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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

remaining shows calendar (before Euro tour 2010)

It's now just about three weeks until I fly off to roll the dice on Scandinavian transit systems and thrash about in Germany, and the below are the final shows where it'll be possible for you to give me stuff from your band to take over:


Jul 10 (Sat) - Champions', Everett - Oneiric Realm, Vaitarna, Katahdin, Sarcomancy
Jul 11 (Sun) - Midway, Jamaica Plain - Composted, Parasitic Extirpation, Hivesmasher, Boarcorpse, Goreality, Scaphism
Jul 15 (Thu) - Ralph's, Worcester - Woods of Ypres, Frozen, Anticosm, Hirudinea
Jul 16 (Fri) - O'Brien's, Allston - Finisher, Sin Of Angels, Faces Of Bayon, Bog Of The Infidel skipped, emergency ManUtd/Celtic game and drinking session
Jul 22 (Thu) - Ralph's, Worcester - Mantic Ritual, Armory, Rattlehead, Hexen skipped, family emergency
Jul 30 (Fri) - O'Brien's, Allston - Composted, Rampant Decay, Dysentery, Maggot Brain, InTheShit -- LAST CHANCE!!!

This two-gigs-per-weekend thing may look optimistic based on past results, but the World Cup is over, I'm done my last on-call shift as of this evening, and this last push, in addition to having a huge selection of flat awesome bands, is likely to also be rewarding in terms of stuff to take across. If your band is on this list and I don't pester you for stuff by the end of the gig in question, feel free to give me a hiding for it. If your band isn't on this list, these six dates are the last chances you'll get (this year) to get your stuff promoted on this trip.

As has been noted, there has been a good response so far, but space is still available in the pack. Stickers and promo cards move best (well, after CDs, but those are bulkier and more fragile), buttons less well. Don't worry if your stickers don't have any contact info on them; I wrote such onto the backing paper of the stuff I got from Abdicate and Nachzehrer, and even if you don't get them into my hands before the 30th, I'm still going to have a lot of time to kill on the ferry down from Oslo.

In Which I Attempt To Guess The Party.San Running Order, And Moan About Wacken Again

It's a little more than three weeks before I fly out, but the festival lineups are set, and importantly, Party.San hasn't done out their full running order, so I can indulge this pointless exercise in Paul the Octopus biting.

This is a potential running order for Party.San 2010, based on already-published information; feel free to laugh at it when the real one is published and I get most bands wrong:

DONNERSTAG
--
DEMONICAL
KETZER
THE DEVILS BLOOD
MERRIMACK
MONSTROSITY
WATAIN

actual Thursday:
--
KETZER
MERRIMACK
DEVOURMENT
MONSTROSITY
THE DEVILS BLOOD
WATAIN

I got none of these right (well, besides Watain, but that doesn't count). I didn't anticipate The Devil's Blood playing so late or Devourment switching in, albeit to about where I'd've had them.


FREITAG
--
SUICIDAL ANGELS
MILKING THE GOATMACHINE
ONHEIL
ORIGIN
OFERMOD
DEVOURMENT
LIVIDITY
SARKE
DYING FETUS
THE CROWN
ASPHYX
AUTOPSY

actual Friday:
--
ONHEIL
MILKING THE GOATMACHINE
LIVIDITY
SUICIDAL ANGELS
ORIGIN
OFERMOD
DEMONICAL
THE CROWN
ASPHYX
DYING FETUS
SARKE
AUTOPSY

I got Milking The Goatmachine right, and the Origin-Ofermod-D-band-that-switched-days sequence in the right order, but Sarke going so late fucked things up again. I should have learned from Eluveitie last year.


SAMSTAG
--
TRIBULATION
UNDER THAT SPELL
VARG
DESASTER
GHOST BRIGADE
LOCK UP
AURA NOIR
NECROPHAGIST
MANEGARM
NAPALM DEATH
SUFFOCATION
CANNIBAL CORPSE

actual Saturday:
--
UNDER THAT SPELL
TRIBULATION
GHOST BRIGADE
DESASTER
VARG
MANEGARM
NECROPHAGIST
AURA NOIR
NAPALM DEATH
SUFFOCATION
LOCK UP
CANNIBAL CORPSE

I got Desaster right, and correctly called Suffocation playing after Napalm Death. Additionally, I had Under That Spell and Tribulation, as a pairing, in the right two slots on the bill, but the wrong slots individually; same goes for Aura Noir and Necrophagist. The wrench in these works was Manegarm playing so early after when Moonsorrow went on last year, and Lock Up somehow going on after Napalm Death. All in all, about 8 of 27 correct (under a charitable interpretation). Picking at random would probably get about one band right per day (equal chance of any band for any slot, add up the percentages and hey ho, (1/n)*n = 1), so I did better, but not actually well.


The headliners (last in the list for each day) are announced, and all bands are assigned to the days noted above; it's only the exact order that's not yet determined. If I get more than 50% bands correctly slotted, I get to be unnecessarily annoying and self-congratulatory about it in a later post.

Meanwhile, the running order for Wacken is now out in full, and due to a lack of especially interesting bands, there are very few conflicts. However, they all seem to be really, really, stupid ones:
Grave Digger against Equilibrium on Friday
Slayer against 1349, also Friday
Atrocity against Cantus Buranus (Corvus Corax) on Friday -- even though I don't give a shit and will be seeing Raven in that slot, this is egregiously stupid
Immortal against Rotting Christ on Saturday

As a result, my schedule is going to look something like this:

WED
--
Wikinger-stage (medieval markt?)
18:00 - 19:00 LORD OF THE LOST
20:00 - 21:00 FIDDLERS GREEN
moviefield:
22:30 - 00:00 MOVIENIGHT "UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US"


THURS
--
16:00 - 16:45 BLACK SKYLINE (+ SPECIAL GUESTs DORO, U.D.O. and more)
17:30 - 19:00 TRUE ALICE COOPER
20:00 - 21:15 BLACK MÖTLEY CRÜE
21:30 - 23:30 TRUE IRON MAIDEN
(if shit is ridiculous)
Wikinger:
17:00 - 18:00 SVARTSOT
19:00 - 20:00 TORFROCK
21:00 - 22:00 HANGGAI
tent:
23:00 - 23:45 GOJIRA


FRI
--
11:00 - 11:40 BLACK DEW-SCENTED
11:45 - 12:45 TRUE AMORPHIS
13:00 - 14:00 BLACK ORPHANED LAND
14:15 - 15:15 TRUE ILL NINO (???)
15:30 - 16:30 PARTY VOIVOD
16:45 - 17:45 TRUE THE BOSS HOSS (???)
18:00 - 19:00 WIKING SCHELMISH
19:15 - 20:15 TRUE KAMELOT (???)
20:00 - 21:00 WIKING LETZTE INSTANZ (???)
XOR
20:30 - 21:30 BLACK ARCH ENEMY (???)
22:00 - 23:00 WIKING EQUILIBRIUM
23:15 - 00:30 BLACK SLAYER
00:45 - 01:45 TRUE ANVIL
02:10 - 02:55 TENT RAVEN


SAT
--
12:00 - 12:30 TENT NIGHTMARE
12:55 - 13:25 TENT THE NEW BLACK (???)
13:50 - 14:20 TENT DEGRADEAD (???)
14:30 - 15:30 BLACK UNLEASHED
XOR
14:30 - 15:30 PARTY KAMPFAR
15:45 - 16:45 TRUE OVERKILL
17:00 - 18:00 BLACK LOCK UP
18:15 - 19:15 TRUE W.A.S.P.
19:30 - 20:30 BLACK CANNIBAL CORPSE
20:45 - 21:45 TRUE EDGUY
22:00 - 23:00 BLACK IMMORTAL
?AND?
22:45 - 23:15 TENT ROTTING CHRIST
BREAK (no Soulfly, no Despised Icon)
00:30 - 01:30 PARTY TIAMAT
XOR
00:45 - 01:30 TENT KILLING MACHINE
01:35 - 02:50 TRUE U.D.O.
02:54 - 03:00 TRUE SUBWAY TO SALLY COVER "IT'S AFTER DARK" (DAD)


