Saturday Night Prog Metal Awesomeness

Opeth
Virgin Black
Live at Luna Park September 6

Man does my neck fucking hurt.

I'm ashamed to admit it but I got into Opeth just a little too late to make it to their last Sydney show (which was two years back now). Fortunately they returned this weekend past on tour for their superlative new album Watershed and my years of regret can finally be put behind me.


The openers were goth metallers Virgin Black, who I saw almost nothing of on account of being across the road drinking in the pub. By all accounts they were OK but nothing to slit one's wrists over missing. All I can say about them of my first hand experience is that they produced a hell of a mighty bass rumble during their last song while I was waiting in line for the coat check.

But as for Opeth...


Heir Apparent

I was 90% sure they would open with this track, as it seemed like such an obvious way to get around the cliché of opening with the first track off the new album by instead opening with the track that was almost going to be the first track off the new album and that still starts things off with the required kick in the face of metal brutality. Having seen Opeth live on DVD before I wasn't expecting too much of an energetic set from them but pleasingly they exceeded my expectations on this count and gave this song in particular the extra balls and energy that a good live performance requires.


Master's Apprentices

Then it was straight into an older but no less brutal kick in the face metal track. The audience responded most favourably to this not so old classic. To my approval I noticed that there wasn't any serious moshing going on, just jumping, fist pumping and head banging. Not that I have anything against moshing when it's appropriate for the music but there are too many fucking kids nowadays who'll start a moshpit for anything. It's fine when it's Rage Against the Machine, Slayer or Dillinger Escape Plan but for fucks sake why at MSI or Tool? I imagine these idiots at a Wiggles concert, dragging little kids out of the way to make a circle and going “Big Red Car! Fuck yearh lets go!”

The Baying Of The Hounds

Mikael introduced this one by saying “All the tracks on this album except one are about the devil. This one is about dogs.” The first of his infamously dopey stage banter, which we got a lot of. To be honest I mostly found him pretty funny, in a characteristically literal Western European kind of way.

Anywho, the start of this song was killer and had a huge bouncing mosh pit going.


Serenity Painted Death

I'm not a huge fan of Still Life, and Mikael introduced this one by saying that none of them liked playing this particular song that much (the only member who did was their old drummer) which vindicates my opinion a little. I actually made a bathroom dash during this track, which for some reason I always feel a little ashamed of doing during a concert, but at least it gave me a chance to notice the light show they had going, which was projected back out over the audience rather than being focused on the band. Very cool!

To Rid The Disease

The obligatory acoustic track off Damnation. Some of the kids seemed pretty impatient with it but I really enjoyed it. It was good to see that Opeth genuinely are as comfortable with the mellow stuff as the heavy songs in a live setting, but this was the only track in that vein for the night. It's a pity because I would have liked to hear 'Face Of Melinda' or 'Coil' as well.



The Lotus Eater

This was a new song that I had been really looking forward to. Unfortunately this was one of the first times they'd played it live and while it was tight technically it didn't come together quite as well as it could of. I was of course still really pleased to hear it but was actually a little disappointed by the lack of audience response to the wacky boogie breakdown.

Bleak

This is one of my favourite Opeth tracks and it went off, except for an unfortunate five minutes of downtime in the middle where Mikael's guitar cut out. (“At least now you know that we play everything you hear!” was his response.) The band stalled for time by resorting to the stereotypical metal cliché of the wank drum solo, which was followed by a wank guitar solo from new guitarist Fredrik Akesson and for good measure a wank keyboard solo too. Say what you like about the new guys but they sure as fucking hell have chops.



The Night and the Silent Water

Mikael introduced this one as being written about his grandfather who passed away. The audience responded with the perfect sitcom “Awwwww” sound effect. This one went off pretty awesomely too, but not as awesome as...

Deliverance!

I might be a totally predictable fanboy but I fucking love this song. That legendary outro was more brutal than my best expectations. The new drummer, Ax, may not have put as much of a syncopated snap into that classic riff as Lopez used to but man did he smash the shit out of it. It was awesome.

Demon Of The Fall

And they finished the main set with the other song that they're obliged to play every night for the rest of their lives. It was good too. They also said that they hoped to come back again next year, here's hoping!



The Drapery Falls

This song was the encore. Mikael apologised for taking a while to come back out, “Mendez had to go to the bathroom”. This track is a little mellower and made a very nice moody end to the night.


To be honest I kept my expectations tempered for this one, based on the slightly unenergetic vibe of Opeth's live albums and my reasoning that the music is fairly cerebral and not ideal metal concert material. Fortunately and to my delight my expectations were well exceeded. They brought the rock and then some and it was enhanced by one of the best metal concert audiences I've ever seen. Despite the presence of quite a few kids the audience was mostly mature, appreciative and didn't smell too bad. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that Opeth do come back next year!

The wank solos:



To Rid The Disease (Sydneysiders still can't clap in time):



The breakdown of Master's Apprentices. Sideways and wobbly but good sound quality:

Years in Music

I've had surprisingly little 'home in front of the computer' time this week, so in lieu of writing a real post I'm going to participate, slightly tardily, in this meme that has been floating around in which you pick an album for every year that you've been alive. The exact criteria for the choices are left quite vague, so I'm approaching it with the idea that I'll pick the album that is most closely associated with that period of my life.

1980:
That said, for obvious reasons it's a bit hard to do so for my pre-teen years. In fact it's almost impossible to pick anything at all for the first few entries, since for most of the early Eighties it's hard to even find albums that I've even heard for some years. So my first pick is Flash Gordon by Queen. I've never heard the album, but I sure loved that title track when I was 10. “Flash! Aah ahh!”

