Concert Review- Witchtrap at the Drunken Unicorn

Back after a week and a half of crazy!  Hey, I have a life...  

This show was particularly interesting because I never thought I would see Witchtrap live.  I have been listening to them since 2006.  They are a great old school speed/thrash band.  I was deeply looking forward to this.   It was a clear night so on we traveled down to Atlanta!  The last concert I went to was... lackluster.  We'll see if this one changes things up.  I knew very little about the other bands before this show.


Thoth Nemesis-  Atlanta natives and a one man band.   I have heard this guy called black/thrash.  I love the black/ thrash style and relate it directly to bands like Nocturnal Breed and Aura Noir.  Well, the one dude in the band has an Aura Noir shirt so... We'll see.  Last review I lamented the lack of stage presence of the bands.  This guy hand huge stage presence.  I was wondering how he'd solve the "one man band" issue live.  He set up a drum machine his guitar and amp.  He was dressed head to toe in black.  He was wearing a couple of armored pieces on his left arm and was covered in dark eye makeup kind of like the old school band.  He then proceeded to turn his amps on, get his guitar feedbacking and held up an upside down cross.  He stood there for 5 minutes letting his guitar feedback and holding that upside down cross for around 5 minutes.  It was actually pretty effective.  and then he blasted through several songs of very riffy, melodic black metal with no hint of thrash that I could see at all.  He was more Dissection than Nocturnal Breed.   But it was good black metal and he was entertaining for a one man band.  It was a very good opener for the proceedings.

Summoner's Circle-  On their bandcamp page these dudes call themselves epic doom metal.  They took the stage in grey monks robes and black and white face paint.  They claim to be from another dimension.  It's a fun amount of theatricality that seems to have left extreme metal a few decades earlier.  Its fun.  The music is less epic doom to me and more like if My Dying Bride fell in love with the moog instead of the violin.  Or if Deep Purple came out in the early 90's and came from the doom/ death scene.  Its really good.  They play, interact with the audience and even do a fake ritual sacrifice.  Really enjoyable.  I hope to see them again very soon.

Ectovoid-  These guys are an Atlanta based death metal band.  They're making some waves.  They're ok old school death metal but with zero stage presence.   The songs blend together and they just aren't that interesting live so we step outside before the actual headliners come on.


 Witchtrap-  Its time... I never thought this wonderful thing would happen.  These guys get billed a lot as "Black/thrash" but that doesn't feel right.  I always referred to them as speed/ thrash.  There music is fast headbanging glory but absent of the atmosphere I relate to black metal.  But they stepped up and destroyed the place.  There was almost no theatricality to them but they played to the audience.  They talked to us and introduced the songs.  They played a healthy smattering across all four records including my favorite "B.L.M.D".  They fed the crowd energy and the crowd responded.   It was light and darkness between this and the Bolzer show.   The crowd surged, danced and banged away.   The place was levelled.

Thank you, Witchtrap.   Thank you for restoring my faith in live music.   The scenes, local, national, and international, are lucky to have these bands.  May all of them do more and have long careers.

The next one of these I will make sure to write up closer to the show date.  My memory is not what it used to be.

Axed and Smashed- Gimmick Life(demo)

I love it when this happens... A band asked me to listen and write an opinion about their music.  I feel it is a great honor and responsibility and I take it very seriously.  As always, I will endeavor to give my honest opinion.

I came to punk as my first style of "extreme music".  I had been exposed to earlier punk rock but really preferred the hardcore of Minor Threat and Black Flag as a more straight ahead, no nonsense style.  As I grew I started adding metal but I was one of those kids that loved both styles.  Yeah, I got into a lot of fights at shows in the late 80's/ early 90's... Anywho....

Axed and Smashed are a hardcore punk band from Orlean, New York... My redneck ass has no idea where that is but its far away... I know that.  This is a demo that was recorded last year.  They also have a split with the fine gentlemen in Vermin Warfare and Insomniax and a live recording.

So to the music... This is great! Its raw as hell, oldschool hardcore that hits you like a fist full of nails. Its short, fast and just rude as hell.  Only one track is above 2 minutes and that one is a slow grinder about, apparently,  a terrible woman.  I also think its a cover.  The tracks come hard and fast and grind you down.

The production is demo level and is raw as hell.  They mention something about that on their band camp and I have to agree with their point.  However, if you don't like raw and violent, I honestly don't know why you're here as a cursory look at this blog shows my love for raw and violent.

