with Inquisition, and this time I had a much longer drive on the back end.  I had to do something, and fortunately I had countermeasures available.  As I do in the field, I filled up my hat with water from the bathroom sink, then poured most of it out and slapped it back on.  This improvised towel/cooling system needed refreshing before I headed home, but it did keep me awake all the way through Mausoleum and out onto the road, so it did work.  One to note.

Mausoleum [6/7]
As should have been expected, Mausoleum is still in the same place compositionally, on stage in 2012, as they were in 2004 on disc.  However, it works in this setting, and their live delivery was certainly impressive, even if the music under it remained fairly basic brutal death metal, and as consistently about zombies lyrically as Running Wild is about pirates.  Zombies may be getting played out, and there were a couple legit desync issues on a couple songs, but Mausoleum regardless were able to keep the basics of their sound, straight-ahead death metal in the vein of Autopsy and early Death with a lot of traded leads, still sounding vital and interesting.  This band is still not one that I'm going to be following obsessively, but on the evidence of this set, I'm definitely going to go back to the first record and jam "Tombs of the Blind Dead" a bunch.  Very cool.

Mausoleum, back from the funeral.

After Mausoleum closed up, it turned out that I wasn't going to pick up any Deathgod Messiah material (which is a shame, because they are a cool band who deserve more exposure) for export, so I put new water in my hat and hit the road.  Work and another show over the weekend wedged things tight, but here this writeup is finished, and the backlog substantially cut down.

Worcester Death Fest [Worcester Palladium, 6/10/2012]

This might have been more accurately written "Scott Lee Finds A Way To Have 21 Mostly-Local Bands Open For Six Feet Under Tour Fest", or I could have just covered the bands I did see in the title, but the first is too long and the second is way too long, as despite continuing my tradition of not watching Six Feet Under close out festivals, I did see enough of about seventeen bands to take down concrete descriptions.  Acculturated as I am to German experience, this barely met the definition of a festival.  Festivals take place outdoors, over multiple days, and pack in a minimum average of ten bands per day.  This "fest" only met one of the criteria, but that's not been a problem in the past, and in the "goddamn everyone shows up and hangs out" department, it did capture a bit of the festival feel.

After shaking off the cobwebs of the night before -- I was on call, and therefore had to play it fine, but even a pint an hour of Guinness adds up if you keep at it for eight hours -- I organized some food and some cash and headed on out, rolling up to the Palladium, around back streets due to a weird roadblock on Major Taylor, in just enough time to stow my steel in the vehicle and hide my pen under my belt before going up to get my ticket and get processed in.  I nosed around a bit and got a CD off Totality before heading down to the main stage; the upstairs didn't look set up yet, and the nebulous rumors that I'd heard waiting in line were indicative that most of the bands I actually wanted to see would be going on sooner rather than later.

Tony (Scaphism) and Brendan (Blood of the Gods) standing by a cairn of guitar cases.  Load in first, find out when/where you're playing after.

Scaphism [5.5/7]
Despite a sparse crowd in the cavernous downstairs, Scaphism got the fest off to a good start with humor, irony, and a good performance of most of their best material.  This wasn't that long a set, but Scaphism tunes tend to be kind of short, so they got a fair few out around Tony bantering with the crowd as well as with other bands setting up on the balcony.  They handled the new space pretty well, but might have brought more energy to the upstairs with a smaller gulf between the band and the audience.  Regardless, this was a good performance, and one that started the fest off on the right foot.

Scaphism on the big stage.

Hivesmasher [6/7]
I practically never goddamn see this band, so my sample space is a little constricted.  From the last time, they've lost their keys/samples guy, but if anything picked the energy up a notch.  In some places the songs seemd to run down after about a minute and a half, but this is why I tend not to listen to grindcore in the first place.  For what they do, though, Hivesmasher are really, really good, and when they're on, in those 60- to 100-second bursts, they are dead fucking on to an extent that barely any bands in the region can stand in with them.  All around killer set.

Aaron Heinold, the secret-Azn Barney Greenway, in a rare standing-still moment.

Since the upstairs bar still wasn't open, I went downstairs to get a beer, if I recall correctly some merch, and happened to see a bit of...