Despite the downtime built in avoiding Caliban and the 23:15 - 00:15 Saturday slot, and the real sag in quality early Friday evening, there are still a lot of decent bands on that schedule. It's just that there are also a lot of bands on that schedule that I don't have an especially strong interest in, many more, proportionally as well as absolutely, than at Party.San, and it's not like every single slot where I do have must-see bands has another must-see band booked onto a different stage behind it. The orgas may say "the festival is the headliner", but in reality there are a lot of other options for people who mainly want to live in a tent by their car, drinking beer and blasting metal for a weekend. Without good bands, no festival will hold up, and the thing about a 50,000+-class festival is that virtually no one who is going to be attending is going to be able to draw up a schedule much different than the one above, full of downtime and bands they don't care about. The trick is, obviously, to cover all the bases in getting enough bands that every segment of the audience has someone they have to go see, but managing that without getting repetitive is the tough part. Apo have played a minimum of three times in the last five years ('06, '07, and '10), and I really need to go back and check to make sure, as I thought they were in last year as well. Mambo Kurt and the Firefighters back every year is festival culture; main-stage stalwarts back every year is ossification. We'll see how things are for real this time next month.


update:
godfuckingdamnit, no sooner do I go and post this up than the organizers swap Devourment to Thursday and move Demonical to Friday. The complete list of slots I got wrong will be unveiled as soon as the real running order goes up on the 26th.

Forever's Fallen Grace with Suicide Dream, Absence of the Sun, and Destruction From Within [Ralph's, Worcester, 7/1/2010]

Now that the teams I follow are all out of the part of the World Cup that matters, this post gets to go up in the same tremendously late fashion that anyone disturbed enough to read this thing on a regular basis has come to greet with a resigned acceptance.

I came right out of work going over to this, and ended up getting in a little early due to expecting more traffic than there actually was. The Pike westbound can be pure hell on weekends in the summer as everyone tries to get the hell out of Boston, but apparently people were sticking for the long weekend, or not taking off till Friday. Whatever, no matter, as it just came out to a little more time sitting around waiting for the bands to go on and trying to think of schemes to keep beer bottles from exploding when opened. (Final conclusion: immediately pour into a pint glass, but knowing how turbulent the floor tends to get at this place, you can see why the bartenders wanted to keep the glassware behind the counter.)

Destruction From Within [5/7]
I hadn't heard of these guys before, let alone heard anything that they've done, and perhaps unfairly, when you see a bunch of kids with Xed out hands and a backline full of Crates, you tend to get a little suspicious. Fortunately, any suspicions turned out to be completely unjustified, as they provided a decent, moderately developed set of Dissection-biting blackened metal that got things off on the right foot. Like a lot of young or just new bands, these guys showed solid technical chops even if the composition or songwriting was occasionally lacking, and it'll be interesting to see how they develop and mature going forward.

Absence of the Sun [5/7]
There's no shortage of opportunity for making various environmental-lighting-related jokes given the bandname and the general style, but these guys did come all the way down from Maine and play a solid set, despite their keyboardist getting this instrument jacked out of his car the day before, so actually doing so would be out of line. I'm not sure that the band's sound as presented without the keys is a 100% accurate picture of what they sound like on record or live going forward, but the well-finished if admittedly kind of formulaic NWOSDM/NWOAHM that they laid out here was decent enough. Nothing enormously new, but well-done and solidly executed, and a good time, even if people may not have been as receptive, or inclined to move about, as the band might have liked. Still, good music, and if they're on Hold True, they'll be back in the area sooner or later, and probably on a bill more balanced towards their style.

Suicide Dream [5.5/7]
I'd heard peripherally about this band before, though mostly in the context of the guitarist's gigantic pedal board, which was fully as epic as advertised. Fortunately, the ability and facility to more or less run front-of-house with his feet didn't intrude into the actual musical experience; people were watching and listening to the band, not where Shadow was stepping on. They played out a good set of doomish melodic metal that didn't immediately suggest comparisons; maybe Warlock singles played at 33 rpm -- and not just due to Laurel's voice, but the style of the vocals and the arrangements around them; automatically comparing one female-fronted band to another is the music world's equivalent of the equally annoying, lazy, and misleading black-quarterback/white-receiver comparison -- but the Opeth and Sentenced tinges are undeniable as well. Probably best to actually go and listen to the band; this was good music and they seem to be getting more active.

Unfortunately, neither they nor any of the other three bands on the bill had merch out that would be amenable to lugging over on the fast-approaching Euro tour. Forever's Fallen Grace did have shirts (as well as stickers at a buck a pop, but I'd feel like a dick asking bands to write off potential revenue so I can, in many cases, leave them on tables and bar counters), but I have way too many shirts to buy one from a band before I have a record from them. Of course, everything leans in the other direction (ignore recordings and steal it on the internet later, buy the shirt), but I continue to, salmonlike, swim against the current, fixed firmly on the goal of mistiming a jump over some rocks, falling out of the river, and asphyxiating, later to be devoured by a bear.

Wait, what? Anyways.

Forevers' Fallen Grace [6.5/7]
Wow. The bands to this point had been quite good, and well worth the trip out, but FFG really kicked it up a notch, as well as kicking each others' pedals out of configuration, kicking each other over, and kicking boots off. It kicked off on the floor as well, as might be anticipated at the end of the night, watching a band that at many times came off like Angel Dust, albeit powered by a diesel hemi. Plus more than a few NEHC breakdowns. It was an impressive performance (despite or because of the weirdness of the synthesis), but perhaps marred to a certain degree by excessive fucking around. Yes, it's a DIY gig, and yes, there's nothing wrong with being loose, but when you're bodychecking other band members around the stage so hard that they fall over and knock their axes out of tune, it's hard to argue that it's not having a negative effect. Despite the mishaps, though, this was as indicated a killer performance of the kind that so often closes out these gigs, eminently justifying the investment in driving out and staying to the end.

Unfortunately, while they were able to get one additional song out of the venue ops, that end did have to come, and it was on the road to go home, get in shortly before 3AM, and take a nap before going in to work. Tiredness took its toll on the optimistic goal of getting it out Friday, and then Germany got into the semis. I missed the two gigs that I'd ideally have gone to over the weekend if I hadn't been on call, but the last shift before Germany comes to an end tomorrow, and before that I should have a calendar of remaining gigs up as well.

Vuvu-Verbot = Kommerz-Kot

If more proof was needed that Wacken is turning into (or, perhaps, has already become) a complete Kommerz-Fest, one need look no farther than this ban on vuvuzelas. (Yes, it's in German. L2read native language if you're planning on going to this, or any other, festival, which should be the only case in which you should care.)

Vuvus are annoying. Nobody is going to contest this. But the proper metal response is for other metalheads to take the horns off the people blowing them and break them, punching the hornblower in the face if necessary. The risk of getting punched in the face and your plastic trumpet broken should be a sufficient deterrent to keep people from honking on them at night, or during bands, or whatever.

There's a peripheral argument to be made that they'd be unnecessarily annoying to the villagers, but the plain fact is that the year-round population already has to deal with a very large and very loud heavy metal festival all week, and a few plastic horns are not going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. No, this is just what it appears to be, an unnecessarily intrusive decision that cuts down on DIY expression in favor of a managed corporate experience. This is summer 2010. There's going to be a certain number of idiots with vuvuzelas at bloody well everything for the next several months or so, until it gets old, and a sufficient number of people get punched for it or get their vuvus broken by annoyed people around them. Wacken should not be an exception, and to the extent that this is just being called out for emphasis, vuvus should just be confiscated and junked going into the infield just like, um, pretty much every other single foreign object that somebody might get thwacked with.

The only purpose of this announcement is to hate on people being jerks with plastic doomhorns. And those of us in the Publikum can handle that fine on our own, thanks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Faces of Bayon with Vaporizer, Wizardry, and Orim [Ralph's, Worcester, 6/17/2010]

I ended up missing out on the moved Eyehategod show on the Tuesday before this, mostly due to work commitments, but also due to a troublesome trend; if you look back at the two previous shows written up here, you'll notice that the dates involved are also the dates on which the Celtics lost in the Finals. Nights on which I had to sit home, they won. I clearly SHOULD have gone down to the Cambridge Elks for that gig, then, because the Celts ended up losing that night (indicating that I wasn't the jinx), and it was by all reports amazing, but I did still have work stuff to deal with that would have made it difficult.

