Where: The Bottom Lounge, Chicago IL.

It was a lot darker than this

Indian is Chicago’s doom band. Indian remains (in my book) still the heaviest fucking band I’ve ever seen. That’s saying a lot with the likes of the rest of the lineup in this awesome offering of underground black and doom metal. However, with their Emperor cabs cranked they bring the brown note like they invented it. My body shook the first time I saw them at the Empty Bottle a year ago. Once again, their Earth shattering chords could be felt in full in the depths of my colon.

Angular and odd paced riffing, glacial paced dirges, Indian knows it’s doom and does it well. With the stage lights politely requested to be turned “completely up”, the band was completely exposed. Because of this, they are in your face, there is no escape. They are going to liquefy your bowels and rattle your noggin’.

My only gripe is their drummers’ style seemed oddly robotic, and I’m certain he missed a few beats of double bass kick during one or two of their four song set. However, vocalist/guitarist Dylan O’ Tooles’ raspy banshee doom throat is something to behold. Mix that with Ron Defries’ distorted fuzz bass and you have a recipe of utterly terrifying doom. The long bellowing screams that can be heard on tracks like “Slights and Abuse” and “The Sycophant” are doom perfection. There was no half-assing whatsoever in the vocal department.

Krallices‘ sound check was kind of over the top.

“A little more treble in my monitor please?”
“Could I have a touch more drums in my monitor please?”

The stage banter between band and sound crew went on for what seemed like 20 minutes. They are apparently REALLY picky for their sound. It’s one thing to be a perfectionist, but if the monitor isn’t working ya gotta get on with it without. Surprisingly, the crowd did not react as negatively as I would have expected. One guy did yell, “Play some fucking music!”. There were also no “Slaaaaaaayeeerrr!!” taunts from this crowd. Odd.

When they finally did start their set, they destroyed. So far for me though, Krallice feels like a band that will take many many listens to get used to and start appreciating as something relevant to the new(er) school of black metal.

A Storm Of Light was very NeurIsis-ish. They had a great visual backdrop synced up to the music, a nice touch to have with a band playing droney post-metal. I don’t have much else to say about these guys as they are still unfamiliar to me. if you want an idea of what they look like live check out this video here. It has one of the best combos of creepy intro to gargantuan main riff that I have heard in a long time.

This was my first “black metal” show. I don’t care how you define black metal. If you’re tr00-ist, a satanist, only prefer 4-track basement recordings, whatever. Wolves In The Throne Room brought the fucking black metal in the purest sense of how I understand the genre.

Black Metal Farmers

It was like a goddamn seance setup on the stage. Candles all over the floor, fog machine, and, with the band bathed in deep red and blue lighting they proceeded to open a portal into darkest netherworlds of metal. It was perfect. they did not disappoint with new songs off of Black Cascade. “Ahrimanic Trance” is my favorite song off that record and it was like I was suddenly transported out into a dark forest full of evil shit when they played it. The sense of confinement you get from the torrential riffing and blasting is stunning. I thought it would get tiresome, only so because I had already withstood the punishment of 3 other bands that play 10+ minute songs. I was left wanting to go into a forest with my amp and guitar and play evil riffs.

That said, it was probably one of the best metal shows I’ve been to this year.

Crack The Skye

Crack The Skye

I wasn’t excited about this album at all before it came out. Maybe I’d listened to Blood Mountain a little too much, maybe because I hadn’t been listening to nearly as much metal as I had over the last two and a half years, or maybe it was because Brendan O’Brian was involved. Whatever it may have been, this album was hanging out in the “I’ll get to it whenever, its on the list, but its not a priority” zone and it was not moving off it anytime soon.

Then the rumors about the album being about Rasputin and some other shit and the album went onto the “God I hope this doesn’t turn into a Mars Volta thing” list. The only other album on the list is the next Mars Volta album. And that list is well below the list in the above paragraph.

Then the album art came out. All I saw at the time was “Tonight! At the Planetarium! Lazer Metal!” It wasn’t as iconic as the previous records and I wasn’t pleased. I know what I liked, and I liked old Mastodon. I feared the worst. My shrunken penis was conferring with an underused mattress and they feared the worst.

Then the leak happened. The shitty >128 mp3 scene release came out and I snagged it. First thing. Apparently, I was hoping it was good. It was free, the sound wasn’t what I was hoping for, it was missing a track, but I grabbed it still and started it up one morning on the drive to work. I made it through one song and stopped. Couldn’t listen to anymore. I WAS FUCKING DONE WITH IT!

I was scared. It sounded like Ozzy (good) and I didn’t want to waste weeks listening to a shit rip to get the good one and not nearly appreciate it like it should be appreciated. Like a girlfriend that is way out of your league this is the kind of stuff that needs to be savored when its available at its best. No wasting time after she comes back with herpes or a kid. Hit this when it is at its prime.