These guys are a great raw punk band that are trying to keep that great, nihilistic punk vibe alive.  These guys could surely give a shit about you, or me for that matter, and that's exactly what its about! DIY violence done right.  And they even put this recording up for basically free... I ask you how much more can you want... go give them a few bucks to make sure these gentlemen stick around for a minute.

Highlights: Looking like shit, Work, Continuous Cycle.

Visit their bandcamp: https://axedandsmashed.bandcamp.com/album/gimmick-life-demo
And they're even savvy enough to have a facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AxedandSmashed/

Concert Review: Bolzer and Trapaneringsritualen at the Basement

So I'm expanding my focus a bit.  I am going to experiment with concert reviews.  It occurred to me that I live near a major metropolitan area and actually go see a few shows... and I have a big mouth so... here we go!

I like going to shows.  Not for the social "we are brothers in metal" nonsense.  No, I just enjoy live metal and I am happy to be near a place where seeing kinda/ sorta underground bands is a real possibility.  So down my girlfriend and I traveled to metro Atlanta to see Bolzer, Trapaneringsritualen, Vimur and Cloak.

Cloak-  Because of rain, we got there a little late, so we were only able to catch 3 songs.  I have to say I really enjoyed what I heard.  Basically an extreme metal stew of punk, traditional heavy metal, post- punk and black metal, Cloak has a great mix of sounds that doesn't usually work for me.  I can only think of one other band that's similar that I like.  So good sounds, but weak performance.  I mean, they did try... they lit incense and put up a large 5 piece candle stick, but there was zero stage presence. They barely looked at the audience and mostly just stood there and played.  If not for the (small) staging I might have thought I was better off just listening to the record... at least the music was solid but they need to connect with the audience more.  However, they were the most interesting band of the evening...

Vimur-  Before I say anything, I want to remind you, dear reader, that I am a huge black metal fan... Just sayin'... Like Cloak, Vimur are native to Atlanta.  Unlike Cloak, they attempt to make more traditional sounding "norse" black metal.  We watched as they set up.  They put two random spears onstage, which, while fine, had me scratching my head a bit.  After sound check, the lead singer asked them to play a "short" intro and the band walked off stage.  "Ride of the Valkyries" began playing.  I mean, whatever, they're at least trying to create an atmosphere for the show but I found it a little cringe worthy and maybe a little too "on the nose".  They came out in corpse paint(of corpse!) and began to play.  And here's the issue... I mean, they were fine but they were a poor carbon copy of Norse style black metal.  Opposed note riffing, overly melodic in an attempt to sound "cold" but no atmosphere at all.  But they tried... At one point they all raised tiny "collector items" weapons and bellowed something about "battle... " Blah, blah, blah... The idea of going to war with a knife procured from a knife show... at least pull out a sword.   Like most modern bm, the music is way too melodic and is empty of any "atmosphere" or "brutality".  This is what I call "boy next door" black metal.  It is absent of everything that made black metal, and metal in general, interesting or dangerous from the start... They are a pale shadow.  As far as stage presence, the band felt like 4 people in a couple of different bands.  The bassist was on the other side of the stage, playing something that sounded like it didn't work with the rest of the music.  Though, apparently he was having issues with his set up.  During the last song he kept looking at his cabinet and finally just walked off the stage, literally changing nothing about the song or live performance.  I was not a fan but, hey, at least they tried... Unlike the headliners...

Trapaneringsritualen-  Another advance note... I am a huge noise/industrial fan. I have had multiple projects over the years in these styles and got into it around the same time I got into metal.  I was... interested in this project.  I have listened to a couple of their releases before and found them to be... too sanitized for my taste.  It was absent of the darkness or danger that the style should have.  Hmmm... that sounds familiar... its a problem in modern "extreme" music.  A lack of any real extremity.  But I thought that in a live environment the artist might be able to conjure some real atmosphere and push the extremity. Welp, he tried... He set up two banners with his symbol on it, lit some pungent incense and walked out in a fairly effective mask.  He actually got the crowd's attention... and just as quickly lost it.  All he did the whole time was play his music over the PA and bellow at the crowd.  When he took the mask off A SONG IN, he lost the crowd who just start walking away or looking at the their cell phones.  He continued to bellow and flail and its just... boring...  He never engaged the crowd, he never introduced the songs and he never fully created an atmosphere that's half way interesting.  He simply stood there bellowing, sometimes not even towards the audience... sometimes just into the air and not even into the microphone.  Its just this kinda fat Swedish dude flailing and bellowing over some "meh..." industrial/ ritual music.  We left about half way through the set and stood outside... like almost the entire crowd at the venue, and dear reader, it was raining pretty hard.  As someone who works artistically in a similar style, I have questioned whether this style can even be played live.  That point can be debated but standing there bellowing over your NON rip off is not the way to do it.  Well, perhaps the headliner will bring something interesting to the table in a live setting...