The upshot of all of this is that if the Celtics were still going to fuck it up while I was sitting home, I had no excuse for not going out to a good show and ignoring the basketball. I was going out to this one anyway, but ignoring the game, as well as the buildup via going right from work, turned out to be the adaptive path. The last I saw, the score was in the single digits, and then coming out, I was on a lingering doom metal contact high and not bothered. I got in with decent timing, and it wasn't too long before Orim started things off.

Orim [5/7]
The first of four bands on this bill that I hadn't seen yet, these guys started a little shaky, but solidified, presenting a solid if somewhat derivative set of good old USHM roughly along the lines of Ravage. Orim had a little more in the way of Iron Maiden in the vocals, and a little more reliance on low-ended riffing to set up their songs, but clearly are coming out of the same American tradition, which is cool and more than a little impressive when you consider that the great balance of new ideas in power/traditional metal has been coming out of Europe over the last 15 years. They didn't have anything recorded yet, but will allegedly have a demo out in the near future; something to watch out for, even if only to see how this band, which is either relatively new or has been extremely insular in western MA for the last five years, develops this sound.

Wizardry [5.5/7]
Though these guys have cut down to a power trio from the five-piece listed on their current CD, they haven't cut down the sound much if any; this was a full-throated set of roaring metal building on about equal parts archetypal/stereotypical stoner doom and USHM in the Manowar-inherited-via-Slough-Feg style that (IMNSHO) we don't see enough of in this kind of music. The material, even more than the performance, seemed to get stronger as the set went on, so it's going to be interesting to see how these guys develop, and how they sound on record with the current lineup.

In addition to their self-titled record, I also picked up a bunch of matchbox-sized Wizardry promo cards to take overseas. With a month or so still to go before I ship out, New York is nearly as well represented in the grab bag of stuffs as New England; that's liable to change going forward, though, and it's certainly not like the bands aren't eminently deserving of the exposure.

Vaporizer [7/7]
Wow. Just unreal. To the extent that "doomcore" actually exists, this band are in the first echelon. There was a lot of hardcore in this mind-blowing set, but at least as much doom metal; this may be me just having watched the DVD that came with Deaf To Our Prayers again, but the total experience here was like nothing so much as if Heaven Shall Burn grew up filling their heads with Southern Lord's roster rather than Regain. A complete full immersion of thrashing doom, this also saw the most floor motion of the night; maybe not up to the very high standards of peak Metal Thursday moshing, but this was a doom metal night, and the crowd was both slightly different and less disposed to hit one another than on that'd be in for a more death/thrash/whatevercore bill.

These guys didn't end up having anything recorded available, so I got a shirt instead, and felt bad about the difficulty they went through digging out something in XL. More relevantly, people need to start paying more attention to Vermont, and to do more to bring bands out of there; there's a significant amount of good music, even just going on random gigs from the past year or so, that has developed in relative isolation because the state happens to not be strongly connected to the coastal belt. The major population centers are further north even than Maine, and the road network sucks with regard to getting people to Manchester, Worcester, Springfield, and Albany. It'd be more natural to play out more in Montreal, and from there the other populated parts of Canada, but someone put a national border and a language barrier in the way. Vaporizer's been putting some decent runs of dates together, so they may be over this hurdle, but people interested in interesting new metal bands might be well advised to check out the land of hippies and maple syrup.

Faces of Bayon [6/7]
This is pretty much letter-perfect as to what I want to hear, personally, when I listen to doom metal: fewer Sabbath structures and more of the pounding low end death metal at glacial tempos a la Cathedral's first album. By far the slowest and heaviest band of the night, this resulted in less floor motion, but built into a punishing set of moderately epic proportions that put a convincing capstone on a solid, well-rounded night of diverse perspectives on doom. Pure quality; their coming gig with Sin of Angels, no slouches in the dirty-and-excruciatingly-slow department themselves, will be a molten glass deathmarch of the first order.

Things eventually closed up, and people found out that the basketball game had gone the wrong way, but that was immaterial; this was a stellar show and a free and easy drive back, no matter how dead I ended up being the next day, which contributed to the lateness of this writeup. The last one should be done shortly, and then the one from either Abnormality or Hivesmasher, depending on how that coinflip goes, this weekend.

Obliteration with Led to the Grave, Nekromantheon, and Nachzehrer [Church, Boston, 6/8/2010]

I missed most of the pre-MDF go-round due to being on call, but here we go for the post-festival iteration, which was the first show of this year's Collect Merch For Foreign Aid bit. I took a little longer driving in than I reckoned on, but still got the car cached in good time to hike down. Early, even; though this was advertised as 7pm doors, the bands didn't really get cranking till 9ish, which gave a decent opportunity to drink up, dread the Celtics underperforming again, and browse the merch tables. When the bands started, though, they took focus in commanding fashion.

Nachzehrer [6/7]
This was the first time I'd seen these guys in a "venue" venue (defined, completely arbitrarily, by having a stage area more than 12" elevated from the rest of the floor), and the better P.A. definitely helped out the cause. With this kind of hearing, the band's mix of influences becomes a little clearer; primarily a first-wave black metal band, from before that genre had fully speciated out of thrash (listen to Bathory's The Return again, like I've been doing lately, for support on this), but one that uses the Emmet Brown cheat now and again to bring in elements from both black and thrash metal that, were this 25 years ago, would be anachronistic. Since this is 2010, though, anachronism doesn't apply; thankfully, even the thrash revivalists (some of whom, yes, are actually in this band) around here don't hold one another to standards of being "period". If the sound didn't work, people wouldn't get into this band. The crowd response matched up to the performance, though, particularly on some of the more epic new stuff that didn't make it onto the Black Thrash Ritual demo, making sure that things were kicked off in style.

I picked up the aforementioned demo, along with some other kit, in larger amounts than other people were getting with a view to handing it out overseas. As has been advertised, this service is open to all bands who think that Wacken and/or Party.San attendees might be interested in their music, until I run out of space in my pack.

Nekromantheon [6/7]
I hadn't heard either of the Norwegian bands on the bill before, but I've listened to enough and diverse enough music from Norway over the years not to have any set expectations. Nekromantheon showed another side yet again, playing a powerful, kickass set of thrash metal heavily referencing Slayer and Sodom. If this is Scandinavia's style of thrash revival, then MOAR PLZ; the band was here, in all likelihood, mostly because 2 of the 3 guys are also in Obliteration, but they made a strong case for their own music as well. Maybe some of that was down to the instrumentation; personally, there is no bass tone in the world like that of a Rick with the pickup guard removed, but if you're going to play this kind of thrash metal, you're also likely to be the kind of bassist to get, by hook or by crook, a neck-through Rick and attack it with a screwdriver if the last person to won it was so remiss as to leave it in factory-delivered condition.

I wanted to get a record from these guys (and, of course, Obliteration as well), but unfortunately -- or perhaps not -- they had no merch. This sucks for us, but it also means that they sold completely out of whatever they brought over for MDF. Bands obviously want not to be sold out of stuff, especially underground ones from other continents that probably aren't going to be back over for a while, but they'd rather run out of stuff a show too early rather than have to pay air freight for half a box of stuff they didn't sell.

Led To The Grave [5/7]
The last time I'd seen this band was in here as well, though they were a little better matched to this bill, which was thrashy to one degree or another throughout, than opening for Dysrhythmia. If I remember correctly, these guys have changed up their membership in that time as well, which maybe as much as the placement accounts for the perceived improvement. Their sound's also solidified, reminding me of nothing so much as My Pet Demon, if their primary influence had been Exodus rather than Megadeth. The more brutal/underground dimension to their melodic thrash material may give them more legs than the aforementioned band; we'll see, but they did a good job in what might have been a tight slot allowing the Norskies time to rest up between sets.

