The Great Trek into Kvelertak

Star Trek Into Darkness

The first one was a lot of fun, and so is this one. The main problem with the 2009 film was the rather unimpressive antagonist; this time around, they got Benedict Expletive Cumberbatch to work his baritone magic, and even with the almost incoherently silly and convenient script, he managed to play a wonderfully menacing and yet almost empathic bad guy and made the film at least twice as enjoyable as it could have been without him. The rest of the cast did their jobs well enough. There's enough action to fill all of the old Star Trek movies put together, and a different kind of humor that often falls into the referential category. It's this referential thing that's getting a lot of people (mostly die-hard Trek fans) really upset. As this is a "reboot" of sorts, there are going to be many parallels, and that is taken to a bit of an extreme here. It's done a little bit sloppily but I got a ton of enjoyment out of it. Good stuff. Robocop.

The Great Gatsby

 I'd been hearing bad things about this from the first time I heard about it. There have been at least four other Gatsby film adaptations in the past, and I don't think any of them have garnered much acclaim; it's just too much of a masterwork (or so I'm told) to really be "filmable," as people tend to say about things they like a lot. Obviously I haven't read the book so that defensive attachment wasn't an issue for me going into the theater, and I think it helped my experience a lot. It's a beautifully visual film with some pretty great acting, a lot of gorgeous women, and of course the story itself is quite interesting even if it is a bit of a "chick-flick" sort of thing. I'm not a huge fan of voice-over but it worked well enough. Perhaps it has failed though in that I don't really feel like I have to go read the book. Different strokes, Old Sport.

Kvelertak

Check another one off the list of must-see-live bands. I bought this ticket months ago, as soon as the tour was announced. They have come to the U.S. before, but never so close to me, so there was really no choice this time. Their self-titled album from a few years ago topped my list without much even competition (aside from Shining and Ghost). Meir hasn't had nearly the same effect but it's still an excellently feel-good metal album and didn't lessen my love for the band. I spent the majority of their set in the first and second rows, and suffered the requisite beatings from the mosh pit behind me; it was worth it. The frontman went crowd-surfing several times, and at one point one of them starting hanging from the rafters above the crowd. At the end the first few rows were all invited up onto the stage join in with the band in their revelrous finale. Kick-ass.

The openers were pretty good too. The first band, Black Clouds, was an instrumental three-piece playing rather djenty metal similar to TesseracT but with an extremely distorted bass, and a seizure inducing light show. It was fine but I get bored rather quickly without vocals. Next up, Black Tusk performed as the only opener I'd actually heard before, but were unfortunately fairly boring as well. I'm not sure really what made them boring for me. They're really quite similar in sound to the rest of the bill, but there's just something missing. I think the next band, Cancer Bats, managed to find that element that really gets my interest. Could be the rocking guitar riffs or the vocalist's energetic performance (plus pizza shirt), but whatever it was got me to buy their album Dead Set on Living. It's pretty great; a disc full of rip-roaring bluesy metal followed by another disc of Black Sabbath covers, almost exclusively pulled from their first few albums. They've got a new fan for sure.

Y’all want a 2012 top 10 music thing?

No, you don’t. Here it is anyway.

Stolen Babies – Naught

2006’s “There Be Squabbles Ahead” is awesome. It’s definitely in the top tier for me. Oddly though I didn’t really follow Stolen Babies’ progress after that, and it turns out for most of the time there wasn’t any. They took a big hiatus, but eventually they found out that people actually wanted to hear more music, and they happened to have a some on the burner; and so Naught came to pass. It’s as good as Squabbles if not better, and slightly darker, meaner, but still jaunty dark cabaret masterpiece. Their headlining show that I caught this year was possibly the greatest concert I’ve ever attended (along with the 15 other people who decided to show up).

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

“Dangerously angry one minute, rocking and rolling the next!” These guys never disappoint, except for the whole barely ever performing live thing. Book Burner is the best sort of grindcore; honest, raw, and heavy as balls. It’s just great. It is, in a way, a regression though. It sounds quite a bit more like their earlier work, say Prowler in the Yard, as opposed to the slower brutality of Terrifyer and Phantom Limb. This is due to the replacement of their drummer with the guy from Misery Index. It works.

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

I really don’t like the album cover art, but what does that matter? It’s another column of hellfire from the masters of true metalcore, Converge. They’re a close second to Stolen Babies for best concert experience of my life; these guys just tear it to pieces. All We Love… is not much of a progression, but Axe To Fall is hard to follow in that regard. It’s an extremely solid piece of music with everything I’ve grown to love from them.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

A momentary detour from the metal bits. I’m not sure why I tried this. Maybe just because I kept seeing the cover of Bitte Orca and being intrigued by it. Turns out that one isn’t really my thing, but this right here is just wonderful. It’s got a great sort of angularity in every aspect of the music, and lots of the lyrics pierce my little emo-heart.