Eyes of the Dead [4/7]
I had not seen this band before and did not get a positive ID on them until checking in with the running order several hours later.  They did not, in the approximately half-set sample that I got from them, do a whole lot to drive me to make that ID, or to check them out on record.  From what I heard at least, they were putting out decently-executed but ultimately replacement-level death-thrash, along old lyrical tropes that didn't do much to grab the attention either.  On festivals, you will get bands like this; decent enough to fill out the lineup in the middle of the day, but fairly interchangeable with the promoter's other options.

Midway through, I ran into Juan from Untombed, who passed along two important bits of info: 1) Spain drew with Italy in what was probably the most entertaining match of the Euros to that point and 2) Sexcrement was going on next upstairs.  I promptly changed zones; I lost a little in terms of total music seen, but getting in place to see all of Sexcrement was more important than making it to the end of EotD's set.

Sexcrement [6/7]
That decision turned out to be well-justified.  I'd missed Sexcrement's release show, but they filled a lot of that value back in, pulling most of the material in this set off the new one, which turns out, unsurprisingly, to be as sleazily slamalicious as their previous output.  There were fewer (well, at least apparently fewer) trannies around than previous, and Adam didn't get his dick out, but even when you take out the chaos that swirls around them, Sexcrement are a damn good death metal band, and they put out a pretty damn good set on this outing.

I went upstairs to the merch area to pick up the two -- as it turns out, they reissued XXX Bargain Bin -- Sexcrement discs I was short, and by the time I got the purchase done and went back down, Blood of the Gods was setting up.  By this time I was running out of bands that I wanted to see, but hadn't yet, and Untombed and Dysentery were going to be going on later downstairs, so I stuck around rather than going to sample the downstairs.

Blood of the Gods [6/7]
This decision also turned out to be correct, as Blood of the Gods took up the challenge of the space (biggest I've seen them on since Church, iirc) and smashed out a strong, diverse, and yet unified set of their bruising sludge-death.  Their crust roots are still evident, if in nothing else than the fact that they're coming at death metal from a different direction from literally every other band on this bill, but they've moved beyond that point and easy Entombed comparisons to making something new, cool, and almost completely independent.  This was probably the best set I've seen from these guys, and the trend looks to be further up from here.

So that I wouldn't miss Untombed, and also because there was music there and a set change in the upstairs, I swapped zones again, and managed to catch most of Conflagration despite not making a positive ID on tha band, again, until I finally ran across the running order.

Conflagration [4/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, and despite my general distaste for the style, I tried to give them a fair shot, but ended up still with the impression that something was just off.  To a certain degree, I could pick out that this main-sequence metallic-MAHXC band (if you don't know what that is, you apparently haven't ever been to the NEMHF) was fighting the mixing board's legendary badness, but in places, it seemed like they were fighting against their own composition and arrangements as well.  They had some good bits in a few places, but not quite enough to convince me to check out their stuff on record and to see to what degree the downstairs board was fucking them over, and to what degree I just didn't care for the music.  They had a decently appreciative crowd/mosh melee, so apparently people into this style might want to check them out, but for the auld, crabbit, and bepanzert, sets like this are more part of the price to be paid for having festivals.

After Conflagration ended, with Untombed coming up, the floor pretty much 'rotated', with its former occupants clearing out and a new cohort, self included, coming down to fill the space.  There were, obviously, more people filling in now than we'd started the afternoon off with, but there was still a fair bit of space, and I was able to get pretty well forward without great difficulty.

Untombed [5.5/7]
More than the other bands that I'd seen moving up to the big stage for the first time, Untombed seemed to struggle a little at the start, whether from the gulf down to the audience or from the different aural environment (whether actual working monitors, or the Palladium-standard mix getting mispromoted through them).  Once they got their feet under them, though, they steadily improved through the course of the set and ended in characteristically strong fashion.  They'll be playing more sets in more intimate venues in the future, but they did a good job with their shot at the big stage, and particularly with keeping the crowd involved despite the distance.

Dave whips up the crowd for Untombed.

I'd gotten a look at the running order by this point, and 'running' was definitely the operative word.  The last three non-slotted bands that I had a particular interest in were on one after the other, and I had to move pretty quick about it.