Bolzer- (Yes, I know they have an umlaut in their name, I don't have that capability on my keyboard.)
Up comes the headliner... They set up before the last artist and apparently joined him on his last song. Bolzer themselves are fine death/black/extreme melodic metal.  I've never been particularly blown away by them but I can see why people like them.  Its two dudes, one guitarist/vocals and one drummer.   I had heard various comments about how I shouldn't miss them because they are intense live.  The only question I have is... Were they tired or something last night?  They were probably the most boring performers.  They went straight into their set and just played.  The songs were technically perfect but they might as well have been played over the PA with how little stage presence there was.  We went mostly because my girlfriend loves the recorded output of Bolzer and even she said that she could have stayed home and listened to the record and got the same effect.  They wouldn't even look at or talk to the audience.  They went through 7 (I think) songs and then mumbled goodnight and left the stage.  If they played with intensity in other places they left it all behind somewhere else.  What this crowd got was a way too shy and fairly boring stage performance of a recording perfect set of songs.  No presence, no communication and no reason to go out to spend their hard earned money.


You want to know what's killing live music? its a performances like the one I witnessed last night.  Why go out when the performance is just a note for note playing of your recorded output?  And before you say that extreme metal is about the music,  I would remind you that even Mayhem at their prime would use pig heads.  I've seen bands light up a stage with candles.  Hell, even Mortuary Drape would put a real coffin on stage and Mutiilation would do an animal sacrifice.  Did these bands need to do that? Absolutely not but a little eye contact and a saying "good night and thank you" wouldn't have hurt either.

I've seen better underground performances many times.  And these are big names.  They need to do better to create a real atmosphere and put you in a mode with their stage show.  Otherwise the "dark music" just seems silly while watching some punk dude desperately trying to hook up with the bar tender.

Scissorfight- Chaos County

Wow! This is just the time for bands I love reappearing in one form or another... Let's get some young'uns in on this and make some damaging music!  Maybe... We'll see...

Scissorfight was a band I fell in love with in 1998 after reading an interview in Metal Maniacs, which had long since passed its prime by then.  But these guys were funny and, to be honest, they looked a little crazy, which was basically what I was and still look for in my music.  I picked the album at the time, "Balls Deep", and loved it! It was pounding drums, powerful bass, heavy as hell guitar lines and vocals that sounded like a mountain man coming after you for food.  It was awesome! And I followed them ever since until they broke up in 2006.

Then, magically, they reformed in 2016... I was breathless to hear what they had done.  They had new members and I admit I was concerned about what this would sound like...

Now this release is almost a year old so if you're a fan you know what this sounds like, but I have to say this ep is amazing!  The riffs are heavy and the song writing is awesome! The vocalist sounds like a yeti bellowing at you in rage.  Its a super heavy tour de force of a return.

I do agree with another review I read that said that this record gets more confident as it goes with the band sounding and feeling more confident by "Nature's Cruelest Mistake" and the excellent ender "Tit's up".  But this is a fantastic come back record and one of my favorites of last year... to the point where I still listen to it often nearly a year later.

Again no highlights, except the the two I already mentioned.  Hopefully we'll get a new full length soon.  The 'fight is really busy playing around so to paraphrase the first track, obviously "They Ain't Leavin'".

If you like balls out rock n roll, you need this ep... Go get it!  

Come to Grief- The Worst of Times

It was 1994... I was a young 17 years old.  I was looking for the foulest and cruelest sounding music I could.  We had a local record store called Manifest Discs and Tapes (Yes, kids, this was back when they sold cassettes :) ).  I went there every week to check out new releases and, luckily for me, the owner actually had a ridiculous amount of underground music.  That's when I heard Grief for the first time.  It was the "Come to Grief" record and it brought to my attention a rotten and disgusting world of DARK doom that some reviewers were calling sludge because it really didn't sound like Saint Vitus...  I didn't look back for a looooooong time.

I began to look away in the early 2000's... Sludge began to be used for music I thought had no business being called "sludge".  Sludge, to me, was always typified by Eyehategod, Grief and 13.  It was a style broiled with rage and hate and churned out some of the sickest and most disturbing music of my youth and then... well, it just.. stopped...

The bands that started using the descriptor sounded different than I wanted them to.  They sounded more like Explosions in the Sky then Noothgrush and they left behind the rage for an "indie rock" atmosphere, for lack of a better term.  It just wasn't interesting to me.  I wondered away from "Sludge"... drifting back occasionally hoping only to have my hopes dashed on the "post metal" rocks.  It was a sad time for me, as far "sludge" is concerned. There were a few bands that got it but not many... which is why I was so excited to learn about Come to Grief.