I picked up their debut record, and a few other things from the Ragnarok table, since I wasn't able to support the touring band(s). This included a record from Aras that is worth other people checking out; it's decent music, and the risk taken by putting out Iranian kvlt material in pro packaging deserves support as well.

Obliteration [6/7]
If you're wondering where the first-wave death metal sound of Death and Obituary got to, this is pretty much the answer, or a significant component thereof. If this sound is the next to be revived, these guys will be out in front; if not, they'll continue to play quality music in a somewhat rare style for those that, like on this night, are either the true underground for it or willing to go out for solid shows even if they haven't heard the bands involved before. The audience was up for it as well; I rarely get decleated, but here, smashed into the wall and half covered in beer before the third song was out. And really, would you have this style of death metal any other way? Good music, and I really need to dig up their recorded output, since everything they lugged over (as alluded to above) was apparently devoured by the hordes in Maryland.

In time, though, the lights went back on, the band allowed only one song for an encore (and a legit encore, which is the only kind you get at this level, making it all the better), the Celtics fucked it up (continuing a disturbing precedent), and we got shooed out by the venue staff, for, for me, the long hike towards homewards. Another solid Church show, another solid gig put up by Robin/Ammonia. Long may it continue.


Work, other commitments, shows, and getting distracted by the World Cup is the reason this one is late, and the two behind it in the queue will be late as well, but they should be getting out in the near future...especially since I'm on call this week and not really able to go to midweek gigs.

festivals are go + comparison

Yup, tickets are in, and the solicitation is out on RTTP for people to give me their stuff for export, but there's an important difference. I only ordered my Party.San ticket last Monday, and pretty late at that, so one week chronological turnaround is like lightning. Wacken, by contrast, took most of a month, as a look back at February and March's entries will indicate, largely because it came with all this crap:




The two catalogs and the pile of Burger King coupons weighed so much that they had to send it by parcel post, in bubble wrap, which was ridiculous. It's a fucking ticket, the important part (ticket + invoice) can fit under a single first-class stamp. And that's exactly what the Party.San orgas did, as seen below:




One envelope at standard airmail rates, one ticket, one invoice, one promo card, and less than one week in transit. It's simple, it's faster, and it just plain works.

The natural conclusion is to extrapolate from this, or to infer that this comparison is being put up here for a reason, to associate Wacken with corporate bloat and unnecessary padding and expense, while Party.San is presented as efficient, heads-in-the-right-place, and still living by DIY. Of course, that'd be overreaching; you'd actually have to be on the ground for both festivals to develop that thesis to any degree of rigor.

More importantly, the Party.San ticket still has Koestriker as a main sponsor, so black beer in the morning continues for another year. East Germany, still made of awesome.

Parasitic Extirpation with Boarcorpse [O'Brien's, Allston, 6/3/2010]

I had a tough choice on the night between this and a very good black metal show out in Worcester, but this won out because, naturally, Parasitic does not put out a new album every week, and there is no shortage of good black metal shows in east central New England. I'm also starting to get to be more under the gun in terms of going to DIY shows in diversity and in numbers, to build up my stock of promotional materials before the Euro festival tour.

Thus instead of driving out to Worcester to see four bands, I drove into town, threaded my way through the exodus out of MIT's graduation, and hiked over hill, dale, and a couple bridges to get over just as the bands were starting to load in. The music wasn't going to be on for a while yet, but part of O'Brien's renovation a few years back included putting A/C in, which is a plus as spring bleeds into summer and Boston begins to resemble an open-air steam bath, and the beer was inside, not outside.

An hour, four CDs including Casketless, some disappointing Jozy Altidore news (if he can't play, we're going to have problems scoring against England, risking putting another major tournament in the "embarrassing failure" category), a crappy, disinterested start to the NBA Finals (not enough Boston games to win it if this is how the refs are going to call things in LA), and several cans of mildly beer-flavored industrial chemicals later, everyone was set up and soundchecked, and it was time to go.

Boarcorpse [6/7]
If this is a future indicator, then Boarcorpse have solidified, from a nebulous tech/weird act back in the Ouch days, into a committedly death metal tech-death band, but fortunately without losing the bizarre creativity that's been in from the beginning. This was a good performance from a dynamic and still-improving band, truly masters of Death Metal Technique. (Wait, what do you mean that's not what those initials stand for?) In some parts the total sound wasn't the clearest, but on DIY shows, as usual, a lot of that is going to be a function of where you're standing relative to the (usually non-mic'ed) amps, and by listening carefully I was still able to track in on whichever instrument wasn't coming through immediately. They've allegedly got a split coming out sometime in the future with Scaphism and Composted -- one to watch out for, for sure.

During the intermission, the basketball game had not gotten any better, so it was doubly good news when the headliners fired it up.

Parasitic Extirpation [6.5/7]
Sooo many slams.....and seriously, so much other good material as well. The Suffocation influences are still unmistakable, but Parasitic have moved beyond their antecedents, and also the other various bands that this supergroup formed from, in producing well-rounded, slammy, grooving death metal at a uniformly high level of execution. This was a near-perfectly turned performance that got a decent crowd response as well, despite most of the material coming off the new one and necessarily being a little unfamiliar to the audience. The next time out, at least in this area, that won't be the case; Casketless is a solid fucking record that the band moved quite a few of on this show, and it's going to be a regular guest in local CD players for a while yet.

Unfortunately, though, the band ran out of material up against the bar's closing time, and had to stop playing. Not only was the show over, but the Celtics had lost in a disappointingly petering-out fashion; fortunately, the quality of the performance we got lingered, making the walk back significantly easier.

Next show is tomorrow at Church; kvlt bands from Norway plus some worthy locals. I've also put in for my Party.San ticket, and while it hasn't arrived yet, I'm continuing to pester bands for extra stickers to hand out; eventually, the mails will get their job done, and I'll have full pockets of stuff to pass out to all and sundry.

Autumn Above with Obsidian Divide and Snake Piss [Overtime, Beverly, 5/22/2010]

This was a local benefit show for a friend of the bands who is in a tough situation in Texas, and needing money to get herself and her young kid out, and back to the North Shore. As such, especially given the need to get turnout before anything else, I wasn't expecting that this would be a show that would need writing up. The first band led to some wavering, and then the next two sets sealed the deal; this was still a well-attended benefit show that spun what hopefully was a very decent amount of money from the cover and various raffles, but it was also a decently metal show and a reminder that, since I live down the block from this place, I really owe it to myself to go over when they get bands in playing originals, at the least.

Snake Piss [4/7]
This is not the same as the thrashcore band from Nevada. These guys are a grungy rock band from Georgetown, metal, to the extent it's applicable, in much the same way that Alice In Chains was metal, putting out a set of blasting, overdriven material that occasionally succeeded in getting people to pay attention to them rather than to the unholy beatdown that the Celtics were putting on the Magic over on the TVs over the bar. As alluded to above, this was probably the least metal set of the night, and in an environment with other rock bands, this wouldn't really be enough to justify writing either them or the gig up. However, it's not completely certain what I would be doing actually going to see this band with other similar rock bands rather than local metal; the playing was good enough, but the material wasn't really on a level to pique my interest.

Obsidian Divide [4/7]
This is why you follow DIY music: to have the experience of going out to a bar to support your friends and randomly seeing a prog-metal band play decidedly weird music. Obsidian Divide, individually, had skill in spades, and I could watch their bassist riff all week, but not all of the material came together as songs. This is a problem you get at this level, and also a problem with prog-metal in general; the potential is definitely there, but rather incompletely developed as yet. I got a copy of their demo, which may shed some further light on things, but in all likelihood, this is just a fair representation of a developing prog-metal band caught too early by someone whose taste generally is a bit farther out on the "makes you want to hit things" axis.

Autumn Above [6/7]
Hier stehen wir. Wir kennen nix anders. So might as well be written around the angel/gunsight logo on Autumn Above's current material (if, of course, anyone in the band spoke German and if anyone besides me in their potential audience had an appreciation for obscurantist puns in said language), such has been their continuing struggle, for the past two years, with their metal roots and their desire to write music that is not just metal, and that people will listen to and get into who would not show up to a metal gig. Results at this point are still a little mixed, but this outing, a killer set marred only by Tone busting a string and Chris's vocals coming in too low in the mix, was at the same time one of the least and the most metal performances that I've seen from the band.