Totality [5.5/7]
The main attribute from Totality on this exposure was their relentless tightness; as noted earlier, this is an important attribute for death metal bands working their way up, but the material that was on offer in that disciplined presentation was pretty much where Totality has been since I started seeing them.  The guitar solos have improved from that sample, earning the band some extra credits, and their merch distribution off the stage comes off as slightly less rockstar, but Totality is still a band yet becoming, and not quite where they want themselves to be yet.  They're getting there, and if they can take that step up in songwriting to match their execution, they'll be that much closer.

Totality keep it tight.

Dysentery [6.5/7]
As the afternoon wore on, bands got longer sets, and more people got into the venue, making the clip-overs from one set into the start of the next longer, and travel time between the upstairs and the downstairs longer still.  I missed more of Dysentery's set than other bands that got clipped because of this, but still managed to get up relatively close and in about the action, for about 75% of a weapons-grade slam hammering.  Dysentery had played this building before, though not as I've seen them downstairs, but they commanded the large downstairs stage and decently-filled downstairs room with as much aplomb and ferocity as they would have on a run-of-the-mill O'Brien's outing.  My knees still keep me out of pits, but even just listening to the music and holding the pit edge was a pure battle; the band could hardly have been heavier if they were throwing solid rubber bricks the size of shipping containers off the stage.

The dance floor is lit up for Dysentery.

Excrecor [5/7]
Head blasted straight in half, I got into the upstairs in good time for Excrecor, who unfortunately seemed to be having an off night.  Some of it may have been down to the drum monitors, which the band called out to the venue staff as just plain not working, and which could easily have been responsible for some of the desyncs, and some of it was probably the mix, which even in the upstairs seldom gets much past 'functional' for non-nationals, but the most succinct and likely explanation is that the band just had a down set, as bands will from time to time.  Excrecor's material remains what it is, and got a decent performance here, but the band's played more enjoyable sets in the past and will do better in the future than they did on this sample.

At this point, the furious running to and fro was over, and I could spend more inter-band time either browsing the merch stacks, or as I did for most of The Summoned, getting some foods down.  Eight of the nine local openers that I was actually interested in seeing had gone on by this point, and thanks to hard going, I managed to see most of the sets for all of the eight bands in question.

The Summoned [NR]
I heard only bits and pieces of this band, around transactions for food, beer, and merch, some of which were interesting melodeath pieces, and some of which were pieces of less interesting retreaded deathcore.  In total, though, there were not enough of those pieces, nor strong enough connections between them, to make any kind of informed assessment about what the band is like, let alone how this set was on any kind of subjective level.  I did pick up a CD from them, and found a mix of styles similar to that noted, executed at about the level you should expect from a good eastern-New-England local band, but not having a complete impression of this set, I can't accurately tell how much it varied from that recorded performance or in what direction.

Nemecide [4/7]
I had heard of this band before, and seen their name around, but I hadn't actually seen them live or happened on a demo yet.  After this set, I have more of an impression of why this was the case.  Nemecide's Bostonian blend of Behemoth and Killswitch Engage was decently executed, but not especially interesting, and so completely removed from the sound and culture of the local shows that I do go to as to seem to have originated on another planet.  In a way it's good to go to festivals to see that there's such a broad range of viable bands out there, and large audiences for everyone when that range can be unified, but the opportunity to avoid bands like this and overdose on the kvlter than kvlt is why I go to Party.San....and increasingly in recent years, not to NEMHF.

As noted above, I had seen the running order by this point, and yet elected to stay put.  Some of this was due to the fact that even an average metal performance is pretty decent, and inertia is a powerful force, but part of it was the conviction that the remaining bands, upstairs and down, were pretty much of a piece, and I gained more by resting up for later than I might theoretically have been losing by running around.  It all works out in the end.

Conforza [4.5/7]
As it was, I ended up seeing the whole of Conforza's set, another first exposure to a band that I'd seen mentioned on a fair number of bills but not actually seen live before.  They got a good response from the crowd for their performance of a technically proficient deathcore set, though the reigning impression from my seat was of a sound thoroughly past its sell-by date, one that might have resonated a few years ago in the company of Ion Dissonance or Despised Icon, but in 2012 was more just echoing back.  That crowd response indicates there's still an audience for it -- it's just that I'm pretty sure I won't need to take active measures to be a part of it going forward.