 

Die Antwoord - Ten$ion

Definitely a worthy follow-up to 2010’s $O$, Ten$ion is another tongue-in-cheek masterwork of weirdness and irony that just hugs my hipster self all warm-like. Yo-landi and Ninja’s artistry is a sort that might be dismissed as trash by a lot of people, but underneath the ugly exterior is some positively innovative stuff.

 

Mares of Thrace - The Pilgrimage

Back to the metals! Mares of Thrace is primarily a female death/sludge metal duo with a huge sound. Their previous album, The Moulting, didn’t really do much for me aside from impress me by the concept of two beautiful ladies playing metal so honestly, but this year they really created something I can enjoy on its own merits. It’s got that angularity that I crave in spades, and it’s just straight-up heavy.

Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

It’s another Gojira album! It can not suck! That’s why it’s here. Like Converge, they didn’t really forge any new ground, just made yet another hugely enjoyable, groovy metal album. I’ve got to catch these dudes live before I get sick of them.

 

Absvrdist - Illusory

Here we start getting ito somewhat less familiar territory. I found a review of this on MetalSucks, and though of lot of the stuff they’ve been recommending lately is starting to leave my areas of interest, I was intrigued by the “blackened grindcore” description, which isn’t really a thing that happens much aside from with the increasingly stagnant Anaal Nathrakh. This here is mostly just good grindcore with occasional black metal mixed into some of the later tracks, but it’s still really enjoyable. “Come on, doesn’t anybody wanna slam-dance?”

Matt Elliott - The Broken Man

Elliott’s perfected his style here. Misery loves company. I can’t get enough of “Dust Flesh and Bone”

 

 

Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

I think I’ve only listened to this three times or so, but I’m still including it here because it’s just so different. I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it before, which is probably because my dabbling with electronic music is sadly limited. This is not typical techno or whatever by any means; it’s a dynamically vibrant, lush, dark experience. Highly recommended.

Some extras that deserve attention but I’m done writing so whatever

Napalm Death - Utilitarian
Beach House - Bloom
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine
Abigail Williams - Becoming
Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
Gaza - No Absolutes in Human Suffering 

Concert Review: Ghost at The Rock N’ Roll Hotel, 2012-01-19

Ancient Wisdom hails from Austin, Texas, and in keeping with the rest of the night, play a pretty hard-to-pin-down sort of sludge/rock/doom. They were definitely interesting to watch as the frontman is also the drummer, but doesn’t sit on a throne; rather, he hits the bass drum with his left hand and the rest of the stuff with his right, producing a pretty slow, tribal sort of beat. As is the case with most drummer-singers his vocal stylings are a bit rough, especially since he’s opted out of the growls. They rock pretty hard though.

Blood Ceremony was a real treat. They’re not the first female-fronted metal band I’ve seen live but definitely the prettiest one. Also the most interesting due to the flute. Put that thing through a PA and it pierces your very brain in twain. They play traditional doom, very Black Sabbath influenced from what I could tell. All four of the charismatic Canadians seem to be very capable on their instruments and laid down a ton of gripping riffage. I’ll be checking them out further.

Ghost of course was the reason I bought the ticket. They were the breakout act of the year in 2011, brought to most people’s attention by the main dude behind Darkthrone. I hear them described as Mercyful Fate-like all the time but I consider their Opus Eponymous to be miles better than anything I’ve heard from them; King Diamond’s voice is something I just can’t get into. Also their songs are just devilishly catchy. Their stage presence is incredibly entertaining what with all their silly costumes and antics, and “Papa” really has a handle on interacting with the audience while maintaining the character. It’s really like watching a play with face-melting sounds coming out of it than attending a metal concert. One of the highlights of their set was their cover of Here Comes the Sun, which I expected might be an encore but ended up somewhere in the middle; the actual encore was strangely omitted.

It was a fantastic night. The venue was nice enough, a bit smaller than Black Cat or Sonar, but the stage was pretty well elevated and the sound was good for the first two bands; Ghost’s mix sounded pretty muddy for a lot of their set unfortunately.

Kvelertak

Back in January, a band called Shining released an album that had me hooked from the first note. I thought it couldn’t be topped. Amazingly though, it seems 2010 had even more to offer. I first heard of Kvelertak on MetalSucks, a rather fantastic music blog which has been a great resource for me lately. The first thing to catch my interest was not the review itself, but the awesome John Dyer-Baizley artwork. I’ve been a fan of his since Baroness’ Red Album (Baizley is a member of the band); his visual touch has since been a near-perfect indicator of quality behind the cover. Sure enough, this new Norwegian band has created a monolith of feel-good genre-fusion extremely worthy of the lustrous illustration John so graciously/profitably contributed.