So I waited.

It came out.

It was awesome. The Last Baron is secretly what all rock and metal fans want in the back of their mind. Epic. Check. Rifftastic. Check. Hummable, AKA your girlfriend can hum it during BJ time on those special days if she knows it’s important to you. Or to yourself while in a two hour meeting about nothing. CHECK.

You know the rest and I’ll be damned if I know what I can add to the metal community’s analysis to a great album. Get this, turn it up, and dream of what is to come.

Get a taste of the awesomeness.

Earlier I had posted up my review of Mastodons’ live set here in Chicago at the Metro. The words to describe the chills on the back of my neck took a back seat to the words used to describe the group of idiots in the pit. With my whiny bitching aside, Metalsucks and Culture Bully have each posted up their own take on the live set. The latter includes several glorious videos of the show at Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. Fan or not, I implore you to take the 6:15 out of your day to watch this video.

Mastodon “Oblivion” (Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis, 04/29/2009) from Culture Bully on Vimeo.

If you’re kicking yourself for not going to their show you’ll at least understand why now with better reason you should have gone instead of sitting at home looking at porn and going to bed early.

Dude, you look gay-tarded.

I’m sure most of you have seen and watched it before, but it deserves a permanent place on this blog. I wish I had the cred and power to make Brian Posehn a full time writer for us.

Guardians Of Asgaaaaaaaaard!

I’ve had a few people tell me Amon Amarth is cheesy. Those people are assholes. Amon Amarth have stuck to their guns throughout many many awesome records. If it weren’t for Bathory, you might say they wrote the book on Viking Metal…

Anyways, here’s the new Viking Battle video off of their latest album, Twilight of the Thunder God (what else would they make a video about!?).

Dress Code: Black and buzzed.

Where: The Gothic Theatre, Denver CO.

The Pursuit of Metal

The ATM was busted. Fuck. No merch for this trip and Amon Amarth have a flag with the cover of the new album and its pretty sweet. Skeletonwitch have a new shirt that looks like a King Diamond cover that is also pretty rad. Goatwhore’s merch looks well… eh. Not enough colors for me.

Skeletonwitch came out and ruled like always. If you know the records you know what to expect. It’s just awesome because everybody around you is drunk and having a blast.

Best witty banter from a band comes from these guys:

“This is a song about SATAN!” ….. song starts

“Weed! You like weed? We love weed!”… song starts

“Pussy!”….. song starts

“This is another song about Satan”….song starts.

All this done in death screech that sounds cool.

Goatwhore is a band with a great name and shitty stage presence. Their lead singer is really tall as well. I don’t remember a lot of their set standing out and decided to drink to make it sound better. Three beers later I hadn’t noticed a whole hell of a lot of difference.

Entertained by Vikings

Those three beers did make Amon Amarth’s set a lot better though. Amon Amarth came out and made if fun with three simple rules:

1. Play the good stuff. They play the great songs off their albums. No filler or weaker songs just because its on the new record. Play what slays. (this is also the same approach that Metallica and Slayer take to live shows, and we all know there is some truth to this approach.)
2. Be funny and polite. When coaching the crowd in a complicated sing along, Big John (the lead singer, that’s his name right?) reminded the more sober in the crowd “Hey if you don’t know the words, still sing along. Its Death Metal…. No one will know if you are wrong anyway”. It should also be noted that as the band is European they are also polite and thanked the crowd multiple times for coming out. That’s not brutal, but it is good manners.
3. Drink beer out of a fucking horn.

I can’t wait to see these guys again.

Best comment from a drunk guy in the crowd:
“Have you seen my cousin? He’s an awkward looking guy in a black t-shirt?
…..Aww I’m just joking man, that’s all of us”

~ Chili Bowl Soul Vortex

This will be hotter than emo crunk.

Collages are gay

Somewhat unique I suppose. I honestly liked their self-titled EP. The spacey atmosphere they melded into the songs were my favorite parts. I distinctly remember playing the EP on repeat for about 50 times a day for a week. But, that love interest lasted no longer than that single week. Since then, I’ve forgotten they even were making a full length until I saw the post today on metalsucks.

If you ask me, if they keep up the nintendo-roboto keys and Evanescence-esque clean vokills, this band will have multiple t-shirts at your local hot topic with a fan base of mall core kids buying their merch within the weeks following the release of this new album. Not to mention they have the strength of a major label like Century Media backing it up.

Check out the new song streaming here if you care.

Stardate WTF.

Adult videos. Recycle your semen. Spank yourself. It’s ok to shit your pants every now and then.

“Private matters are private matters.”

But this guy is not afraid to talk about his own to the entire fucking world. That’s metal.