The two foregoing notes should contradict any notion that I've lost rigor in score distributions, or pull punches talking about local bands.  The real reason that scores have converged as they have, and that I don't savage bands too often, is that lately I just don't see a lot of bands that I don't like.  There is little that separates Nemecide or Conforza from the national acts in their respective styles that you would see at, for example, the NEMHF -- it's just that I don't go to the NEMHF any more, in large part to avoid seeing seven hours of bands that I mostly don't care for and would be pasting 3s and 4s on, with accompanying commentary pretty much exactly in line with the above.  Some fans may take comfort in that assertion; for the rest, oh wow, an old jerk in an armored kutte doesn't like deathcore.  Shock horror.  Send me hate mail, I'll publish it.

Vattnet Viskar [6/7]
I moved up again for this band, if only to catch them as at the time of signing, since it had been a while.  What I got was worth it, an intense and driven set of third-wave black metal that shed a lot of its alleged hipster aspects, following Fell Voices more closely than Wolves In The Throne Room.  (Observant TWBM elitists/completists will notice that this merely ameliorates, rather than straight-up eliminates, the nebulous accusations of hipsterism.)  Though their history is fairly short, and their antecedents deemed by some as "politically unreliable", it's difficult to see on this set how Vattnet have not earned their 'promotion'; they were fully able to carry both the large stage and the overwhelmingly death-metal crowd, with enough poise and violence to be able to take this sound on the road, and avoid the drop for longer than the couple months the band are estimating it at right now.  There are going to still be a few dead-enders who begrudge them the nod, and probably a couple more who'll assert that on material alone, another band from the area (Obsidian Tongue, say) should have been the one to carry the third-wave banner out of the Boston area, but if Vattnet can continue to hit these marks (and kick Liturgy in the goolies at any opportunity), most people will be fine with them getting the exposure.

Vattnet peel the layers back.  (Also: footwear doesn't show up, but uniformly met with the censors' approval.)

Fit For An Autopsy [5/7]
The last of the localish bands up, Fit For An Autopsy dumped out an earthshaking set of competently-tuned deathcore that ultimately came out with a lot more hitting power than originality.  Despite this, it was a decent time, as this music usually is at this high a level of delivery -- and Nate had probably the best-tuned banter of the night, even with Frank Mullen's gems later.  In every opportunity to talk to the crowd, he continually barked up the next three bands: Revo, Fetus, and Suffocation alone, with never a mention, for the whole run of the set, of Six Feet Under.  I regularly ignore Six Feet Under as well, and would end up going home on the night without seeing them, but it was still humorous to get this attitude from someone on the bill, on the stage, where he'd have to deal with the wrath of publicists and tour managers.

Revocation [6/7]
Though there may have been a tour or two that I missed, this was at least the first time I'd seen Revocation on the big stage at the Palladium, and they handled it well -- more accurately, they flat killed it, despite no Anthony (whether a tendonitis flare-up, or other non-band-life issues) and not really enough time.  Most of the set was off Chaos of Forms (entirely appropriate, as it's the latest that they have out), but there was a fair amount of older stuff as well, including opening with "Re-Animaniac", which just goes to show what the hell I know.  They've done better on smaller stages, but this kicked a lot of ass, and when they come back next month, they'll likely be more in command of the larger stage.

Revocation slashing into "Dismantle The Dictator".

It's worth mentioning that while the sound downstairs was really not that bad for most of the bands, it took a definite step up for Revocation and the bands following them, either because they got a real sound check on arriving at the venue in the morning, or because the touring bands brought their own sound guy, who was less of a boots-on-the-head] than the normal Palladium knob-twirlers.  I was watching the bands, not the soundboard, so I can't tell for certain, but the improvement was marginal enough to suggest the former rather than the latter.