The band’s debut opus is an immensely cohesive mixture of punk, hard rock, rock ‘n’ roll, and Norway’s specialty, black metal. I’m actually quite surprised how well it works. I guess it might not be quite as infectious if the black metal part was more prominent; for the most part it’s relegated to the vocal section, while popping up once in a while amongst the riffing. I do suspect however that the screechy voice is what will hold this back from becoming a truly prominent album. There are tons of people who simply can’t stand that sort of thing, and I pity them for it. As far as these go, they’re not the best extreme-metal vocals ever, but hardly weak by any stretch. Combined with a few folk-metal tinged choruses and gang-vocals, the screeches fall into place better than any punk-rocker’s marble-mouth I’ve ever heard. Even though the lyrics are all in Norse, it’s easy to envision the folkloric fantasies and bar-stool anthems held within them.

Every track is a blood-pumping thrill-ride. I can’t count the number of times I’ve listened through this in my car; it’s just so perfect for keeping up-beat during such a frequently boring commute. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t really heard enough of the more traditional genres it’s drawing from, but this just seems so new to me. I feel like everyone should like this. Unfortunately there doesn’t yet seem to be any official US distribution, it’s $25 to import on Amazon, and it’s not on US iTunes (yet another reason for me to hate it). I think the majority of Kvelertak’s fans probably haven’t spent a dime on their listening pleasure. However, the band itself is pretty cool with that from what I’ve heard. They’re just jazzed that people dig it, which makes me like them even more.

Feast your eyes and ears on MJØD (which I think means beer, lemme check… close. Mead.) A little warning though, it might be not be quite safe for work or whatever.

It’s all like that. I hope you can agree that this is completely awesome.

Concert Review: Devin Townsend Project at JAXX 2010-10-26

It was a hot, sweaty night of nerdery at Jaxx Nightclub yesterday. The line of the black-shirted went all the way to the gas station on the other end of the parking lot; I was surrounded by people who were talking about things I actually new things about, like Gene Hoglan’s middle name and the release date of Strapping Young Lad’s first album. It was a pretty glorious thing. Eventually I got inside and decided to once again try out the main floor instead of heading to the elevated rear, which might have been a mistake, again. I managed about 3rd or 4th row from the front, and had an intermittent view of the stage. Not too bad but not great.

Tetryl

So the first local band hit the stage pretty quickly, pounding out some kickin’ death metal with touches of Lykathea Aflame. It really was a very solid performance for such a young band, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The vocalist had both the look and the attitude down pretty well, and his vocal style reminded me a bit more of a grindcore mentality. All the musicians performed great and it was probably the heaviest showing of the night. I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys again.

Exist

As soon as the drummer and the bassist started setting up their stuff I could tell what their deal was. The drummer had a Cynic t-shirt and the bass was something like an 8-string fretless. This could only mean one thing: jazz metal. Jazz metal is something very few bands have been able to pin down right, and it’s still not something that can really be enjoyed. One of the more important points of metal is to be focused in its brutality and not to meander too much, which jazz is wont to do. These guys did bring on the heavy for some bits, but they only managed to play two songs because of the ridiculously long noodling-sessions in which the lead guitarist tried desperately to be Allan Holdsworth, and pretty much failed. I suppose it might have been more fun if I’d been high. They did play well I guess, aside from that. You can download their debut EP for free at http://www.existband.com.

TesseracT

I’ve been aware of TesseracT for I think about four years. I was first introduced to them in a forum thread about the possibility of the existence of something as awesome as Meshuggah’s “I” EP, which is pretty much impossible to top. However, there were some good recommendations, the best of which was TesseracT’s song Concealing Fate (Part 1), which at the time was just a few demos. Their demo sampler was listened to many times on my walks to and from class back at school. Theirs is a style similar to Meshuggah’s in the use of low-range palm-muted “chuggas", known nowadays by metal nerds as “djent.” They distinguish themselves from their Swedish masters by using more melodic non-growled vocals for the majority of their lyrics, and lots of chimey ambient guitars to give the music a more dynamic feel. They aren’t a unique band now, but they might have been back then if it weren’t for Textures. Still they’re distinct enough to be recognizable, and very enjoyable.