1981:
This is the only year out of the twenty eight that I'm genuinely at total a loss to pick anything for so I'm going to go with Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports, even though I've never heard a second of it, just because I always liked that guy.

1982:
In contrast 82 is actually an easy one. Dire Strait's Love Over Gold was the first album I ever fell in love with. At the age of two I probably wasn't that fussed about it, but I really got into it once I turned five!

1983:
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut. It wasn't until fifteen years later that I actually heard it, but as covered previously here I still have a soft spot for the Pink Floyd album that everyone else hates.

1984:
This is another tricky pick due to scarcity of decent music that I'm familiar with from 1984, but I'm going with Metallica's Ride the Lightening, even if I don't think I've ever listened to it once all the way through. Eighties metal deserves to be namechecked at least once on this list.

1985:
Again I'm going to go with Dire Straits. Brothers in Arms has always felt like the quintessential Eighties album to me, which is perhaps a little strange given that it's a throwback to Seventies stadium rock in the era of new wave and synthpop, but it sure got played a lot around my house.

1986:
It would be remiss of me to leave Coil off the list! Horse Rotorvator is certainly not my favourite album of theirs, but it's far and away the best thing I could find for 86.

1987:
I'm going to reprise 1983 here and go with Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Yet another album that everyone hates, but that I grew to enjoy before I was told that I wasn't supposed to like it.

1988:
And just as it would be unjust to forget Coil, it would also be unforgivable not to mention Skinny Puppy, one of the few good things to come out of a wretched musical decade. Again, VIVIsectVI is one of my less liked albums of theirs, but it's still the best thing I could find listed for a crummy year.

1989:
The Cure's Disintegration. It would probably be more honest to pick NIN's Pretty Hate Machine, but that band is going to pop up a lot later, and Disintegration's unbelievably depressing mood made a pretty huge impression on me when I first heard it, ten years after its release.

1990:
I'll go with Skinny Puppy again. Too Dark Park actually does happen to be my favourite album of theirs.

1991:
There are albums that meant more to me that I could pick, but Nirvana's Nevermind is, to me, the quintessential Nineties album, and provided a pretty consistent soundtrack to my high school days.

1992:
Pretty much the last year that I had any trouble picking an album for. Nine Inch Nail's Broken is a great album. But not that great.

1993:
I wanted to pick Einsturzende Neubauten's Tabula Rasa, or Nirvana's In Utero for the sake of diversity, but who am I kidding? I love Tool's Undertow to pieces. Even if they far surpass it in many ways on later albums, it has a raw dirtiness that I still return to often.

1994:
This was a really fucking great year for music. Nirvana's MTV Unplugged, Jeff Buckley's Grace and Mayhem's De Mysteriius Dom Sathanas are all worthy candidates, but are all comfortably eclipsed by NIN's The Downward Spiral, an album which has all kinds of special significance to me, and which I've blathered on about in this blog many times before already.

1995:
The Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness hasn't aged that well, but it was both ubiquitous and universally adored (see what I did there) for a good long time in the mid Nineties.

1996:
Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. Great album, although one I didn't come to until quite recently. I'm really only picking it so that I don't have every Tool album somewhere on this list.

1997:
Radiohead's Ok Computer. I didn't actually get this one until the next year, but its morbid paranoia made an unfortunately appropriate soundtrack to my last years of high school.

1998:
This is the point at which I can actually start doing this list properly, as it wasn't until this year that I became a real music geek. The soundtrack to this year for me was actually Ok Computer and Mellon Collie more than anything else, but Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals was a pretty constant companion too (honourable mention also goes to The Smashing Pumpkin's Adore and PJ Harvey's Is This Desire?). Can you tell that I was a miserable teenager that year?

1999:
A total no brainer. I must have listened to NIN's The Fragile at least three times a day for a year after it came out. I still remember skipping uni classes to go and buy it the day it came out. And hanging around in the record store for about an hour the day before because they were playing it on the PA.

2000:
A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms. More fun memories associated with this album, such as coming home totally shitfaced from one of those fun Uni mid afternoon booze ups to find that my friend had left this album in my room for me. When I woke up the next morning I remembered nothing about what it sounded like, only that at the time I was listening to it I thought it was the most incredible thing I'd ever heard.

2001:
Tool – Lateralus. How could I pick anything else? Not just the soundtrack to that year, but to most of my life since...

2002:
I'm pretty sure we listened to Korn's Untouchables and System of a Down's Steal This Album a lot more, (and we definitely listened to Cripple Mr. Onion's album even more still, but it was a year or two old at the time) but Boards of Canada's Geogaddi always brings to mind all the times we sat in the sun chilling out and drinking Summer Ale. It felt like we did that a lot back then, even though it was barely ever sunny in Christchurch, and I was hell busy with my final year of Uni.

2003:
Massive Attack's 100th Window would probably do as well, but Radiohead's Hail to the Thief lived in our kitchen stereo for most of the year and got played probably twice a day at least (once by Barnes, once by me). It must have driven our other flatmates nuts.

2004:
There were many far better albums released this year (Nick Cave's Lyre of Orpheus, Dillinger Escape Plan's Miss Machine and Isis' Panopticon come instantly to mind), but Velvet Revolver's Contraband got a hell of a lot of playtime from me this year, and is fairly strongly associated with an old girlfriend as well. I sure wish I could pick a better album for this year, but this is the actual honest choice.

2005:
I blame Meshuggah's Catch 33 (along with Miss Machine and Panopticon, but they came out the year before) for turning me from a relatively middle of the road hard rocker into an unredeemable metal troglodyte. Damn you brutally heavy, technical music!