Dying Fetus [6/7]
Though I moved off the floor and back up onto the terraces for Dying Fetus, the effect carried all the way back.  This was another and brutal strong set, but a little more weighted towards the band's older material than I've seen from them before, likely synching up with the re-releases of older material that I indulged in at the merch stand.  It was pretty decent runtime-wise, but still felt a little short; maybe due to closing out with "Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Dog", or maybe they went back to that classic grindblast pisstake due to runtime constraints.  Either way, this set was relentlessly impressive, and to a certain degree could have kept going for another hour and still left the audience wanting more.

Suffocation [7/7]
Suffocation were technically another "name local" along the lines of Vattnet or FFAA, but the set that they delivered was fully headliner-worthy (Note: Suffo-Fetus-Revo-FFAA, not a totally terrible tour package, either artistically or as a commercial proposition).  Despite the lineup changes (no Mike, boo to the wasted energy executing his parts), Suffocation delivered a monster set of ceaseless slams with ceaseless professionalism.  We got a couple tunes off the forthcoming album (due to start recording in August to drop next year, iirc) in with a good mix of newer and older stuff -- with a definite concentration on Effigy..., which the band, at least per Frank, appears to have accepted as their definitive record -- and uniformly first-rate banter from Frank, who kept it focused as well as funny, and got to the punchline of his Miami-bath-salts-zombie joke before any of the Celtics fans in the crowd bounced any empty containers off his skull.  Most Suffocation sets, as the sample space of the last eight years indicates, do not turn out quite this good, but when they do, they are fucking killer.

Suffocation only finished up at 10 PM, but at this point I'd been thrashing out for 9 hours, including that frantic four hours back and forth, back and forth, at the start, and was worn down to a bare nub of permanently-dissatisfied kutte-wearing elitist.  I considered things over, and decided to take a pass on Six Feet Under in favor of not dying on the way home or sleeping through my alarm Monday morning.  Both of those turned out to be close calls -- don't listen to Woods of Ypres if you're concerned about falling asleep behind the wheel -- but ultimately I got back, unpacked the four shirts and eight CDs -- two Sexcrement, one Totality, one Dying Fetus, one The Summoned, and three, from Abacinate and Hammer Fight plus a Scion (spit) sampler that I'd gotten Relapse-grab-bagged while picking up a Revocation shirt -- and plowed through the work week largely unaffected.  Of course, the recuperation time and the time needed to actually write this up put in some delays, but you do what you can.

Summoning Hate with Untombed, Scalpel, Soul Remnants, and Forced Asphyxiation [O'Brien's, Allston, 5/18/2012]

Again I had the day off, and misread the start times on this Covan benefit, which led to me getting in about an hour ahead of the start, which I spent leaning against the outside wall, trying to shed heat.  It worked only intermediately well, and I was glad to be able to get in and at least get a beer waiting for the bands to start.  O'Brien's is seldom cool inside, but with most of the crowd not in yet, it wasn't in full sauna form.

Forced Asphyxiation [5.5/7]
For those keeping score, perhaps in anticipation of the CL final the next day, this one finished Weed 3:2 Other Stuff ("Weed" is still obviously the home team for this band, trolololol).  For those more interested in how the band was actually playing than on counting the prevalence of lyrical subjects, this was another strong, sharply-finished set in line with how they've been playing lately: strong, brutal, non-slamming death metal that on this exposure came off as highly reminiscent of 1992-vintage Hypocrisy.  This gig, both the bands that played and those that didn't (Parasitic were initially on, but had to cancel, and Malika despite organizing it didn't book her main band), shows that Forced aren't quite at the apex of NEDM yet, but the development and raw power manifested in this performance are carrying them in that direction.  Straight killer.

Forced inflicting some "Blunt Forced Trauma" on the audience.

Soul Remnants [5.5/7]
This set saw some progression from Soul Remnants as well, which was somewhat unexpected; their new stuff, from the record that they're currently working on, remains significantly inspired by At The Gates as per their older material, but weaves in a few new twists as well.  The band is still in the process of setting themselves apart both from their influences and from other bands drawing on those springs, but the separation is definitely coming, and that new record, when they finish it, is definitely going to be one to watch out for.  Here, they acquitted themselves well despite being both the most melodic of the five bands and the farthest, influence-composition-wise, from Decapitated on offer, getting the now-swollen crowd around and moving down front.