As for their performance, it was outstanding. They’ve gone through a number of vocalists, and I think they found a keeper in their current guy, who was an entertaining frontman and sang quite well considering the range of sounds he has to make. He does sound a little bit too much like the guy from Coheed and Cambria but it’s not so bad that it makes me sick. The instrumentalists of course were all spot-on; they’ve been playing the same small set of songs for about half a decade, it would be kind of amazing if they screwed up at all. A weird thing that happened during their set was a large dude in front of me passing out. The singer had to find a dry spot in the song and notify security, after which the limp body was swiftly carried away. He came back for Devin’s set though so I guess it all worked out.

I bought their Concealing Fate EP for $10, and there will probably be a review forthcoming.

Periphery

Periphery is another djent band who has gone through a ton of vocalists. Their current screamer joined the band only just recently, just in time to record vocals for their debut eponymous album. The widespread reaction to the CD was one of admiration for the music, but disgust for the vocals, an opinion I share. He’s supposedly improved his style recently (after releasing the album of course, good move there), going so far as to post a re-recorded version of one of the album tracks on his myspace page. I don’t really see it as much of an improvement. I was all psyched to see if he could do better in a live setting, but first his mic didn’t work for the first song and then it turned out he was sick and couldn’t handle the stress on his throat, so he left the stage half-way though the set. What little I did manage to hear of his voice sounded okay, but even after he got the working mic it wasn’t really mixed high enough for me to make any judgment. Compared to TesseracT they played a lot more intensely; the music was very dense and complicated. It was so loud though it kind of sounded like mush. After their travesty of an album I wasn’t expecting much, even after respecting their founder Misha Mansoor for quite a while.

Devin Townsend Project

Devin Townsend has been near to or at the top of my list of favorite musicians for a number of years now, and the only reason I bought a ticket, although noticing that TesseracT and Periphery were on the bill was a great surprise. I managed to catch him during the Between the Buried and Me tour earlier this year in Baltimore, but a 30 minute set is simply not enough Hevy Devy. His new positive outlook is a refreshing thing in metal, although I sure wouldn’t mind a few Strapping Young Lad songs. His set consisted largely of songs from Ziltoid, Addicted, and Infinity, with a couple from Ocean Machine and Terria. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t single Ki track, which was disappointing, and Earth Day was omitted as well. Sad. Still, Bad Devil was featured, which is pretty awesome because it was probably the first track that actually got me interested in his solo material.

As usual Devin was an extremely charismatic frontman, starting out with a joke about the amount of ball-sweat in the room and a rapid-fire story about taking a shit in the CVS across the street. His array of funny faces made him a joy to watch, and at one point he actually came out into the crowd and played a section of a song while all the sweaty nerds patted his shiny bald head. It was obvious that he was well-loved by everyone there. His vocal performance was pretty incredible, much better than most footage I’ve seen on youtube and all that. He seems to be really enjoying these tours, contrary to the time when he swore off ever touring again and promised to become a hermit in the Canadian mountains. I’m very glad he’s found his new life in music and hope he’ll continue to be his prolific self for many years to come.

Portal - Swarth

I think it was a few years ago I was browsing the Meshuggah forums, and happened upon a thread about this band. It seemed everybody there couldn’t get enough of their sound. The most touted album at the time was Outre’, so I checked that out. I was underwhelmed. The production seemed lousy and it all just sounded like a big muddy mess; not what I was looking for at the time. So that album just hung around in my library for a while, mostly ignored. Then a few months ago, I heard about a new album from the band called Swarth; I got ahold of it and this time it clicked. Loudly and sharply.

Portal’s sound can be pretty accurately described as a whirlwind of angry bees being pummeled by an avalanche of rhinoceroses, with an occasional high-tension wire snapping through the maelstrom. If that doesn’t sound appealing to you then I wouldn’t be surprised. This sound is pretty consistent through their catalog so far, but Swarth somehow separates itself from the rest with a slightly snappier production and I think a bit more energy. It’s best listened to at very high volume and low light. Their lyrics are supposedly inspired by Lovecraft and other such things, but of course only the most careful of listeners will be able to make anything out. Reading the CD’s insert, all I gathered was that they like to use big words and Latin phrases that probably don’t really mean anything when put together. I’m fine with that.

Aside from the sound, Portal is known for their very strange stage presence. Everyone aside from the vocalist wears executioner’s masks and dingy business suits, while his outfit changes for each album release (so far). First he wore a large wizard’s hat that fell over his face, then a pope’s hat in conjunction with the robes and a black cloth, and now it’s a weird clock/radio-thing. I really want to see these guys live sometime.

Check out “Glumurphonel” if you wish.

Triptykon – Eparistera Daimones

It’s time for a music review! YAAAAY!