2006:
This was the year I moved to Australia, and Tool's 10,000 Days was the soundtrack to the three months of pissing around it took me to get here. Few albums are as strongly associated with specific times as this one is for me.

2007:
I'm a bit torn here. Musically I think of this as the year I got turned on to Nightwish, so I could list Dark Passion Play, but the truth is I like Once a hell of a lot more, and even if the music didn't do quite as much for me Nine Inch Nail's Year Zero is the obvious choice, both for the innovative way that Trent Reznor used the internet as his liner notes, and for how the album concept reflected world events of the last five years so well.

2008:
Opeth – Watershed. See my post of a few weeks back. This album still fucking rocks!

A Couple Of Early Candidates For Album Of The Year

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This Is The Sound Of A Downtuned Guitar

Opeth – The Roundhouse Tapes

I was going to wait for Opeth's new live record to come out on DVD but restraint failed me and I grabbed the audio CD version. It turned out to be a wise choice, as the DVD has since been delayed until next September.

On paper at least, this album looks amazing. The setlist to the concert is like something from a wet dream; if you were to ask me to choose the best song off each Opeth album I would come up with almost exactly the same list (Opeth nerd note: I would actually replace 'Windowpane' with 'Closure' and include 'Deliverance').

Unfortunately as it turns out The Roundhouse Tapes is a bit superfluous. The songs are performed almost exactly the way they appear on the album, which is by no means a bad thing because the original version are awesome, but I was expecting little more. There are some differences of course. Per's keyboards are not present on the original versions of the older songs, and his work makes a nice addition to them. They have a new drummer, Martin Axenrot, who fits in well. His predecessor Martin Lopez will be much missed, with his jazzy take on death metal drumming, but Axenrot has his own style, one that makes me think a little of Josh Freese from A Perfect Circle and Nine Inch Nails with his huge sound and epic crashing fills.

In the technical arena all five band members deliver note perfect performances. Perhaps the most impressive instrument on stage is Mikael's voice, which surprises with its power both in clean and death metal mode, just as it did on their last live album Lamentations. We also get a lot of Mikael's intersong banter. He has a reputation for talking total crap at his concerts but I found most of what he said to be at least mildly amusing, “This song has some lyrics that are absolute black metal nonsense” made me laugh more than once.

I'm told that in person Opeth are a phenomenal band (and still not a day goes by that I don't kick myself for missing my chance to see them in 2006) but that doesn't really come through on this live album. Still, it's no bad thing to have alternate versions of nine of the best songs ever written sitting on my ipod.

Burn The Spirits Of Cold, That Travel Through My Soul

Opeth – Orchid

And at long last we have finally come to the end of my traversal of Opeth's back catalogue. Orchid is their first album, and my disappointment with their second release Morningrise meant that my expectations were low. Fortunately it turns out that, while Orchid is nowhere near as accomplished as their mid and late period masterpieces, it's still ranks favourably in their oeuvre.

Most of the songs fit into the standard Opeth style. Long compositions formed of baroque death metal riffs alternating with moody acoustic passages. This album differs because there's still some clear roughness to the performances, production and songwriting when compared to later albums, but the passion shines through and delivers a collection of solid, enjoyable metal songs.

Two tracks stand out for special mention. 'Silhouette' is a short piece for solo piano, featuring some very impressive playing by original drummer Anders Nordin, a type of song that they've never done since and which caused me to remark sadly that there's not enough real piano in metal (a wish that was fulfilled in a most satisfying manner recently by the new Dillinger Escape Plan album, but more on that later). Secondly 'Under The Weeping Moon' stands out as one of the best songs they've ever done, most notably for it's moody ambient breakdown in the middle.

Opeth's artful compositional wizardry has always been the first thing that comes to mind when I justify my love for them, but even back in 92 when those skills were still being developed they excel all the same because of their excellent sense of mood. Despite all Akerfeldt's talk of 'evilness' the music as a whole, even the heaviest parts, is laden with a romantic melancholy for which the brutal death metal image is just a façade. The fusion of the genre with such an antithetical feeling is something that no other band I've heard has pulled off. And when you combine that with the writing genius that Akerfeldt later developed, why you have a series of albums made of pure win and metal!

He's A God Now!

Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant

Arch Enemy have blown me away with great live performances twice in a year now, and I've finally gotten around to getting some of their music on record.

At their heart Arch Enemy are a straightforward kick ass thrash band. Rise of the Tyrant bursts out of the gate ferociously and doesn't let up for the full running time of the album (save for a misguided mellow instrumental towards the end that it would be uncharitable to dwell on). The rhythm section hammers away with an energetic viciousness that more than makes up for the fact that we've all heard this kind of thing done many times before, and the raw, exposed (but polished) production gives it a punkish kind of urgency. The first guitar contrasts the thrash with more restrained, classic rock style leads that tend toward the epic and melancholy. A tasteful touch of choirs and synths is added here and there help to keep things interesting. And of course in true thrash metal tradition there's plenty of wild soloing to be found, which on this album evokes the styles of both Slash from Gunners and Terrance from Suffocation (a pairing which is much more successful than you might expect).

As is the order of the day in metal currently political allegory is all over this album, and unlike so many of their peers Arch Enemy actually know how to do a real allegory. There are few overt statements to be found, just smartly ambiguous references to the scenario of the albums title and an inspired choice of audio sample (from the movie Caligula) to open the title track.