Mitch roaring away.

Scalplel [5/7]
This gig was intentionally booked to bring together as many strands of NEDM as possible, and if this is New England, there has to be a slam representative.  Scalpel filled the role admirably, and with a fair degree of originality, working slam content through more traditional death metal structures.  Their brand of slam isn't the most fully-developed yet, but this is a really young band, and if they can continue to develop this style further, they're going to be one to look out for.

Scalpel flat smashes it.

Untombed [6/7]
Two important lineup notes from this: first, Untombed has changed members again, and is now even closer to having all members having once played in Summoning Hate.  Second, it may look on first glance like they've gone away from that "goal" by changing vocalists, as Dave, in a job-related shock horror move, has cut off his famous dreads.  Take a moment of silence if you like, we're not going anywhere.

.....

The hair amputation fortunately didn't affect the music at all; Untombed have done better sets than this, but this one was cleanly balanced despite pulling in a variety of directions, slamming and grooving by turns, for a total effect probably as strong as I've seen from the band since they went to two full-time vocalists.  "Bloodstained World" was an especially violent standout here, but this whole set was damn impressive, even following on what had been a pretty damn impressive gig to this point.

The lighting is so bad that the only thing you can see in this alleged picture of Untombed is the reflection off Dave's cueball.

Summoning Hate [6/7]
Having traveled through most of the available styles of New England death metal, Summoning Hate brought things back around to where they started, closing out the night with a long, strong set of traditional brutality flavored with more and better-presented melodics than I can recall hearing from the band in a while.  As with Untombed, this wasn't quite an all-time high, but it was a killer set that put a fitting capstone on a killer gig, to what was still at that point a packed house.

Milo introduces "Infierno de Dante".

At the end, though, Summoning Hate finished up, and I picked up a shirt off Untombed -- if you see a design from this band that you like, get it bought, their production runs appear to be wicked small, and they will run out of your size -- as well as some stickers for export, and incidentally another copy of their demo, before heading back across the bridges.  As the night before, the extract from there was pretty simple, and despite the hole I'd ended up putting in my foot, I was in decent shape for the Morne show the next night.  Then the CL final went to extra time, and then to penalties, and I got back home too late and too blasted to drive in.  After that, work and family commitments delayed this writeup and caused me to miss Negura Bunget and then Sexcrement; there's some bookkeeping coming, and then hopefully I can get back out to some damned shows.

Humanity Falls with Scaphism, Untombed, Blood of the Gods, and Nocuous [Champions', Everett, 7/8/2011]

Since I'd missed the Metal Thursday gig the day before due to getting out of work at 10PM as an exhausted and overcaffinated wreck, the onus was doubly on me to get to this one: in addition to the potential stuff to pick up, I really wanted to see Humanity Falls again, and the local part of the bill was pretty damn killer as well. Congestion on 93 made things a little dicey, and I nearly got lost once or twice on the way in (took 28, because no way was I going all the way down to the 60 interchange), but ultimately ended up at the bar with plenty of time to spare, but enough after doors that I was able to get right in and nab a beer, and another, before the bands started.

Nocuous [5/7]
This was supposed to be Nocuous' last show with their current bassist, but he bailed at the last minute, so it turned out to be their first without him. The sound suffered a little without the low-end contribution rounding things out, but even with just the three members, they were able to put out a fairly decent set of Scandinavian fusion. Maybe there was a little much feedback in the guitar -- or particlarly exposed without the bass -- but it's not like the likes of At The Gates or Edge of Sanity never used feedback for extra distortion, and it was cool in places here as well. Hopefully, they'll get a new bassist in and worked up quickly, but the strength of this performance might lead them to think about taking opening slots like this one in the meantime regardless.

A little later on, I got a CD from Reuben outside, and with it a very large pile of stickers. This is more good stuff; Nocuous' sound should appeal to just about goddamn everyone that I'm likely to meet in the course of the festival tour, and the few it might not will almost certainly, just by process of elimination, take something from the slammier or grindier contents of the merchpack.