Come to Grief is ex members of Grief with a couple of other guys jamming to make horrible noise again.  I was excited! I thought that maybe they would create music that I would understand as "Sludge"... and they did!

This ep is a glorious return to form.  The riffs are pounding and nasty roiling over the drums and rotted bass riffs.  The music and lyrics are a montage of depression and horror.  The vocals are roared out as if from a murderous killer is running at you.  It is filled with pain, loss and rage and it is so cathartic and perfect...  I have a hard time not listening to it...  My wonderful "sludge" has reemerged and is as rotted and festered as ever.

The only complaint (and it is a minor complaint) is that this is just an ep! Its only four songs; all of which are spectacular!  The whole ep will fly by in a heart beat, a terrible and beautiful harrowing heartbeat!  I hope they go into the studio soon and give us a full length of this magnitude... This is another contender for record of the year!

I've just heard Iron Monkey are ready to release a new album and the first song is strong! A rotted, vicious breath of fresh air!

  

Venom, Inc- Ave

Venom... Certainly a household name for many metalheads.  Obviously innovators and polarizers.  I mean, let's face it you either really like Venom or you think they're hacks- There is no inbetween.  And, as far as Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon goes, that's exactly how it should be... Love it or fuck off and die.

I happen to be in the former camp.  As a child Venom scared the fuck out of me.  They came dressed in black leather and spikes surrounded by weapons fire and blood... and let's be honest that what scares us fascinates us.

As a young teenager, I ran across "Black Metal" and was instantly in love.  It was loud, crude and violent sounding.  It certainly made the hair metal I was so used to sound like Barbra Streisand... it was a revelation or a revolution, either way, I was hooked.

This hit me about the same time I dyed my hair green, shaved it into a mohawk and began listening to hard core. Yeah, my parents began questioning their child rearing techniques and there are NO photos of me from that time period... but I digress...

Needless to say Venom led me on a path to all sorts of horrid musical expressions (I count my love for sludgecore and black metal as their fault).  And I have hardly deviated from that path.  I was so glad to see them reactivate in 2000. I breathlessly waited for the record and was... disappointed.  I have been disappointed ever since by the output of Cronos' Venom...Enter Abaddon and Mantas' Venom, Inc.

Apparently reforming with Demolition Man and basically recreating the Prime Evil formula, Venom, Inc comes to try to set blaze to the Venom name... but do they succeed?

I would say that they do... What they end up with is a slightly modern black/ speed metal formula. It sounds a lot like Venom meets Motorhead.  Each track has that mid paced Venom atmosphere but supercharges it with a rock n roll feel that Venom couldn't always grasp.  Every track is soaked in that atmosphere and cult-like menace that the other Venom hasn't had in a while.  "Ave Satanas" rips into a mid paced rage that continues through most of the record.  That fire burns through "Metal We Bleed" through "Blood Stained" into the really rocking "Preacher Man"  and ending it all with the manifesto "Black n Roll".  It batters you with razor sharp guitar riffs and pounding drums.  Demolition Man sounds as menacing as ever and each line burns with an implicit threat.  Every member of the band is in fine form actually with Mantas ripping out great riffs and Abaddon pounding some really tasteful rhythms... All in all a great record.

The only really issue is "Dein Flesch" which is just out of place.  Its not a terrible song and I never skip over it but its too modern and is a glaring misstep in an otherwise spectacular record that will definitely be in my top ten list and may end up as my record of the year.

Go get this and I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Alright first new review in the can.  New review will be up to tomorrow! Keep banging those heads!

...And we're back... again!!!

So this has been a crazy and hectic 2 years... I've been running like a chicken with my head cutoff...

However, I have missed this blog and putting out my own view point on modern metal, so I am, yet again, back.  I hope to sustain more than a month or two and my schedule is deliberately less hectic.

The focus of this blog will be the same... I will highlight more underground releases I want to bring to the foreground.  Also I am going to review more popular releases both that I like and dislike on purpose to give an idea of what I like and don't.

Tomorrow I will do a new review every day for the week(Monday- Friday) and I hope to sustain that for a good long while.

If you have been following this blog, I really thank you... I like doing this and appreciate anyone who is interested in what I do and say.  Thank you for reading!

Tomorrow we start with Venom, Inc.  And move from there.

I hope you enjoy the blog and continue to read...


Hail metal and keep banging the head that doesn't bang!