Of course Arch Enemy's true point of difference is vocalist Angela Gossow, a petite blonde capable of grunting out death metal bellows with the best of her male counterparts. Curiously enough her voice on the album sounds less brutal than when I've heard her 'sing' live, but it's still fucking impressive! Her guttural howls may be higher in pitch than is conventional for a death metal band but there is something far eviller about this vocal style when it comes from a woman. A guy doing death metal growling is always on some level engaging in testosterone driven macho posturing, but when a woman is forcing such unholy noises out of herself, there's no question that it's all purely in the service of evil and for the glory of Satan.

Here's the official video for 'Revolution Begins':

Still The Same As Yesterday

Opeth – My Arms, Your Hearse

That's right kids, it's time for another Opeth album. My Arms, Your Hearse is the bands third release, coming between Morningrise and Still Life. As you might recall I found those albums a little disappointing compared to the brilliance of their later work, so my expectations were not that high for this one. Fortunately it turned out to be pretty damn good!

Hearse marks a transition point for this band. On their earlier albums, Morningrise and Orchid, they showed a unique sound and style but it is only at this point that their compositional skill suddenly makes some sort of quantum leap, and the thunderous heavy riffs and mournfully beautiful gentle passages that always populated their songs coalesce into arrangments of perfect proportion and craftsmanship. Martin Lopez' drumming is particularly insane on this disc. He has this brilliant way of alternating and even combining straight up death metal thundering and syncopated jazziness. I may not like this one as much as Blackwater Park or Deliverance, but it's still a fine entry in their discography.

Like Still Life and Ghost Reveries, My Arms, My Hearse is a concept album. The first half of the story has a mood bittersweet and sad, describing a recently deceased ghost watching over his widow, waiting for her to die so that they can be together again. The highlight of this first section is 'When', a nine minute epic encompassing the whole spectrum of this bands' dynamic range. The tone then takes a sudden turn to the horrific in the much loved fan favourite 'Demon of the Fall', in which the protagonist's feelings change to rage and hate, as he sees his love begin to put the past behind her and get on with her life. The album proper closes with the brilliant 'Epilogue', a song unlike anything else done before or since. Sure they've recorded other straight up wank solo centred prog rock instrumentals before, but not something as Eighties as this. I love that Dire Straits-esque organ.

The version I have also has two cover songs tacked on to the end. Their version of Celtic Frost's 'Circle of the Tyrants' is not terribly interesting, it sounds just like what you'd expect of Opeth covering a straight up thrash metal song. 'Remember Tomorrow' (written by Iron Maiden) works a lot better, probably because it's more sophisticated quiet/loud dynamics are a better fit to Opeth.

Another great album from these guys, but not their best.

Just Because It Is Not Heavy Does Not Mean It Is Not Evil

Opeth – Lamentations

We've taken a bit of a break from the Opeth love here at the Asylum for a little while, mainly due to my disappointment with Still Life and Morningrise when compared to their later stuff. However I've finally managed to track down a copy of their live DVD, Lamentations, and I'm pleased to report that it's super fucking awesome.

This disc was released following their Deliverance/Damnation tour and contains material only from those two albums and from their preceding release, Blackwater Park. This just happens to be the period where, in my opinion, they were at the height of their ability. (The reason for the limited selection range of tracks included is, I believe, because of legal issues with their former record labels. They have another DVD due out later this year which covers material from an even spread of all their albums.)

The concert opens with the entire Damnation album played front to back, with 'Harvest' off Blackwater Park slotted in near the end for consistency's sake. As I mentioned in my very brief one line review of Damnation, it is a stylistic departure for the band, one where they temporarily put death metal aside completely and pulled out the acoustic guitars, clean vocals and ethnic drums to make a mellow prog rock album. Much to everyone's surprise Opeth fans as a whole, while not numbering Damnation among the best of their albums, gave it decent amount of credit and for the first half of this DVD you'll be treated to the unlikely scenario of a concert hall packed to the brim with greasy haired, black t-shirt wearing metallers standing quietly and respectfully as they listen to a dude strum away on an acoustic guitar.

But fuck if this disc didn't make me even more angry at myself for missing their concert here last year. Their albums are inspired enough but live they deliver still more intensity. The four five (mustn't forget Per tucked away behind the keyboards there!) members of the band may not be showmen like Peeping Tom or Mammal, but they all seem totally absorbed by and in love with the music they're making while onstage. The viewer is treated to many shots of leadman Mikael Akerfeldt looking skyward with eyes shut tight and a blissful look on his face as he busts out another glorious guitar solo. And speaking of Akerfeldt, fuck this guy is awesome! The whole band are brilliant musicians but he in particular astonished me with his talent. Metal vocals in a live context are always likely to disappoint but Akerfeldt's voice is if anything even better than on the albums. His cavernous growls on the heavy tracks are as great as I'd hoped but I was especially stunned by the strength of his clean singing voice during the 'mellow' part of the concert. It probably sounds like I want to marry this guy and have his babies so I will offer one criticism: what's up with that facial hair? Shave it off and then we can talk about the babies.

After they finish playing Damnation the band leave the stage for a break and return to play a totally fucking awesome set laden with the best fucking metal songs ever written; 'Master's Apprentice', 'Deliverance' and 'The Leper Affinity' are all here and would be unquestionably given six stars if my ipod allowed ratings that high. While I was more impressed by the acoustic set (I think maybe because the style was new and fresh to them the band was a little more into it) this stuff is top notch too.

And just when you thought you could turn off the computer and go to bed content in the knowledge that you just watched one of the awesomest DVDs ever, it turns out that there's a documentary on the making of Damnation and Deliverance too! It's probably not essential for anyone who's not a huge music geek and a huge fan of Opeth in particular but for me watching the arrangement and recording processes of the best fucking songwriters in the world is basically the coolest thing ever committed to digital versatile disc. By the time it got round to the footage showing the guitarists recording almost every solo on Deliverance!!! I was pretty much delirious with delight.