This album is the first of a trilogy (ergo Triptykon) headed by Tom Gabriel “Warrior” Fischer of the now permanently defunct Celtic Frost. CF died after their wondrous return in the form of Monotheist, which I might write about someday. There were some major interpersonal problems that led to the complete dissolution of the name. Still, this band has the same exact sound as CF did on their last album, as Tom has stated is the point. You could say Tom is Celtic Frost.

Tom also says that the lyrics in this metal masterwork largely deal with his anger over the problems leading up to the breakup, although that’s really hard to tell; it’s a lot of metaphorical religion hating stuff that I can’t really be bothered to analyze a lot. I did take a glance at the liner notes, and Tom has added commentary for each track explaining what it’s about. I’ll probably read that stuff later.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard Tom’s music before, it’s a very heavy sludgy metal with black, death, doom, and thrash metal influences. Tom’s voice is very distinctive, with few other vocalists that sound like him. The guy in Secrets of the Moon kinda does, which is one of the reasons I like them a lot. There’s also a pretty distinctive guitar sound that I can’t really think of the words to describe. I love it though. I think H. R. Giger’s original album cover art might be a good visual descriptor of the sound. Mostly it’s just really angry.

This is what you get when a guy with a clear vision holds to that vision throughout his career. Good music.

Shining - Blackjazz

I just got this in the mail so it’s time to review it, since it’s probably the most amazing thing I’ve heard since the intro to Merriweather Post Pavilion. Make no mistake though, this is nothing like Animal Collective. No sir.

This Shining should not be confused with all the other Shinings. There are a bunch. The most prominent (in my world) are the Swedish band, who play a very depressive sort of black metal. Their album V – Halmstad is amazing. These guys, however, are from Norway, and play pretty spastically complex genre mishmashes primarily composed of metal and jazz, leaning toward the blacker end of the metal spectrum. They’ve put out four albums before this one that I haven’t really paid any attention to because they’re just a bit too eclectic to be entertaining. For this, their fifth full-length, they’ve opted for a much more distilled version of their sound, giving in almost entirely to their metal side. The vocals are more prominent and the riffs are angular and abrasive. Once in a while you’ll hear a saxophone doing completely inhumane things alongside some schizophrenic synthesizers.

This album is a very new beast. I’ve never heard anything like it really; from the first note on my first listen I had a huge smile on my face. This kind of structured discord is really what makes me happy in music; that and the vibrant sound that just makes my ears ring. Some points of interest that might drag the more skeptical into it are a small tribute to Muse in the track “Exit Sun,” and an excellent (in my opinion) cover of “21st Century Schizoid Man” by the legendary King Crimson. I keep reading other people’s thoughts on that cover and few of them seem to like it, but I think it’s a great closer to the album.

Here’s a live performance of “Fisheye”

Concert Review: BtBaM/Cynic/DTP/StS at Sonar, 2010-02-01

Last night I drove for about an hour and a half to Baltimore to see my all-time favorite musician, Devin Townsend, perform for thirty minutes on a Monday night. It was worth it I think. There were some other bands too, I guess.

Scale the Summit

StS is a young band playing very technical progressive metal, with no vocals. They sound at times like Cynic, Atheist, Pelican, and maybe a little Dream Theater. I hadn't heard any of their stuff before the concert and I most likely won't be pursuing any music of theirs now, but it was an enjoyable set. Like most of the other music performed that night the style was pretty uplifting. The bassist had the busiest fingers I think I've ever seen live, and I've seen John Myung of Dream Theater play three or four times.

Devin Townsend Project

This is of course why I bought the ticket. I first heard Devin's music I think in 2004, my first year of college. At that time I was still an avid Dream Theater fan and not much else, so it took me a while before I started to recognize the genius in there. He's been one of those artists that I have to see before I die, and now the list is one act shorter. A few years ago he said he was never going to perform live again, but he's always running his mouth like that. Unfortunately he's just easing back into it now and only played for about half an hour. Still, it was an half hour of AWESOME. The set started with Disruptr played way heavier than on the record, and proceeded with a few tracks from Terria and I think Infinity, and ended with By Your Command from Ziltoid. The crowd was nuts for the whole set. Devin of course was hilarious, throwing out genitalia jokes left and right and just being generally charismatic.

Cynic

This band is a legendary act in the progressive metal scene, as they were one of, if not the first, prog death bands. Labeling them at all death metal is quite a stretch though, as the only feature from that genre that they incorporate is a little supportive screech/growling to offset the higher pitched robot-vocals. Other than that their music quite uplifting, dealing with very zen-like themes. Half way through their set, Paul Masvidal led the audience in a short yoga session. Seriously. It was an enjoyable show.

