Sick engine, the piston hammers away

Remember when this came out, Thriller McCartney bitching "cover's in color!" Sure, a couple tunes could use some Perry White, and if the platter ain't General Zod, it's at least Non and he could fuck up most things.

There was some other gig, but I forgot.

Man, fuckers in class are fucking dumb. I mean, I'm a sack of evaporated Venusian stone but whoa: 'taint no STEM, so plants'll be 0.07% less toxic.

That wasn't it. Hail Something.

You know my only pleasure is to hear you cry

No better reason to temporarily halt hermitage than to celebrate this motherfucker turning thirty. See you in the next d6 months, unfortunately. People, man.

Slowly we rot, or, better late than never

Greatest DM (death metal or dungeon master, listener's choice) album ever?

Don't sleep on Altars. Seriously, don't, or you'll wake up the not-that-secret ingredient of a pentagram stew. Mmmm, stew. Bunch of crazy crap happening in meat world, but fancy gizmodic contraptions aside, new shit same as the old shit YEEEAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. 'twas vaguely Daltrynstic no? though I'm more skilled in the Axl arts, not the paparazzo face punching bit 'cause I love you all like Ozzy. Reference your own frontdude/chick for three easy installments of 39.95, please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Been cleaning [read: attempting to maybe possibly try] out the house 'cause like every firstworlder, got too much garbage even for Oscar, and came across a shot of the fam post-arrival of the alien known to interwebzians as Offspring the Elder, mom classy in a Justice tee, yours truly nattily clad in a Seasons, both sporting giant glasses which was, along with onions on the belt, the style at the time.

No, I didn't wallow in any of that stupid "woe to you o earth and sea what a world what a world we leaveth with thee" shit because are you fucking kidding me, life expectancy and an end to feudalism aside though I hear that's making a comeback in select markets, see above.

In the past, you couldn't ignore what was stabbing you.

Thanks to cheap anesthetic hawked by the real Satanic cult, now you can, but you're still gonna end up as someone's meal.

A portrait of the catharsis as a middle-aged man

Space Casino junkies before, Space Casino junkies after, but where's the valet parking for the discerning headbanger, Comic Sans, where, I ask?

The Boys from Sweden parlayed their mood music for mopes into conjuring a joyful sadness. If only they'd fold the electro-noodling in the spaces twixt and bet on guitar runs à la Tonight's Decision or the new platter, they'd be always ace.

Katatonia @ House of Blues: Buildings, Day and Then the Shade, My Twin, Burn the Remembrance, Soil's Song, The Racing Heart, Lethean, The Longest Year, July, Dead Letters, Forsaker.

Dear Mr. Mike, didja notice the crowd, polite nodding for the smoking jacket rock, raging pits and fists of fury for the death man's hand? Take the hint.

Opeth @ ditto: The Devil's Orchard, Ghost of Perdition, White Cluster, Hope Leaves, You Suffer, Atonement, Deliverance, Hessian Peel, Häxprocess, Demon of the Fall, Harlequin Forest, Blackwater Park.

More monkey dancing

Heavy as a really heavy thing. Not so much were the two local openers which, as usual, didn't match the sonic aesthetic of the headliner, but that's the biz, kidz. Furthermore, Now That's Class, despite being a venue eminently digable for live tuneage, is arctic molasses slow in getting the proceedings a kick in the ass.

So, a late start regifted us some run o' the mill deathy grindcore drone. Capable players, but boring as your favorite band unless it's mine, too. Then even more time wasted by neo-punkish organ-y riffing on the Misfits style that, unlike the Misfits, sucked, but at least they didn't suck as much as the incredibly sucky lead singer/suckiest bag of suck who ever sucked who, in troo anarkee fashion, chucked, randomly or not I don't know, a full beer bottle in the audience that hit a chick smack in the skull.

Thank Odin she was okay, confronting the douchebag after the set who, apologetic like a child stuck playing the "oh shit I got caught" card, evident in the rapid downsizing of his vocal rage after said chucking witnessed by all of us outside the stage grabbing fanboys. According the Duchess, there's at least one other local club they've been banned from. Wonder why.

Full tour opener Ancient VVisdom gave us Agalloch-via-Austin paeans to heathenry and such, so shit I dig. As the cooler half of the Peonage has pointed out before, yeah, the lead singer may veer into rock and/or roll posturing on occasion, but it's only rock and/or roll, and I like it. Theatre. Plus, musically, they're a sparkling spring carrying away the effluvia of the vanquished.

Sans posture is headliner Royal Thunder, but what a raucous ruckus. Drummer Lee Smith, no, the other Lee Smith, beats his drums like CIA goons beat prisoners for useless information, guitarist Josh Weaver, doing yeoman's work for injured second stringman Josh Coleman, pogos up a down like a demonic apple bobber on the Titanic, and singer/bassist Mlny Parsonz is fucking intensity personified, archetyped, and cloned from herself so chew on that stupid paradox. It's intense.

Can't remember the exact setlist because I'm angry and tired, but they played most of their one and only album, encored with the grinding Parsonz Curse off said record, and, because we were awesomely appreciative, encored a second time with a barnstorming Mouth of Fire off the debut EP. Jesus H. Cthulhu were they heavy. A bit o' Zep, a pinch o' Alice, and a truckload of this. Yeah, I'm pointing to the ticker.