Oh Opeth. Don't ever stop being awesome. Here's 'Death Whispered A Lullaby':

Super Hungover Music News Roundup

Trent Reznor: Still awesome.

Trey Spruance: Still awesome and crazy.

New Smashing Pumpkins single: Actually kind of good.

Upcoming concerts in Sydney: Machine Head and Arch Enemy (November), Nick Cave and Grinderman (October) and Marilyn Manson (October). Somehow I have a feeling I will end up going to that last one against my better wishes.

The Night And The Silent Water... Still So Dark

Opeth - Morningrise

We've skipped an album on my reverse journey of Opeth albums. My Arms My Hearse came between Still Life and Morningrise, but I'm sure my loyal readers will forgive me for skipping it, I haven't been CD shopping for a while. Morningrise is their second album and according to your average metal elitist on the street also their best. I'm going to risk being beaten to death the next time I go to a metal concert and come out and say that it's my least favourite out of all their albums that I've heard (which is everything except My Arms My Hearse and Orchid). Yes, I even prefer Ghost Reveries.

Morningrise is a decent listen, but the riffs are nowhere near as sublime and the arrangements not nearly as flawless as on Blackwater Park or Deliverance. I hate to say it but at some times the melodies have a lifelessly plodding medieval style that is reminiscent of, god help me, Satyricon. Particular offenders are the opening track 'Advent' and 'Black Rose Immortal'. The former song is just plain average while the latter contains some really good stuff but unfortunately not enough to fill up its twenty minute running time. On the other hand the obligatory acoustic song, 'To Bid You Farewell' is up to their usual standard (i.e. brilliant) and the bonus demo track 'Eternal Soul Torture' is also very good if you can get past the production issues, bringing a final blast of real metal where the rest of the album spends a lot of time noodling around on acoustic guitars.

And also I must note that I have only good things to say about 'The Night and the Silent Water', a mournful epic written about the death of Mikael's grandfather, which completely deserves it's reputation as a fan favourite.

I've said it before and I'll now say it again: even bad Opeth is great music.

Queen's Birthday Emo Kid Amusement Park Extravaganza

Come Together
Luna Park, June 9th & 10th

So last weekend was Queen's Birthday over here (happy fucking birthday you worthless old bag!), and in the interests of getting wasted in new and exciting environments I attended the Come Together music festival.

Some ska band

The festival was held over two days and the venue was Luna Park, site of former concert going shenanigans involving Lamb of God / Killswitch Engage and Nine Inch Nails. The amusement park was actually open while the festival was on and tickets to Come Together were valid for unlimited rides on the attractions, so there was a bit of amusement to be had in seeing drunken metal heads mingling with preschool kids and their families in the queue for the ferris wheel.

Some other ska band. No idea what they're called but they were pretty good.

The venue was well suited to the festival. They split the stage in two and were very efficient at switching between bands, I don't recall waiting more than ten seconds for the next band to start after the last one finished, compared to say the Big Day Out where you are routinely waiting fifteen minutes between bands for say Marilyn Manson to finish throwing a tantrum at his roadies.

Yet another random ska band. I don't think I even stayed to watch any of their gig but took this photo of them sitting on one another's shoulders while playing.

The two days of the festival were fairly clearly divided into 'punk and hardcore' day and 'rock and metal' day. Due to my lack of reading comprehension skills I showed up nice and early on the Saturday only to realise that it was hardcore day and the only band I wanted to see were Norma Jean who were not on until about nine that evening. Since it was punk day the average age of the kids attending was probably about fifteen. I did my best to try and appreciate some of the earlier acts, and some of the ska bands that played were pretty good, but I couldn't stand the little shits in the hardcore audiences, who think they're superior to emos because when they listen to angry music they wave their arms around and pretend to hit each other. I spent most of the day out the back in the bar.

Some pop punk band. They sucked but I liked the way this photo came out.

As well as Norma Jean the other band I made a point of checking out was Carpathian, just because I've heard of them a little and they have a somewhat metal sounding name. They weren't too bad, and they certainly put the metal in metalcore with some brutal riffs, but I almost felt embarrassed standing next to these teenage kids windmilling their arms around in order to work out their frustrations about how unfairly their dad treats them. The band themselves were certainly not averse to encouraging this behaviour; urging “all you little fucking emos" into performing the wall of death and other such behaviour.

Carpathian: it's not a real metalcore concert until the singer calls the audience a bunch of faggots.

Norma Jean were OK but nothing special, and by this stage in the evening I was fairly drunk and cranky, and very sick of teenagers so I went home to coma and get up again for the next day.

Norma Jean: Damned by mediocrity and all day drinking

Sunday was much better. On the way through Luna Park someone recommended Regular John to me and they were playing as I arrived. They were enjoyable, reminding me a lot of The Have, or maybe a kind of grunge Led Zeppelin. It was also weird to notice that suddenly all the kids in Sydney are wearing Seattle style checked flannel. Is this a sudden fashion trend or is it just because it's been getting cold?

Regular John looking regular

Next up were Mourning Tide who were a fucking joke. Enjoyable in a very cheesy way but I sadly suspect that everything I found so funny about them was not intended to be that way. They sounded an awful lot like Guns and Roses only with death metal vocals and seemed to be as much about cock rock posturing as playing music. I felt sorry for Psycroptic, waiting patiently on the next stage to begin as Mourning Tide went through at least three drum fill packed fake endings to their last song.