When you have stuff like "Heaven Without", "Till Paradise" and "Skydiver" in your set, you obviously aren't totally a metal band; these are pop songs built around pop sensibilities, but this was also a set studded with the borderline apocalyptic: "The Beginning", "Trail of Roses", and a newer one whose name I keep forgetting that is a legitimate contender to outdo both of these for darkness and blasting. It seems like this comes up every single goddamned time that I write about this band, but there is an absolute and definite reason behind it: the defining attribute of Autumn Above, and why they are so good and capture the imagination of so many, is this unique ability to transition between metal and pop styles, to play metal on nontraditional instruments (sure, metal bands use acoustic guitars every now and then, but you don't see other bands using them on every single non-percussionist, to the complete exclusion of electrics) without defining themselves rigidly as a metal band, either internally or to their audience, and to play music that has both aggression and undeniable crossover appeal without seeming insincere.

These guys deserve to be bigger than they are; to the extent that 4/5 of this band was once in Endless Ruin at some point and that the influences involved there shaped their musical development gets in the way of that, it is a crying shame. The world, as gigs like this prove every time this band steps out in front of an audience where the metalheads keep themselves on the downlow, IS eminently ready for Opeth breaks, slashing leads, heavy lyrics, and Gothenburg composition in the right context, but getting people to realize this before they hear the band is a little difficult. Support Music, Not Rumors, as a great man once said, so support this band up to your less-metal or non-metal friends, even if you have to jam the headphones on them yourself.


And so eventually "Trail of Roses" ended amidst screaming of indeterminate genre origin, and the raffle was quickly done up before people got thrown out, and then I stumped my way back down the street. This week is an on-call stand, and future shows are up in the air, but I've started to get festival plan finalized and there's no shortage of gigs in the intervening two months before I go take my chances with the sea and the volcano.

Dysentery with Goreality, Abdicate, and Humanity Falls [Ralph's, Worcester, 5/20/2010]

I was originally going to go to the Wednesday date on this tour, but that fell through for various mostly work-related reasons, making it even more imperative that I get out for the Metal Thursday version. The late-breaking Goreality appearance sealed the deal even further; for a band as ballpunchingly awesome as they are, they don't play outside New Bedford a whole lot, and that, like Providence, is just outside my "willing to drive to for a normal show" radius.

Of course, I should have planned a little better if I had known that 290 was going to be all fucked up, which made going in slow and coming back complicated. This sucked, but ultimately didn't matter; despite the traffic and the weird road closures, I got over well in time to get in and get a beer before the bands started.

Humanity Falls [5/7]
When I went over to their table to buy some swag after their set, and ended up talking with Eston for a bit, about the first thing he remarked on was the Maruta patch on my rig, which was only logical: their set, death-flavored but heavily grindcore, staffed out as vox+drums+guitar, had me thinking of Maruta's performance with Impaled two years back first off as well. Humanity Falls isn't quite that developed yet, and though the band did a hell of a job holding up these songs with just the one guitar and the drumkit, I can see where other people would be coming from in suggesting that they might add a bassist (back) or another guitar. The floor wasn't really enthusiastic, but the crowd had only started to fill in during their set; it might also be argued that this wasn't the sort of grind crowd that would get super up for this material, but I'd be more inclined to argue a weird down night for people getting hit at Metal Thursday. This was a good performance from a band that's already gotten significantly better than their demo; if they come back to Boston and are in at the Democracy Center, the Midway on a grind bill, or any DIY space, watch out, because people are going to completely lose their shit.

Abdicate [5/7]
Much as on the last time I saw them, on NEDF 2009, Abdicate put out a good thumping performance of sold brutal death metal in that good old New York way. They'd changed out a few members recently -- the bassist and singer were new, the latter conspicuously so by not being a 12-foot yeti -- but there didn't appear to be any adverse effect from getting the new guys integrated so shortly before hitting the road, and as this package goes on, the band's probably going to get tighter even from here. They still don't, to me, step out and immediately separate themselves from the general brutal-death sound, but regardless, they do this music very well, and are worth a listen when the tour package comes around to your area.

Because I am a moron, I spent about the first half of their first song thinking "wow, the member change has a definite effect, they're not nearly as slammy as I remembered them", because I'd read the promo materials wrong and thought that Abacinate was playing. The logo on their merch and CDs should have tipped me off, but apparently, no effect; chalk this one up either to getting old or, more likely, that I've had a pile of bricks located where my thinking apparatus ought to be the entire time.

Goreality [6/7]
Between one thing and another, I'm not sure that I've ever seen Goreality twice with the same lineup. This one seems to be still coming together to a degree, but for the first time in a while, Goreality is a five-piece again, and it makes a difference when it comes to their songs. I've seen better sets from the band, but this was still a good and powerful one, with all the pieces back in place, and a relentlessly high and solid level of execution throughout. Hopefully, this lineup will stick for a while and we'll get some new material; even since Perverse Depraved Indifference three years ago is too long for a band this good.

Dysentery [6.5/7]
Maybe it was just that I wasn't as significantly challenged to keep from getting knocked unconscious as at some gigs in the past, but this came out as a really top-shelf Dysentery set, a ne plus ultra of locked-in, floor-pounding, relentless slam riffage that really should have gotten people a lot more violent than it did. By any other band's standards, there was a decent amount of movement, but this was Dysentery, even more absolutely on than they've been in the past, and so of course Will is taunting the crowd: "I'm down here on the floor with you guys, and I'm not scared at all. If this was New York somebody'd've hit me already." People rose to the challenge after that, but not to the extent that's made Dysentery's pits so legendary in the past. Part of this may be just natural cycles: Dysentery gets people going apeshit, so the floor turns into a Mas Oyama kumite-sen, so people get scared that their whole face is going to get kicked off, so they don't pile in, so pits get more placid, which encourages people to dive in and go crazier, repeat. Even taking that long view, it's kind of depressing to lose to New York at anything, so it may be worth training up again or getting knee surgery done in order to do something, at Dysentery gigs, beyond keeping people from running into the wall or into metal poles at speed.

At the end of the night, though, all my joints were still in place, so it was pretty trivial to lumber back out and pick my way back to the highway, despite the 290-90 exchange being closed. This made things a little more complicated than they needed to be, but I got home in one piece, and actually managed to get this writeup out in some kind of timely fashion. Next show may not be for a while; I'm on call this week and then have a conflict with Hypocrisy on Saturday -- and anything further out than that is going to require actual planning.

Cold Northern Vengeance with Bog of the Infidel and Morgirion [Champions Cafe, Everett, 4/22/2010]

It's now been several personally-hectic weeks since this gig, and there have been, in all likelihood, more shows at Champions', so the novelty element is somewhat reduced, but regardless, here are some impressions of a good solid show at a place that will likely become a stalwart of the greater-Boston scene, at least until Mos Eisley goes back in business.

A short note for the unfamiliar: Mos Eisley was a DIY space that hosted a bunch of shows over the last 6 months or so, but had a dispute with their landlord recently, hence becoming a promotion company booking gigs into Champions, a bar a few blocks away that, as demonstrated by a paucity of regulars on the day, did not have a hell of a lot going on most weeknights. The Mos Eisley dudes were, at press time, still trying to get back into the old space for accessibility reasons (hard to do all-ages shows in a bar), but for the meantime, this looks like a workable compromise for all interested parties.

So I got down a little before technical doors, having stayed on late at work, because I overestimated the time and complexity of the drive getting in. Champions is easy to get to from the outer belt roads around Boston, and located near several T bus stops for those coming out of the city, which is pretty sweet. This led to a decent amount of standing around while Morgirion loaded in, with the eventual decision, based on the fact that none of the other three bands had showed up yet, to go in and start drinking in the anticipation that doing so between bands, whenever that happened to be, might have negative consequences for the drive home.