The plane truth

Sure, the headliner was the Aussie Vomitor fostering their late thrash/early death lager, but we, and I think I can speak for the SBH, were there for Negative Plane, and if you'll permit me to indulge, a word on labels. Black metal: are NP such a beast, are they not, who fucking cares. Spectrally, an amped Mercyful Fate, the number of measures supersized, the falsetto replaced with a diabolic echo. Whatever they be, they're the skull maniacally grinning from atop the pile of bones.

Evul grins were out in force, too, magic mouths on tobacco smokestacks bricked in denim & leather, Angles, Saxons, & Jutes, a lotta denim & leather miniskirts & pants, backpatches from Celtic frosted classics to new breeds, a Bathory Hammerheart purse for good measure. Fetching young lady, whomever ye are, horns, though 'twas straunge to be one of the least metal looking dudes in the darkness. Shelled in a plain black hoodie and shorts -- after all, was nearly 50° -- even my proudly sported Darkthrone tee couldn't keep me from chortling at looking the odd man. No matter, metal's not out, but in the blood, brain, & soul. Look around, you know it when you see it, like pornography.

Negative Plane @ Now That's Class: Angels of Veiled Bone, Staring Into the Abyss, Lamentations and Ashes, Death Mass, The Number of the Word.

Harmony corruption

'twas only a matter of time.

MUAHAHAHAHAHA, etc.

Partial-birth catharsis, or, I CAN'T FUCKING HEAR YOU

Most interesting cat of the night was the long-haired Aesop Dekker -- From the Future! being all gruff bouncer for the gothy photog chick in the black tights adorned with the upside-down crosses & her blonde companion, more petite than even the SBH and who threw mock face punches inside the pop-up pits that I'm not entirely convinced were one-hundred percent mock but being a petite thing, the burly dudes, to their credit, did nothing more than the required push-back, all while the long-haired Aesop Dekker -- From the Future! landed scowls with the marksmanship of a veteran sweet scientician.

If Matt Pike is the Pope of Saudi Arabia Metal, and he is, then Des Kensel is his secret ecclesiastical weapon. Kudos, too, to Jeff Matz and his bong-rattling bass. Straungely, didn't inhale a single whiff of weed but did on occasion an unenchanting musk. Old Spice, dudes, Old Spice.

Yeah, it was loud.

High on Fire @ The Grog Shop: Serums of Liao, Frost Hammer, 10,000 Years, Devilution, Last, Fertile Green, Speedwolf, Rumors of War, DII, Fury Whip, Madness of an Architect, Snakes for the Divine.

Woulda coulda shoulda

Woulda seen those guys last night, save for a litany of rust-adjacent couldas & shouldas both short & long term and since I don't lay out my entrails for the zero haruspices I've got in meat world, no fuckin' way I'm gonna for you jokers and hence furthermore since my head still throbs, here's some fuckin' High on Fire, here in less than two fortnights, so pictures the following morn, or something.

666 rpm

In honor of the dark half, the most interesting half, of the human condition, I'm off to watch this for the billionth time once I escape the Slab. Whilst I'm stabbing my heart with knife-wielding doom, spookify your life with this fake radio show if I had a radio show which I don't, hence fake, the perfect apertif to your candy scarfing or your rage at having to wait to scarf due to Gaia's rage, that's like rage squared and one of 37 reasons the gods invented metal, another one being raging at certain forms of slackerdom that even slackers scowl at but mostly a righteous rage contra zombie bigwigs and their crumbled up cookie days.

Welcome back, Kotter

Alack, a dearth o' pre-show & twixt-act verbal thrust n' parry? Sigh no more;
a beautiful cure, & the only side effect is a ring-a-ding-dinging the next morn.

Witch Mountain @ Now That's Class: The Ballad of Lanky Rae, Beekeeper, Shelter, Bloodhound, Wing of the Lord, Veil of the Forgotten, Never Know.

Last rites, or, metal up their ass

Yesterday, both Roboma & Obomney soiled our already not-that-fair center of this island universe. Today, Cliff Burton became a casualty of the Bus People, twenty-six years in the past. Coincidental time paradox? Methinks not.

The devil's dubstep

Man is only air as well

The band's brand new single track, twenty-one minute EP, Faustian Echoes, begins with a sample of Jan Švankmajer’s filmed take on the legend & closes with another. The sound is not as cold as the last LP, though not analog warm, with measures arranged as a hefty bag of Legos upon a board: vicious blasts, placid chord progressions, midpaced tremolo runs, & stretched single-note combinations that, if one were to view the music from the side, & unlike most of their past stabs at extended suites, neither rise to silver mountain height nor delve cavernous pits. After all, this is one mind trapped in a disorder of his own conjuration. To deviate from such a mess under the banner of grasping, or recanting, can only be illusory; the final few minutes' crescendo, the beguiling leitmotif first heard nearly a quarter of an hour ago, teases a crest into illumination, but, of course, never does.

Is it live, or is it Memorex?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gonna suck when we run out of juice & every guitar is acoustic.

Yes, that's the actual setlist, from Aesop.
No, I didn't get it.
Yes, Agalloch proved, again, the existence of magic.

Agalloch @ The Beachland Ballroom: Limbs; Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires; Faustian Echoes; Not Unlike the Waves; Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor; Our Fortress is Burning, Pt. 1; Our Fortress is Burning, Pt. 2: Bloodbirds; As Embers Dress the Sky; Hallways of Enchanted Ebony; You We're But A Ghost In My Arms; In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion; Kneel to the Cross. Encore #1: Dead Winter Days. Encore #2: Falling Snow.