Mourning Tide. This photo doesn't quite do justice to the posing.

I'd heard good things about Psycroptic, a death metal band from Tasmania, and they were one of the bands I was keenest to see. They played technically accomplished brutal death metal along the lines of Suffocation but I suspect that that style of music is reaching the limits of its appeal to me. It was a decent concert but nothing that really impressed me. I did feel a lot of sympathy for the band, who managed to open up an enormous circle pit that no one danced in, while in front of the stage were a huge, almost entirely female, gaggle of teenagers trying to be metal. “So this is what it has come to.” I thought to myself, “One of the meanest fucking death metal bands in Australia literally reduced to playing for a handful of fifteen year old girls.”

Psycroptic

Psycroptic again. Bonus points for fucking rocking.

Next up were Ink. Their music was uninspiring, they made me think of a more metal version of Linkin Park, but they definitely got points for being the coolest looking band of the day. They also had hot girls in sexy black outfits dancing on stage and throwing giant black beach balls into the crowd. Believe it or not this is actually pretty typical for what passes as goth culture in Australia.

Ink. Believe it or not I forgot to take a photo of the dancing girls.

At this point I went to get something to eat and then of course on the way back I needed a drink...

[Scene Missing]

Some time later I shuffled out of the bar and on a whim decided to see a band I'd never heard of before called Mammal. As it turned out, they were fucking awesome. For some reason Australians seem to have a particular talent for funk metal. The first comparisons that came to mind for these guys were Rage Against the Machine or Faith No More, but on reflection they sound most like what the Red Hot Chilli Peppers would if they didn't suck. At any rate for the first time in two days the whole arena was packed out and going off. Popular opinion has it they were the best band of the festival and I would whole heartedly agree.

Mammal. Rocking.

I was tempted to stick around for Karnivool, but I had a vague feeling that I'd heard them before and didn't like them. I did come back out for Cog, who I did enjoy. They had a vaguely mathy style that for once actually did deserve to be described as mathematical, in a way that even Meshuggah doesn't.

Cog

Lastly, Shihad. I was surprised to realise just how popular they are over here (and even more so by the number of people who expressed disappointment to me that Blindspott cancelled). It was good to see these guys again, it's been four years since the last time I caught them live, and even then it was only because Fur Patrol were opening for them, having gone a bit dark on Shihad after the Pacifier debacle. But when you're a stranger in a strange land you take your Kiwi rock where you can find it so I rocked on up to the front of the stage for these guys, and had a pretty good time. They're still a good live band, 'Wait and See' and 'My Mind's Sedate' still rock and Jonny Toogood still looks like a cherubic schoolboy. The setlist was weighted towards new stuff, which was decent but not any kind of a return to form. Like a lot of bands these days they seem to want to reinvent themselves as U2. The old songs they played were 'My Mind's Sedate', 'Wait and See', 'Comfort Me' and 'The General Electric'. The first two were the highlights of the set, but I was surprised to find once again that 'Comfort Me' isn't all that bad. Maybe it just seems better in comparison to the rest of the Pacifier album. Anyway, it was a nice set to close out the night.

Shihad

Lastly the headliners were Grinspoon, so I went home. Well actually, to the casino, but that's another story.

Friday Night Death Metal Egyptology Lesson

Nile
Decapitated
Live at Manning Bar, Sydney, 25th June

As I mentioned the other day I'm not a huge fan of Nile but I had so much fun at Suffocation earlier this year I figured it was worth taking a punt on another brutal death metal gig.

Nile are certainly more popular than Suffocation, and there was a pretty large crowd in attendance, a large contingent of whom were there to see the support band, Polish death metallers Decapitated. I missed the first opening band (who's name I didn't even catch) but caught Decapitated's set. They ran into a bit of trouble right from the start, with the vocalist striding on stage, bellowing his head off and getting the crowd ready for a frenzy. “Are you ready Sydney!” he growled in his best death metal voice, “We are Decapitated, lets fucking go!”, and the band launched into their first song, only to find that the guitar wasn't plugged in. The band slunk off stage to mocking laughter from the crowd.

Decapitated

However once they got it all sorted out they played a pretty good set. I'd never heard these guys before but I found most of the tracks they played pretty agreeable, they had plenty of catchy riffs and a talent for a nice brutal groove. Manning Bar has an amphitheatre kind of setup, with a couple of raised levels surrounding the area in front of the stage. It was pretty cool looking around and seeing the big moshpit in front of the stage going nuts while a semi circle of black clad metallers looked down on them Colosseum style, all of us windmilling our long hair in perfect unison. For a change it actually felt good to be metal.

Shortly thereafter Nile took the stage and played a set based mostly on material from Annihilation of the Wicked. For those keeping score they played 'Cast Down the Heretic', 'Sacrifice to Sebek', 'Lashed to the Slave Stick' and 'Annihilation of the Wicked'. They also played two or three tracks from their new album, Ithyphallic, due to be released next month sometime. And of course there were scattered fan favourites from older albums that I was unfamiliar with throughout. I liked the new material, there seemed to be a bit more fast/slow dynamism and the riffs seemed slightly more worthy of being what I would call 'technical death metal'

Nile. Manning Bar has particularly shitty lighting, so my photos are even worse than usual.

But to be frank, these guys were not as good as Suffocation. It was a decent gig, but they just lacked the energy and theatre of the Suffo gig. On the other hand, while I am usually dismissive of bands who confuse speed and complexity with musicianship, it was a real treat to see these guys playing some of the most physically demanding music I've ever seen. The look of concentration on George Kollias' (drums) face during 'Sacrifice to Sebek' was actually quite inspiring.