Champions is a bar in the classic sense; just a bar, literally, running the length of a long room with stools along it, and behind the stools, another room that the stage was set up in. This is a good layout; ordering drinks doesn't have to interfere with floor motion, and if desired or necessary people can get a beer without getting kicked. It also allowed us, in this case, to keep the general public from getting in the way of the bands when they eventually pulled up and got loaded in; Darkwor (who should have headlined, see as follows) and CNV were late, and Bog colossally so, but Morgirion and the few of us who came in after them had a decent time drinking moderately priced beer out of disposable cups ($2 Rocks = win) and generally hanging out while the rest of the lineup got themselves in and arranged.

Eventually things kicked off, amidst LAZERS and other things not generally associated with DIY metal shows; all the more interesting for the experience.

Morgirion [5/7]
There were sound problems all through Morgirion's set; not really screwing anything up, but more on the order of just getting the PA dialed in and everything. With good attention, though, those in the audience could sort out the sound on their own and pick out a good strong Morgirion performance. Connor was still doubling on bass and keys, so obviously this wasn't going to have the full recorded effect, but live black metal very rarely does, and this was good regardless. The guys had, as mentioned above, actually gotten to the venue when they were supposed to load in, which made for a lot of drinking between then and when they finally hit the stage, but they brought it off with few if any ill effects.

After Morgirion closed up, Bog started loading in, which was a welcome surprise for many of those at the venue. Their legend goes before them; several other people, like me, had tales of a 50% hitrate between shows that they were supposed to play and shows they actually showed up for. With this one already starting so late, people were in a pessimistic mood that they might cancel again, but thankfully, they did get in in time to play.

Bog of the Infidel [5.57]
And play pretty damn well they did. There was less Bethlehem about their sound than the last time I saw them, and they were a little pressed for time, but this was still a good strong set of storming black metal and vaguely menacing farm implements; nobody got hit by the pitchfork that got thrown off the stage, but that it was thrown, and that people had to step back, is what's important. Black metal isn't supposed to be safe. The other important part, that the music was damn good, was also relevant; the band allegedly has a full record out, and they did a couple tunes off it, but didn't have anything available at this gig. For another time.

At this point, things were getting seriously pressed for time, and Darkwor, despite being all in the venue, decided to cancel and let CNV play for as much of their intended set as possible (one or two songs did end up getting cut), since this was their tour kickoff and they had to get on the road ASAP. This sucked, but bars unlike DIY spaces have set closing times, and with the show starting so late, there weren't a ton of other options. I was still able to get Foederati, so the night wasn't a total loss Darkwor-wise, but it's still mildly disappointing.

Cold Northern Vengeance [6/7]
More of a solid set than on the lines of the spectacular performances they've laid down in the past, this outing still saw CNV in good fighting trim as they headed out on tour, a tour that is now completely over because I took so goddamned long writing this. Going from "Black Metal Isolation" straight through new material from the forthcoming record (potentially out this summer, but don't quote me on that), the band mastered the sound (which had gotten progressively better) and laid out a kickass set of material both atmospheric and ripping. CNV has been, for some time, a band that people outside of New England need to take notice of; if they brought this show on the road as strongly as they presented here, they'll get that increased interest, and hopefully open some doors for other NEBM bands to get out there.

CNV closed up shortly before the bar shut off the taps, and while there was a brief amount of time to commiserate with Darkwor that they hadn't been able to go on, we eventually got flushed out and had to go on home. Though there weren't a lot of people in to start, the venue filled up nicely by the end, and the bar staff could have no complaints about getting 30-50 hard-drinking, often big-tipping (well, relative to the cheap beer costs) people in for three hours on a Wednesday night. A good show despite the late start, and hopefully this place will continue to be receptive to metal even if/when Mos Eisely comes back as an independent space.


And then work stuff hit and I was unable to finish writing this for like 3 weeks. Next show is tomorrow at this very venue, and if I manage to survive Dysentery and the other bands on the bill, maybe Thursday out at Ralph's for another spin of the chamber. Then on-call, then hopefully Hypocrisy the weekend after if I can swing it.

one leg by foot, two legs by rail

As entirely befitting an enterprise conducted largely on the eighteenth of April into the wee hours of the 19th, this pair of shows involved a circuitous path around various environs of Boston, elements that can be clubbed into a rough allusion to Longfellow, and fortunately since this is the modern day, two bouts of awesome blasting metal rather than any encounters with foreign occupying military forces.


Nåthruzym with Blood of the Gods, Nachzehrer, and Bone Ritual
Midway Cafe, Boston, 4/18/2010
---

After bunging my car into the usual car-bunging-into-place, I crossed over a block and picked up the Red Line, then promptly missed the first train due to the dumb and impenetrable ticket machines screwing around again. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, because if I had gotten on that train and then picked up an earlier connection on the Orange Line, I would have been walking over to the club when the rain-mixed-with-hail came through. As it was, I was five minutes later than anticipated and had the smarts to stay under the roof by the subway stop until the worst passed, then go over after.

I still got rained on, but this is a casual hazard of going outside in New England any time it's not snowing, so no big deal. Getting in relatively early after doors, I had the chance to get a couple beers and get settled before the bands started playing.

Bone Ritual [6/7]
Despite the sun outside as the rain cleared up, this was a hellish set fully up to the standards that Bone Ritual's set in the past. They brought out some new material as well as the stuff from their now nearly-unavailable demo (the band's been out of the CD version for a while, and now they're getting low on tapes); this will eventually translate into some new material, and hopefully sooner rather than later. It's difficult for any time seeing Bone Ritual after the first to match up to that experience (well, maybe just for those of us who were there for their live debut and didn't really know what to expect), but this was a high-quality show that should at least match expectations for this seriously good band.

Since the club wasn't full absolutely to the brim, I had the ability to take some pictures, which are below. This got more difficult as more people came in, and then I was both late and bushed to the O'Brien's gig, so no photos from there.



Little known fact: Cody plays bass in his bare feet, at least in Bone Ritual.

Nachzehrer [5.5/7]
Nachzehrer was also up for this, with another set of driving, thrashing black metal. The place was starting to fill up a little more as the afternoon turned into the evening, and despite missing Bone Ritual, they still got some damned good music. Either because of where I was standing or just because of the way the balance was, the bass was a little higher up than when I've seen this band previously, which seemed to turn the sound more towards black metal. This is cool stuff, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the band eventually sorts their sound out on record, when they're at the mercy neither of engineers nor venue acoustics.



Mark thudding away on bass for NZ. This picture is not of Wren with a plastic 7.62 NATO stuck up his nose half out of basic respect, and half because I could not get my phone out fast enough. This, though, also happened during this set and is marginally more newsworthy than "Bass Player Good At Playing Bass".

Blood of the Gods [5/7]
I hadn't seen this band before, but they held up their own end, laying out a good set of doomish black metal. It wasn't really the most differentiated out there, but it was a solid performance and fit in well with the rest of the bill, which while staying fairly united under the banner of black metal did allow for a lot of diversity in sound. This is how we do in the Northeast; the unfortunate part of this set, though, was that the band didn't appear to have anything recorded. Something to look for next time.



Blood of the Gods, mid-set.

Nåthruzym [6/7]
Having come down all the way from Vermont, these guys would be the first to be discouraged by any shortfall in their performence. Fortunately, this wasn't an issue at all, as Nåthruzym presented a top-grade set of epic-tinged black metal to this mountain fastness of...well...a bar located next door to a Mexican pizza shop. Black metal has a tendency to set itself stiff challenges like that, but it makes identifying the good bands easier, as they, like Nåthruzym did on the night, are able to manifest an appropriate atmosphere through the music, bringing the audience, whatever the venue, into the cold dark heart of the ideas.



Mutis in traditional Vermont epic-black-metal regalia. Yes, that is an apparently whole bird wing being used as shoulder armor.

I was able to get a CD from these guys; the sound suggests a little more Immortal than what I heard live, but this is probably down to the band not having to balance cabs against the PA, etc, and make sure everything got out. Hopefully, they'll be back again; despite the distance traveled, they got a good reaction, and as much good black metal as we already have in this part of New England, there's always room for more.