Between the Buried and Me

I've always had a love/hate relationship with BtBaM. I don't like their early stuff much because it's too hardcore, their latest material is too proggy, and their middlin' bits are still plagued by what I consider sub-par growls. I did enjoy Colors for a while but I wore it out pretty quickly. So, as soon as Cynic's set ended I headed for the back of the room. This was partially because I new the mosh pit would be the worst while they played. As expected I enjoyed some bits and was bored for other bits. I left before their last song ended because it was a long trip home and I wanted to beat the rush from the parking lot.

Altogether it was a pretty cool show. I brought my new etymotic earplugs, which I wore for most of Cynic and all of BtBaM's set, so my ears weren't too badly damaged. Sonar is an okay venue; the stage is a bit elevated so most of the time I could see the performers' heads at least, and there was water available in the back which was nice. Parking was free too, which is apparently not very common in Baltimore. It was cool to see the Metal Injection guys there too. I think they’ll be uploading some video footage of the show sometime soon.

Concert Review: Evangelia Amerika at JAXX 2010-01-08

I’m not the biggest Behemoth fan in the world or anything, but when I saw them listed on Jaxx’s website along with depressive black-metallers Shining, I marked down the date. Unfortunately Shining couldn’t make it to the states due to some kind of problem with their work visas, which totally sucks. I still went though, since Behemoth is pretty dang awesome, and the other headliner, SepticFlesh, also seemed quite enjoyable; so I got in line at the gathering of the black shirts and had my ear drums flattened.

Union Street

As usual the show opened with a few local acts. The first one was a very young punk band who admitted straight off the bat that they were nothing like any of the other bands. They spoke the truth. They kinda sucked. They played a few covers and probably some originals, but I don’t really know punk. The front-man-child came into the crowd at one point and incited a small mosh which forced me away from where I wanted to be in the crowd. I didn’t make it to the front of the line this time so I was somewhere in the middle, not front-row. This would plague me throughout the night.

Blood Mountain

So finally the kiddy-punkers, after playing the Power Rangers theme song for their exit, left the stage and were replaced by another young group that was a bit more fun. The guitarist looked like Michael Cera and the bassist/vocalist looked like a guy I work with. It might even have been him; I don’t know him well at all. The drummer’s kit was about two feet tall it seemed; I couldn’t see it over the people in front of me. They broke out with a Mastodon cover from Leviathan, which I thought was very cool but didn’t seem to catch with the crowd very well. Most other their other songs were Mastodon covers as well, with two originals. The bass guy introduced them as The Worst Day Ever and The Best Day Ever, with the first one having a second title of Whispering Eye, which got a lot of laughs. He was quite funny throughout their set actually. A very fun performance.

Apothys

I wasn’t sure if these guys were local or not when they got onto the stage; they sounded very professional. I guess they’ve been around a while. They played a solid slightly-blackened death metal, unfortunately without very much distinguishing them from the hordes of similar bands out there. The frontman looked a bit like Barney from Napalm Death, but they didn’t sound anything like that.

Lightning Swords of Death

The replacements for Shining hail from California instead of Sweden, but also play a sort of black metal, though not really of a comparable style. The guitar sound was really gnarly in a good way, and the vocalist (far left in the photo), while he looked like some sort of skinhead biker, let out a pretty awesome scream. Their name is pretty stupid though. Also I would have preferred Shining.

SepticFlesh

Apparently this is one of those bands that took a long hiatus and then got back together to be more awesome. I’ve only heard their latest effort, Communion, so I don’t really know how the eras compare. From what I gather, like Lykathea Aflame and Nile, they play music with Egyptian/Sumerian themes, which is pretty cool. As far as style goes they’re basically progressive death metal I think. They were very well received by the audience and rocked pretty darn hard, but at this point of the show I was very close to the stage-left speaker; I could physically feel my right ear-drum vibrate. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring ear plugs. Most of the music just sounded like a constant explosion. At one point the frontman told the crowd to divide into two halves, and then run into the center; this is called the wall of death. It really sucks for the guys in the middle, and I was pretty close. I didn’t suffer too much though.

Behemoth

There aren’t a whole lot of live bands out there nowadays that still use corpse-paint. Behemoth are one of the few that really use it well. Unfortunately for most of the set I could barely see them, even though I was only a few feet from the stage. Being short sucks. As for the music, until the encore I was still two feet away from the massive speaker to the right of me. I could barely make out any notes. Still I recognized a few songs and the crowd was extremely into all of it; some of the guys near the front looked like they were in the presence of gods. About 3/4ths of the way through the set the band left the stage and came back with fake blood leaking from their mouths; brutal. Who knew Poland could produce a band this ridiculous. I moved toward the back before the encore so I could get to the merch table easily afterwards, and I think I should have gone for the back at the start of the show. There’s a raised section with tables and a railing in the back of the venue, and the sound was way better there. Also no moshing. I know what I’m doing next time.