More drums than you can shake a stick at. So to speak.

Best Song: 'Annihilation of the Wicked'. The perfect death metal riff that opens the song that I mentioned in my review of the album went off like a monster.
Best Stage Banter: “You call that a growl? Those motherfuckers in New Zealand were louder than that and there were only half as many of them!”

I Hath Dreamed Bleak And Grim

Nile – Annihilation of the Wicked

Nile are an American brutal death metal band much in the vein of Suffocation, who you may recall as being my band of the month back near the beginning of the year. I prefer Suffocation in many ways, their songs are just a bit heavier, a lot more fun and the songwriting is more interesting and catchy by virtue of their not being restricted by a somewhat cumbersome gimmick, which I shall get to in a paragraph or two.

Like any decent death metal band these guys are astonishing musicians. The guitarists didn't quite blow me away to the degree that Terrance from Suffocation did, but the vocals are outstanding. Incredibly deep and guttural while maintaining definition and control. Sometimes you can almost understand what he's saying! Their drummer, George Kollias, is a bit of a legend, and this album contains some of the fastest death metal drumming ever committed to record. During 'Sacrifice To Sebek' his double kicks reach a peak of 265bpm. Rumour on the internets has it that studio trickery was used to achieve it, but even if we don't count that particular track there are plenty of other points on Annihilation of the Wicked when he is almost that fast.

As for the aforementioned gimmick, these guys are about all things ancient Egyptian. A flick through the CD booklet reveals, alongside each songs lyrics, a brief Egyptology lesson, explaining the social, historical or religious aspect of ancient Egyptian life that inspired the song. For example, the brutal tortures inflicted on wayward slaves, the deposition and execution of a megalomaniacal pharoah or the unbelievably horrific countenance of the malevolent god Set.

This is all well and good, but the conceit stretches to the music as well. Their super fast, intense death metal is overlaid with traditional middle eastern musical figures, and unlike with Secret Chiefs 3, who seamlessly blend traditional and rock music, the Egyptian styled riffs often feel awkwardly imposed over the heavier music.

The brutal music underneath is still pretty fucking good mind you. Even if it's not quite at the level of Suffocation, the thunderously awesome main riff of the title track approaches my conception of the platonic ideal of a death metal riff. I also appreciated the scattered acoustic interludes throughout the album, which use traditional instruments such as bazouki. They differ from Secret Chiefs 3's work in that while they are traditionally instrumented songs, they still carry a metal mood which is very well done.

Good album, but not as good as their cool Egyptian conceit.

All Faith Forever Has Been Washed Away

Opeth – Still Life

Jon is still not sick of Opeth.

I've been busy listening to other stuff but my progress through Opeth's back catalogue continues behind the scenes. Still Life is one of the most highly regarded of their albums. Musically it is not much different from their later work: a combination of death metal and classic prog rock, melodic and beautiful in both modes and supported by brilliant technical musicianship.

Unlike the other albums of theirs I've been listening to this one is a concept album, telling the tale of a person who returns to the town of their birth to rescue their long lost love from the malevolent church in charge of the town. The concept didn't really add much for me, Akerfeldt's lyrics on this release suffer a little from 'Scandanavian guy writing in English' syndrome (i.e. when ones vocabulary slightly outstrips one's familiarity with the language), but it's no detraction either.

I don't like this album as much as Blackwater Park or Deliverance, as the songwriting doesn't quite reach the stellar heights of those albums and about half of the songs are relatively forgettable in comparison to their other work. Of course average by Opeth's standards is still pretty fucking good. The opening track 'The Moor' is a fan favourite for good reason, and the acoustic ballad 'Benighted' is very nice too. The highlight of the album however is 'Face of Melinda', which starts out as a ballad before getting a bit heavy towards the end. It manages to be bittersweet and edgy at the same time, and in contrast to what I just said about the album as a whole has some really great lyrics.

It does bear mentioning that this album does excel in one area when compared with it's peers, and that's the guitar solos. Akerfeldt and his six stringed henchman Peter Lindgren acquit themselves marvellously on all Opeth releases but on Still Life they've kicked things far and away into 'holy fucking shit' territory. At it's worst a guitar solo is a five minute masturbatory exercise in the listener's patience, but at it's best (and virtually every track on this album contains a perfect example) an instrumental solo expresses all the nameless things that can only be said by music with all the articulation of a vocal line without being weighed down by the crude limitations of mere language.

Dead Bodies Just Seem To Fall Before Me

Suffocation – Souls to Deny and Breeding the Spawn

In anticipation of their concert last month I went out and bought a few more Suffocation albums. Souls to Deny is their most recent release besides their self titled, whereas Breeding the Spawn dates all the way back to 1993.

Souls to Deny is fairly similar to it's successor in style, but lacks most of it's catchiness and spirit. They seem to have concentrated on technical achievement at the expense of everything else, and it's not nearly as much fun as the self titled.

Breeding the Spawn on the other hand is brilliant. Even fourteen years ago these guys were maniacs on their instruments (maybe not quite to the degree that they are now), and they have all the energy and talent that they showed on Suffocation. As this is one of their earliest releases it comes as no surprise that it suffers from some impressively shitty production, which unfortunately renders the cool bass work all but imperceptible.

This stuff is all good but I think three albums are enough, at least for now. I'm not so much of a noise headed death metaller that I can listen to this stuff all day and after a while I find myself really really needing a change of tone. Unless it's Opeth. I can listen to those guys for a week and not get tired of it.