Show concluded, it was time to get some dinner and beat feet towards the transit system. Fortunately, it didn't take forever to get a cheeseburger-and-fries-with-the-works (which, as should have been expected, included a liberal amount of salsa and some sliced jalapenos) from the aforementioned Mexican pizza place, nor to get it down on the march up to the train station. Even with that, though, the train change and having to go so relatively far out on the Green Line, then get hiking again, meant that by the time I got up to O'Brien's, the first band had already started. Missed it, so to say, by that much.


Boarcorpse with Scaphism, Untombed, and Forced Asphyxiation
O'Brien's, Allston, 4/18/2010
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Forced Asphyxiation [5/7]
I got right in and took a few steps in past the door to immediately start listening to the band. Playing mostly basic but very solid death metal, they made a good restart to the night after the travel portion, and I was kind of bummed that they didn't have anything recorded available. This is a newer band, and it'll be interesting to see how they develop going forward; they had a good solid sound here, and definitely enough talent in the band to do something interesting with it.

In here, I got what would end up being the only beer of this show for me. Getting gilled at four in the afternoon at the previous gig may not have been the wisest decision in retrospect, but it sure as hell made sense at the time.

Untombed [6.5/7]
Wow. I'd seen these guys a couple of times before, and really, every band that hangs around for a while has the potential to unleash some absolute greatness, because otherwise they'd give up and do something else if they never caught lightning in a bottle in rehearsal and laid out some really killer jams. Juan, of course, is one of the truly classic death metal voices in New England, and the band's backed him up strongly before, but on this occasion everyone was really right at the top of their game. They got a good long set, and made every minute of it pay off, to a degree significantly better than what I'd seen from them before. Because, of course, bands and musicians can always improve, I'm not comfortable with going out and calling this a high outlier; maybe Untombed isn't going to be reliably this good, but they're going to play some good death metal whenever you see them, and additionally there's the chance for a performance this truly killer.

Untombed now has a five-song demo out, which I picked up in here, and which has proven to be full of nice crunchy death metal that strikes a good balance between old-school and slammier styles. Good stuff.

Scaphism [5.5/7]
When they started up, Scaphism had to deal with a bit of crowd depletion, but successfully yelled enough people back into the venue in relatively short order and had a decent crowd for a good, solid set of grind-tinged death metal songs mostly about rape, corpses, and raping corpses. However, this is also a band that will rhyme "snack" and "Sarlacc" when they need to, which really points up the essence of the band: the ability to take brutality out past the reducto ad absurdam, acknowledge the absurdity, and play it straight regardless. It's a tight needle to thread, but Scaphism does it very well, and I'm looking forward to when they have something recorded.

In here I went outside to take a brief rest on the sidewalk, because it was fucking hot inside. Unfortunately, this also procced concern from the organizers, who told me to get up before the Allston PD rolled up and started giving them shit about people lying around worse for wear outside. Apology!

Boarcorpse [6/7]
It was getting to the end of a long day, at least for me, but Boarcorpse, as they usually do, reached up and blotted nearly all of that out with a strong set of positive, brainwrecking groove-death metal. Jim had some issues with his pedals that were quickly fixed by a loaner from the Scaphism kit, but the mucking about with drum hardware didn't really break up the flow of the performance. They also brought a friend up who's just getting his feet wet on this live-performance thing to do some guest vocals, with pretty good results; not John Tardy by a fair stretch, but a lot of that was nerves and more will come with practice. Positive noise, positive chaos, and a good time by all; it may seem weird, but this is what you get with Boarcorpse.

Eventually, though, things had to end, and I dragged myself out over the bridges again to pick up the car, and manifestly got home without killing myself, as this entry makes manifest, though it is so fucking late that that may not have been clear for a while. In the interim, CNV kicked off their tour on the first non-Mos-Eisley Mos Eisley show, and there will be a writeup for that as well....as soon as that one finishes.

Finntroll with Moonsorrow, Swallow the Sun, and Infinite Descent [Worcester Palladium, 4/9/2010]

"Summer is a-comin' in, arise, arise." The weather has turned here in New England, and with shows like this, it really does seem like the festival season is right around the corner. I may not be going to NEMHF, but between one thing and another, I'm already looking ahead to the coming run of dust, mud, beer, and pounding metal.

The rain was a little difficult, but didn't really interfere with the drive out, and there are certainly worse ways to go out to a Finntroll/Moonsorrow show than through a gray rain that throws clouds of fog off the road when driven on, deep green trees against a stormy sky, pounding Equilibrium on the stereo. I got up shortly before the first band started, in time to get a beer and some merch, but not soon enough to resolve that and get much more than halfway forward before they got underway.

Infinite Descent [4/7]
This band had some good ideas, but they were incompletely developed, and the soundboard gave them a pretty rough going over. Prog-metal seasoned with brutal bits verging on the metalcore at times, the idea seemed to be to aim for Into Eternity or Evergrey in that mix of the aggressive and neo-symphonic, but the songwriting isn't up to standard, at least yet, to carry those ideas forwards to a band that is going to make people stand up and take notice.

At this point, it is necessary to note that this is also a clear example of this record's relentless even-handedness and absolute focus on the music; those who were there will agree, looking at the way scores have gone in the past, that this is about where this band came out, allowing for differences in personal taste. There are no indications that the band was penalized for having inflatable swords, dragons, and battle flails at their merch stand, but nothing recorded, and I am exactly the kind of vindictive old stick-in-the-mud that this sort of thing rubs the wrong way. Seriously, what the hell is happening with our music? The inflatables played into the festival atmosphere later, but it was desperately artificial; people are supposed to lug these with them to fuck around in the campground with and accidentally throw in the fire, not to buy them from a band's merch stand.

Swallow the Sun [6/7]
Once again, as in the summer, these guys had a hard time getting the sound to pick up from the start, but this time it was the vocals, and the fault of the soundboard, rather than the guitarist having to tune up while the rest of the band was going through the first song. Once again, also, they laid down a strong, worthy performance once everything was brought in correctly. They showed a little more of their black metal roots than I'd seen (or at least remember) from them previously, but balanced it with some of the New Moon material, which continued the Katatonia-like trend towards accessibility that's been current in their material at least since getting off Firebox. All around, this was a high-quality performance of high-quality doomic metal; these guys have got to come back around headlining sometime, hopefully with Insomnium in support.

Moonsorrow [7/7]
The performance wasn't quite as long, or quite at the full level of the summer, but it was a definite step up from the last time I saw them in this building, and the audience, confined by the small space, was another level up as well. As at Party.San, the band's increased willingness to go back to the start of their catalog for rougher and folkier songs got people thrashing more intensely, and this was an American audience, not a German one. Absolute, total pit chaos, but unlike Finntroll's set, it always remained secondary to the music on stage. Taking it all together, this was one of the best sets so far in this relatively young year. If you missed it -- or potentially worse, saw if from the balcony rather than on the floor like an honest metalhead, it's your loss.

Finntroll [6.5/7]
After Moonsorrow, it would be difficult for practically any band to make a notable impression; fortunately, though, Finntroll did manage to break through to a degree. Not all of their material in this set was up to the level of what Moonsorrow presented, but those who came to mosh were here for this band, and they didn't hold back in driving the floor into a frenzy. Most of the time, there was enough of a buffer -- or enough people folkdancing in the middle to slow things down -- for me to listen up instead of just tossing people back to avoid getting smashed, but this, also, is what we go to metal shows for, to smash and get smashed, to drown in sweat and splattered beer, to bang our heads into oblivion.

Unfortunately, though, they wound down, downed axes, and the security started shouting at people to get them out the door. If you followed their directions, you screwed up; the rest of us pressed in on the stage, kept yelling, and eventually the band's people prevailed upon the venue operators to give them an encore. At this point, I went up, stuck my head practically into the PA cab, and got decleated on their final riff because I wasn't watching myself. If I squashed you between the wavebreaker and the stage or the cab, I apologize, but in reality that is what the goddamned wavebreaker is for, so don't stand on the wrong side of it next time and you won't get crushing injuries if someone gets fired into it.