So now my neck hurts a little and I can hear almost nothing in my right ear. Hopefully it won’t last too long.

EDIT: Here’s a taste of what the Behemoth performance was like, originally posted at the DC Heavy Metal blog.

Devin Townsend Project - Addicted

Addicted is the second album in a series of four that Devin is putting out under the Devin Townsend Project name. He’s brought in a new set of musicians, although some of them have worked with him pretty extensively in the past (I guess just Poederooyen). The biggest addition is Anneke von Giersbergen’s vocal work, which is much more prevalent in this album than the female vocals on Ki. Anneke fronted The Gathering for a long time; I’m not up on their music so her inclusion wasn’t some orgasmic thing for me.

Anyway, Addicted is an up-tempo exercise in happiness in a metal context. The lyrics themselves aren’t necessarily happy but it’s an uplifting collection of songs to be sure. The original idea Devin had for this album was to emulate the sound of pop-metal/hard-rock bands like Nickelback, whose he has described as infectious music about the lyric writer’s penis. His take would have the sound, but would be more of a parody lyrically; poking fun at pop music itself. Instead, as is his wont, Devin changed the concept quite a bit. It ended up as something very similar to his older output. The lyrics are metaphysical an introspective, and the sound is waves upon walls of densely produced electronics and guitars. Anneke does bring a new element to the music by decreasing the amount of screaming and perhaps making it easier to sing along to it.

It’s a heavy album and it’s not a heavy album. It seems light-hearted but I don’t think it really is; Devin has put a lot of himself into it. It’s a flushing of a part of himself in preparation for Deconstruction, the promised barrage of chaos that I’m very much looking forward to. This album however, I’m not as enamored with as with Ki, which I felt was a transcendent album for Devin; this one seems like a throwback. A fun throwback, though.

Mastodon/Dethklok 2009-10-21

High on Fire

I’ve only heard one of High on Fire’s albums, and I like it okay. I didn’t recognize anything they played though. They rocked pretty hard but it all sounded kinda samey. Their vocalist sounds a bit like Lemmy.

Converge

These guys were probably the real reason I bought a ticket. Every album they’ve put out over the last 10 years has been a brilliant hardcore/metal masterpiece, with their latest Axe to Fall being no exception. I wish they’d been headlining. Anyway, the performance was every bit as good as I hoped it would be; they were all very animated and played excellently. Jacob Bannon had some fun things to say, and commended the chicken-man and the watermelon for their moshing skills (this was Halloween after all). Quite a few of the songs played were from their latest release, but they also hit some from Jane Doe and No Heroes which made me very happy.

Mastodon

I’ve never fallen asleep at a concert before, but Mastodon’s latest album Crack the Skye, which took up most of the show, has fallen rather flat on me. I actually lost consciousness a few times I was so bored. They did play a few from Blood Mountain and Remission, but strangely nothing from Leviathan, which I thought was their most popular before CtS. The older songs ripped pretty well though, almost making up for the first-half snorefest that everybody else seemed to love. The most fun part of their performance was their getup. The guy with the beard dressed up as Richard Simmons, and I think the bassist was that guy who paints happy trees. I couldn’t make out what the other guitarist was wearing, but it was some sort of shiny metallic mask. You could never really see them that well as the lighting seemed to be engineered to focus on the media display in the back.

Dethklok

This is the second time I’ve seen this faux-band, and it was pretty much just as fun as the first time. A lot of the video portion was the same stuff that was shown on their first tour though. Anyhows, they were really fun and tore up the stage quite handily. Gene Hoglan was spot on as usual, and I think Brendan Small’s vocals have improved. Very fun.

The venue was  the Patriot Center at George Mason University. I had pretty-ok seats on the side, with a good view of the stage. I was far enough away from the speakers that my ears didn’t suffer very much, certainly nowhere near as much as they did at Jaxx. The sound was okay, but kinda muffled due to the size of the place I think.

All images snatched from Brian C. Reilly’s flickr photostream.

Concert Review: Night Eternal Above America Tour 2009-10-16

Last night was my first time attending a metal show by myself, and also the first time I’ve been in the front row. It was a pretty darn great experience. 6 bands played, two of them local and the rest from various places. The overall theme of the night was gothic metal due to the headlining act of Moonspell.

Todesbonden

The first two bands were local, Todesbonden being the first. They’re a very gothic band in the veign of Nightwish and Epica, with a female lead and lots of symphonic stuff going on. For an opening act they were quite decent indeed; the vocals were enjoyable and the bass guitar stood out to me as very punchy and energetic. The front-girl reminded me more of Simone (Epica) than Tarja or that new chick, which is cool because I prefer them.