I Bathe Myself In The Entrails Of You

One of the nice things about living in a big city like Sydney is that you get more opportunities to attend sophisticated art and cultural events. Sunday night was one such opportunity, as the international short film festival Tropfest was playing in the botanic gardens. As my loyal readers would expect nothing less of me, I passed on it in order to see these people:


Because there's not much that can beat an evening of crazy go nuts brutal death metal.

Suffocation - Live at The Gaelic Club, 18th February

The headliners were Suffocation (coincidentally reviewed on this very blog last week), but they had a full complement of three opening bands. The gig was at The Gaelic Club, a venue I hadn't visited before, although I'd been tempted to go and see both Cannibal Corpse and Deicide there. It's a pretty small place, probably only holding a few hundred, and is perfectly suited to metal concerts. You've got your dankness, your grime, and your angry no nonsense bouncers. The crowd was pretty much as you'd expect for this kind of thing, mainly male, and mainly fitting into the caricature of either the scrawny metal geek or the big fat sweaty metal munter, although there were a bunch of well dressed 'Sydney princess' type young women there for some reason. They stood out because they weren't wearing black.

As I arrived Vaticide were playing. They were competent death metallers but I don't really have much to say about them other than that I was impressed by their technical musicianship and little else.

Vaticide: Featuring the backs of a bunch of fat ugly dude's heads

Next up were Degeneracy, who were a bit more interesting. The music was pretty average but they made up for it with shitloads of energy. Their songs were short and punky, and very goofy. Sample stage banter: “This next song is called 'Covered in shit and semen. Don't laugh! This is a very personal song!” They had a really good drummer.

Degeneracy: featuring fat ugly shirtless guy in front of stage

The third band was Ebolie, who were a lot more interesting musically than their battlerish appearance may suggest. They had the proficiency of Vaticide and the energy of Degeneracy, and they were easily better than both. They also win the funny song title sweepstakes for the night for 'Why are so many fat chicks into metal?'

Ebolie: featuring dude jumping on stage and about to get beaten by angry security guys

Finally Suffocation arrived. Like their opening bands they didn't take themselves too seriously and just went all out to have a head banging, hard moshing good time. Frank Mullen is a really good front man, always paying attention to the audience and pumping up the front rows with his antics (during the numerous instrumental breaks he either runs up and down the front of the stage shaking people's hands or stands by the soloist and gesticulates wildly in time with them). The entire band are total wizards on their instruments, and it was awesome to see them performing close up. I managed to get a place right in front of Terrance, the lead guitarist (he even shook my hand!) and watching him solo was pretty fucking mind blowing. Unfortunately I couldn't focus my complete attention on the musicianship due to the (not unexpected) perils of the moshpit. It wasn't too bad (I've been in far worse) because there were only a couple of hundred people in attendance, but with music this brutal it was easy even for such a small crowd to make things pretty crazy.

Suffocation tune their guitars. This is actually the best picture I got of them.

The only disappointment was the absence of an encore. Since the band and the audience both seemed to be enjoying themselves this was a bit surprising but rumour has it that the band (hailing from grim, frost-bitten New York) were about to die of heat exhaustion in Sydney's humid February climate (exacerbated of course by 355 people going nuts in the tiny venue).

Suffocation: featuring Terrance's back and Frank's side.

Taken as 'serious' music these guys are nothing on Tool or Isis, but for a fun, unpretentious show with lots of brutal chugging and amazing musicianship, where you can just munt around like a gimp for a while these guys are fucking excellent, as long as your idea of a good time won't be spoiled by being jammed between smelly, sweaty metalheads thrashing their long hair around for an hour.

An attempt to capture one of Terrance's solos. You can't really tell from this picture but this guys fingers were actually that blurry in real life.

Inconceivable Power Unleashed

Suffocation – Suffocation

Finally I get round to writing a post about a band before I get to go and see them live! (It means I'm almost on top of my blogging backlog, it'll be the first time that's happened, ever.) Suffocation (Suffo to their friends) are playing here this Sunday, and it should be an experience. These guys are of a subgenre of death metal known as 'brutal death metal', because all those other bands hammering their drums and shredding their guitars are really only gruff or unmannerly death metal. I have no idea what kind of a crowd will show up, but I expect that it won't be pretty.

As far as I can tell in these guys' case the 'brutal' adjective describes the straightforward way these guys go about making a big noise. There's no crazy spastic stuff like Cryptopsy, and no carefully arranged melodies like Opeth, it's just one mean riff with jack hammer drumming, shredded guitars and guttural vocals going full tilt after another. It might sound a bit boring but once you get past the angry, confrontational presentation of their music this album is actually pretty catchy and fun. They don't take themselves too seriously either, well at least I hope that “You are so fucking beautiful. I bathe myself, in the entrails of you” is not meant seriously. You can tell from their pictures and videos that they have that ironic gleam in their eye (as most extreme metal bands do) that tells you that they're really just having fun, despite the morbid trappings of the genre.

These guys are all at the top of their game technically. The lead guitarist especially is inspiring. It's a great relief to hear someone who can shred amazing solos (in terms of speed and technique) but also knows how to keep them short and sweet and sounding cool in and of themselves while also enhancing the song that they're a part of. His style is quite distinctive, it's typical death metal squealing and fiddling but presented in a quirky and off-kilter way that makes it quite unique and gives the songs a nice counterpoint to the straight up thrashing that characterises most of them. Definitely a welcome improvement on those tragic wastes of talent in Dragonforce.

Anyone interested in heavy metal should definitely check these guys out. It may take a few listens to get into because they do make a good hard effort to put the 'brutal' in 'brutal death metal', but it's fucking fun stuff.