From there, back out, and despite the exhaustion, it was clean sailing. Next show is back out here, Bloodsoaked at Ralph's for Metal Thursday, and then likely more on the weekend. Summer is a-comin' in, arise, arise.

Overkill with Vader, God Dethroned, Warbringer, and Evile [Worcester Palladium, 4/2/2010]

Right, this is quite late enough as it is, and if I dicker around any more on this, it's going to run into the review of the next show and cause a pileup like I had last year around this time, but this time without any semblance of reason for it.

There are a lot more bands on the bill than noted in the title, but unfortunately I missed Woe of Tyrants and all of the local support -- who were packed into the upstairs while the touring bands went on below -- due to getting out of work at a normal time and then crunching through the normal Pike traffic. It's good for kids and those on flexible schedules in the immediate Worcester area to see a bunch of good locals in with the touring bands for the same price, but it's a bummer, being kind of a completist and coming from the Boston area, to come out to a show like this and realize when you get in that you've already missed as many bands as you're going to be able to see.

Regardless, I paid my $25 without complaint and mustered myself down to the floor and got onto the rail, because Evile was already warming up, and I had missed goddamn near enough bands already just due to the trip in.

Evile [6/7]
I'd listened to Evile's new record since the last time they came around, and been thoroughly unimpressed, so I was unsure which was the real deal: the solid and in-command live thrash metal band that I saw upstairs, or the the uninspired, samey one that ground out Infected Nation. This performance swung it back to the live take: again, Evile laid out a quality opener set of blasting thrash metal despite stumping for people to spread the word and get them a headlining jaunt, and again, I was impressed by the overall execution. They're not ready for a headlining tour yet, no matter what they think, but if they can continue to deliver at this level -- and find some way of getting it onto record -- they'll be at that level in good time.

After their set wrapped, I went up to hit the merch decks and get another beer, not being emotionally invested in the idea of having to be on the floor for Warbringer. Along with a couple God Dethroned CDs I didn't have yet and a Vader tour shirt, I also picked up the DVD edition of Evile's first record, leading on to the disquisition that's about to follow.

Evile really is a tale of two bands. They deliver really well live, as attested by the two times that I've seen them and the sampling of live stuff that made it into the making-of DVD, and, as demonstrated by their two studio albums since getting signed to Earache, they have colossal problems sounding interesting on record. This is maddening, because self-apparently, it's the same band and the same goddamn material, but from the band's perspective, this probably isn't so bad: it's a lot better than sounding good on plastic and being lame and boring live. However, this leads to the conundrum that there are not going to be a lot of people who hear Evile on record first and then want to go out and see them (well, outside of the eighties-revivalists who will follow anything with a polka-beat that you can pit to).

They do have some good material, and it's a sign of their good judgment and strength as a live band that they can pick, pretty much, exactly those songs and make a solid opening set out of them, then deliver at an extra notch up when actually out on stage. This makes them a good bunch of thrash metal musicians, despite their difficulties in (so far) producing high-quality albums; if they go on to become the Overkill of the current thrash generation, the band will probably take that.

Warbringer [5/7]
Warbringer, another new thrash metal band touring behind their second generic and often samey record, was up next, and fired up a solid if completely unsurprising set. They're about as material-bound as Evile is, so the differences in relative quality of the material were down to execution (and, as always, subjective listener experience). Would that have been different if I was on the floor instead of on the lowest tier of carpet? Probably not; I saw Warbringer from the rail while waiting for Kreator last year, and then upstairs in front of Vader in November, and this is about where they are as a band. Warbringer are still good live, and even if I have my doubts about buying their next record, I'm certainly not going to complain about this set. They're not ready to headline yet either, but they do quality support, and even if they don't take it to the next level up from here, the kids in their audience will probably buoy them to headlining slots before they get old, grumpy, and fixated on comparing bands to Kreator.

God Dethroned [5/7]
God Dethroned lost a fair number of people with their set, which was kind of to be expected from the only black/death band on a largely thrash metal bill. I really don't know what they and Vader were doing here, but for those who were up front, able to give them a chance, and 'got' the melo-death influenced black metal, they put out a good set. Some of the Passiondale material did not mesh in that well with the other stuff, and despite it being Good Friday they did not do "Bloody Blasphemy", which was intensely disappointing, but it was still a good performance, all things considered. If all tours were booked by the same higher authority, God Dethroned should have been playing this building in the slot that Swashbuckle, for no immediately rational reason, has on Hypocrisy's tour at the end of May, with the aforementioned pirates playing somewhere on this package, but the world is not run to such general advantage.

Vader [7/7]
As will be discussed below, this was the reason that I came out mainly, and Vader didn't disappoint. Pounding out a strong set of blasting death metal, they justified their presence on this bill -- at least, for anyone primarily going on musical quality and not an absolute thrash purist -- with blast and fire. Abstractly, I might rather have seen them, as in November, on a purer death metal bill, but they led back from God Dethroned to thrashing metal in convincing fashion, and gave a real shot in the arm to anyone lost by the previous band or, like I was, with wavering uncertainties about the headliners. If this had been the headlining set, it would have been a worthy capstone to a solid concert.

Fortunately, though, Overkill was still to come. And fortunately, that's a "fortunately". I talked a bit with Aaron before Evile started up, and he was of the opinion that "Overkill never disappoints". Bearing Wacken 2005 in mind, I couldn't completely agree with that assessment, but it was a strong enough endorsement -- respected source, and I'd never seen Overkill indoors with a US audience before -- for me to stay on the rail, which turned out to be the right decision.

Overkill [6/7]
That rainy Saturday on the plains of Schleswig-Holstien must have been the anomaly, because Overkill, to pardon the pun, completely killed it, laying down a solid hour and a half running through their whole history as a band, which at this point is going on three decades. The performance was top-notch, high-energy and ceaselessly entertaining; the limitations of the material showed up in a few places, but given the band's history, you'd be hard-pressed not to expect this: if Overkill's writing was generally at that higher level, then with this level of performance, they would have taken over the world a long time ago. Overkill's M.O. for the past 25 years and change has been the same: to take good music and execute the hell out of it. Because this is, fundamentally, live music that finds its worth in the live experience, whether in a grimy basement, a mud-soaked infield, or a club like this, as long as Overkill plays out like this, they can afford to make albums, occasionally, like W.F.O, which contributed in long measure to my uncertainty about them.

I'm still skeptical about buying Overkill records, but for now and the future, they're a must-see whenever they come around.


Things being concluded, I made my way on home, in time for the rest of the weekend to be occupied with family stuff and another week of work. Tomorrow is Finntroll and Moonsorrow, and then the calendar starts getting dense with local shows again. Good stuff, can't wait, and fortunately, I'm not super let down by being on-call for Metalfest weekend (which I wasn't planning on going to anyway).

travel notes and updates

Regarding the hinterlands festivals piece: Icelandic is slowly de-dickbutting their website, and even if trying to do Boston-Berlin connections makes the thing crash, booking now will probably get you a roundtrip fare in the vicinity of $1000 including tax and associated bullshit, even if you're thinking about doing something stupid like inbound to Oslo and back via Frankfurt over 2 weeks to do two festivals.

History passes away: a longfucking time ago I got sent to China on no notice and was able to do so by getting a zero-day visa in Hong Kong. Sadly, I found out last night through some bored Wikipedia random-surfing that this is no longer possible. ;_; Another bit of the wild old world is crushed beneath the wheels of uniformity and modernity. It's still possible, of course, to get a visa done up (for other countries, somewher out there) in a walk-up office with dimming fluorescent lights, Spanish moss creeping in the windows, and other expats sitting around sweaty and apprehensive, but the areas in which this is done tend to be a little tougher on the gwailo walking around without valid identification for six hours than Kowloon.

The net upshot of this is that the time to do something dangerous and ill-advised towards the edge of the map is not tomorrow, but today, and yesterday if at all possible. The trend, historically, is for travel to become merely transit, and actual adventure to be dumbed down and boxed in to prepackaged "adventure tourism"; go out there and try to see the world on hard mode before that gets nerfed too.