Blood Corps

The second band was a bit more of a disappointment, especially compared to the rest of the bands. Still, they weren’t too bad. I guess they were some sort of gothic metal; not really anything more specific that I know of. This was another female-lead group, but it rocked more. I think maybe the thing that made me enjoy it less was one of the guitarists prancing around the stage with his skin-tight outfit and black lipstick. Their entrance was pretty fun though. The girl came out in a trenchcoat and spiked goggles, and let out a pretty long scream. Fun enough I guess.

Revocation

These guys  were probably the highlight of the night for me. I’ve never heard of them before which is a shame. They’re a death/thrash metal band that seemed to verge on grindcore, signed to Relapse records, home of a ton of great metal bands. Three guys, drum/bass/guitar, with both the guitar and bass guys doing (growled/screamed) vocals. This was a great break from the first two acts. Every song was fast, heavy and hella fun. There were a lot times that they reminded me of Pig Destroyer. They had great stage presence, often joking around between songs and just being all charismatic. I bought their latest CD entitled Existence is Futile to commend them.

EDIT: I’m pretty sure this is them at the very show I attended! I can’t see myself, but I should be right in front of the guitarist. Watch at MetalInjection.net

Secrets of the Moon

Apparently these guys are from Germany, and this was their first time touring the US. It was pretty cool hearing the front man counting off in German for the sound check. They’re a pretty straight black metal band, not much gothic about them, drums/2 guitars/bass. Thankfully they steered away from the corpse paint like most other BM acts seem to be doing now. The music was ripping. One of the coolest bits for me was the fact that the bass player is a girl, and she seemed very into the music. Of course being into black metal shows itself differently than for other music. Very awesome altogether.

Divine Heresy

Dino Cazares’ post-Fear Factory venture replaced Samael on the ticket for this show, I’m not sure if it’s a tour-long thing or what. These guys are really the reason I showed up. It was cool seeing Dino and Tim Yeung (the drummer) chatting it up with the guys in line before the doors opened. They’re quite decent fellows. The music of course was great, and it seemed most people in the audience knew all of the words. I knew at least a few, like Bleed the Fifth and some of Failed Creation. Really fun metalcore band.

Moonspell

These guys seem to be a lot more popular than I would have thought. Pretty much everyone in the audience sang along to every one of their songs. Seems strange for a gothic black metal band from Portugal. Anyway, the show was entertaining if not entirely my thing, as more often that not the gothic part of their subgenre would rear its pathetic little head and bring down the heavy. Still, a lot of their act tore it up quite decently. They played two encores, which I’d rather they hadn’t really as I was pretty worn out by that point.

The venue, a place called Jaxx in Springfield VA, was pretty nice. It’s a small place, kind of a glorified bar, sitting in the middle of a small plaza next to an afghan restaurant or something. There was hardly any parking but I got there early enough to not have a problem. I was able to buy tickets upon entering, and got right to the front row and didn’t leave until the end. There were a few points where the crowd behind me pushed me against the bars hard enough to make me feel pain, but it was all part of the metal experience. Now I’m living with the aftereffects; a really sore neck and lots of buzzing in my ears. Still, I don’t regret it.

Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

"Divine law - Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!"

Another black metal review. This album is from 2007, so it’s not breaking news or anything, but I was reminded of it a little while ago and remembered how awesome it is. Also, I haven’t reviewed anything from this fantastic band yet, which somehow seems wrong.

Deathspell Omega are a secretive group of metaphysical musicians with burning-church-loads of talent. They started out as an orthodox (i.e. lo-fi and rather crappy) black metal band out of France. Then a few years ago they started making good music, most notably with the most excellent three-track EP Kénôse. It was filled with avant-garde churnings of brutality, chaos, and somber ambience that left the listener dazed and amazed. Two years later, this album was released with a similar sound in 46 minutes of chaotic glory.

This is by no means orthodox BM. It’s dynamic as any classical composition. There isn’t very much structure to follow, but it flows very nicely when it isn’t tearing from one section to another and ripping your ears out (in a very good way). The vocals are top-notch for the genre, very much like the angry barking of some vicious dog. I don’t know what any of the lyrics are, but I’ve heard they are quite intelligent and philosophical, of course including the satanic themes ever-present in this kind of music. The title is actually a Latin translation of a line from the biblical book of Matthew, which is pretty neat.

Anyhow, the music is just too great. I’m generally not good at descriptions so I don’t think I’ll go any farther with it; instead, check out the opening track for a taste.