Blood of the Gods [5.5/7]
I'm not sure how much of the difference can be put down just to the sound here rather than at Church -- I've seen this band three times now, with three different general sounds -- but on this outing, BotG came off as a little less grind, a little more death and a little more doom. I ran into one of the guitarists the next night at Hate Eternal, and he mentioned that they'd substantially reworked their lineup, so this may have been a factor as well. Regardless, a cool set, and stuff that we didn't get from the other bands on this bill.

Untombed [6/7]
This was the slot that Humanity Falls was originally supposed to be going on in, before they got wedged up in traffic -- far from unusual, to get the touring band in and out quickly so they aren't driving around at five in the morning -- and Untombed swapped to keep things flowing. However, because of that swap and because of the changes they've made to their lineup -- which is now, if I recall correctly, pretty much a functional superset of Summoning Hate back when they were Downfall -- I got a little confused about who was going on, exactly. Natural reaction; you see Milo Avila coming in with his bass over his shoulder, and you think "wait, is Summoning Hate playing?" Despite the member overlap, this of course wasn't the case; Untombed draws from many of the same old-school brutal death influences, but in this set was a little slammier and a little grindier than you'd usually get from the new bassist and guitarist's main band. Dave and Juan's vocal styles are different enough to justify two full-time vocalists, and they also pulled it off well as regards structures, working the lines with and against each other, which is where bands with two lead vocalists usually fall down. This may not have been the best performance I've ever seen from Untombed, but it was a hell of a good start for this lineup, and the crowd got into it as well, with the first really significant motion of the night.

Scaphism [6/7]
This was a mightily awesome set that may well overtop the last two times that I've seen Scaphism recently as the best outing I've gotten from the band. There's not that much more that needs to be said: you know what you're getting with Scaphism, and the only variation is how well the sound presents them, how much violence that particular crowd is up for, and if anyone throws back any unexpected bon mots for Tony to riff off of between songs in addition to his normal banter selection. In this case, the crowd was turbulent but not injurious, someone said something about "assholes" to provoke a digression paraphrasing Pete Steele's "fifteen American dollars" bit, and most importantly, the venue sound was tuned about perfectly for Scaphism's barrage of slamming death metal. This was, as noted, a killer set from front to back, but they closed especially strong with "Slowly Digesting..." and "Tower Deflower", and it's going to be really cool to watch these guys continue to go from strength to strength.

During Scaphism's set, Humanity Falls finally finished getting through the 93-enabled tangle and to the venue, and they got set up right quick to make sure they were able to get their full set in before the cutoff.

Humanity Falls [6.5/7]
As indicated last year, the low stage, small room, and Boston-area crowd all worked to the band's advantage, as did bringing in a bass player -- and this was still one of Umar's first shows with the band. Ammo's skullwreckingly twisted mix of grooves, riffs, and leads still drives their annihilating death grind forward, but the low end adds more power to the foundations, as well as hints of additional complexity -- as might be expected given his other band -- that, as they can be worked in on new material, will drive the band's music even further into insanity. Not all of the audience that was flying around for Scaphism got into the unrepentant technicality, but most did, and if Eston seemed to get frustrated, at times, with the relative lack of violence, it's hard to match up with him in the madman stakes on a normal gig, let alone one with the band fresh off spending five+ hours threading through the mess of idiots that covers New England highways on summer weekends. I'm just glad that I was able to see a set this good, standing for most of the night right by Aaron Hivesmasher, and make it out with all my limbs in their right places.

After Humanity Falls closed up, I picked up a burn of TBC's newish EP and what turned out to be the last of the Humanity Falls shirts, at least in XL. Good for me, good for the band -- always better to run out early than have boxes of unsold merch left over -- bad for other folk on this mini-tour or at least this stop, as they were off to Jersey next and might have been able to pick up any extras from their homebase that they didn't lug out initially. I also tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up an Untombed shirt -- their new design is fuckin' sick -- but they were also out of XL, and this isn't as much of a deal, as I see the band or at least the members semi-regularly at shows. After this, some nebulous talk about additional organization potentially coming to the metal scene in Boston, and a couple minutes trying to get the other side of a staff argument before I got tossed out for being a non-band-member in after closing, I got out, through the rain, and back home in decent order. Of course, this didn't lead to this getting done any faster -- there was still Hate Eternal coming up the next night.