Big smelly fucking dudes with no shirts!

Where: The Metro, Chicago IL.

Favorite neighbor

Oh, and one other stereotypical metal head: big fucking dude with a big fucking beard.They were abundant in the crowd on the main floor where at times I was crammed between “them” on the front line of the pit and one obese sweaty fuck garbed in complete White Sox gear. Strangely, the Sox had not played that day.

The Metro was the perfect venue for this show. There are others like it in Chicago, but this small cramped vintage hall is about 4 blocks down the street from my apartment. So that’s really why.

Intronaut opened up the show. They were very very very heavy. I’m pretty sure they fall in the “NeurIsis” camp. Which some people hate. But, honestly the riffing reminded me more of Meshuggah or Dillinger when they’re trying to be melodic and not spaz. Regardless, I found myself bobbing my head many times.

It was my first time seeing Kylesa, and I have to say the crowd was a total letdown. I was really hoping there would have been more people into them. I think part of the problem was a ten minute delay before their set when the drummers (yeh, two drummers if you didn’t know) had some sort of sound snafu. That led to many a boo and “SLAYERRRRR!!!” shout from random crowd members before they were able to shake it off and proceed to fuck my ears with a whirlwind of material from their awesomely awesome new record “Static Tensions”.

Both singers (yellers?) were spot on for delivery and attitude and the live set was stellar. But again, the crowd just did not want to budge past the few random horn throwers and headbangers interspersed among the sell out crowd.

If you’ve been following Mastodon since the release of “Crack The Skye” you’ll know already this tour has been set up so that they play the record in its entirety.

Brent Hinds of Mastodon

What I learned two days before the show was that there was going to be sort of visual display as well. It’s true, and it’s epic. Everything about Astral Projection and Rasputin looks so fucking cool if you get the chance to have an out-of-body experience to meet him I suggest you try it.

This was seriously the best thing I’ve seen Mastodon perform ever . It wasn’t the best metal performance, but this was Mastodons’ moment to kill.

It was also the moment for several of the aforementioned jocks and White Sox geared fattys to bust a move in the pit. Why?, I might ask would ANYone feel the need to beat the shit out of others during such songs as “The Czar”, I have no fucking clue. Granted it does pick up a bit in the middle portion of the song, but I’m talking about the WHOLE song. All ten plus minutes worth. Slow parts and all. It was like this for the entire set. No matter how much you thought the songs on the record were strictly groove oriented and just “listenable” not, “moshable”, you’re wrong.

Karl Fucking Sanders

Plus, there was one dude that looked exactly like Karl Sanders of Nile! Only taller, scarier, and much more girth. He left midway through the set with an eye injury. I shit you not. Someone laid into that fucker good.

I pretty much was expecting WWIII to break out on “Crack The Skye”, the heaviest song on the album. I was wise enough to give up on my position of lower center stage and retreated to stage right to hang out with the stoners that don’t kill each other. I suggest to always look for the groupings of smaller glassy eyed head bangers if you really want to just enjoy yourself and not get murdered.

If there is an adjective to describe something “beyond epic” “The Last Baron” was it. By then, the pit had calmed down. Mastodon had dominated. But wait! They also dominated through…

(Spoiler Alert!)

…roughly ten songs off of previous records as part of their encore.

Jesus fucking wept. It was a marathon of awesome. Don’t miss this tour if you’re a fan.

When I first entered the venue I was greeted by some asshole in a tricornered hat. Come to find out this was the drummer for Swashbuckle. More on them later.

First up was the opening act which was some local band that had won a battle of the bands. They were called Burning Shadows. They were pretty good power/thrash folk.

Next was Swashbuckle. They dress in full pirate gear, puffy shirts and all. They were a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect much from these guys but they kicked ass. No folk metal sound really, just pirate thrash with a hint of grind. The singer also implores the audience to “put their hooks in the air” and “screw their peg legs on tight”.  It was corny but they kick ass so I can get past their stage persona.

Third up was Blackguard. They were ok; I didn’t get into them too much. I like their recorded music better than them live, though the singer is charismatic and has a good stage presence.

Next was Moonsorrow whom I really enjoyed. They were a good change of pace. They are folky and thrashy but a bit slower, doomy in some instances.

Then came Primordial. These guys were a huge letdown. Just plain sucked. The singer is annoying; he really gets off on controlling the audience, having them in the palm of his hand, ordering them around. Many frontmen do this but this guy was all about it. Their whole set was him trying to get the audience to do shit (wave hands, clap, pump fists, sing along to his retard lyrics) and the band sucking.

Finally was Korpiklaani. Man, they kicked ass.  Folk metal on a higher level. And they don’t rely mainly on keyboards in live situations to obtain folk instrument sounds; they had a fiddler and an accordion player. Very fierce.