I spent the vast majority of Canadian Music Week indulging my misanthropic side, sitting around my apartment in my underwear watching Batman: The Animated Series. By Sunday, it was time to emerge from my cocoon of grumpiness, put on some eyeliner and see what was happening out in the world. I arrived at The Opera House still feeling somewhat sluggish after several days of shunning human contact; I left feeling as re-energized as if I had put my hand on a live wire. If there was a way to replace my morning coffee with the distilled essence of IWRESTLEDABEARONCE, DARKEST HOUR, and DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, I would be the most productive (or most horrifyingly manic) person on a planet.

As soon as Krysta Cameron walked on stage wearing a dress designed to look like an enormous furbie, I knew this was going to be awesome. IWRESTLEDABEARONCE has been described as “spastic,” and I can certainly understand how their whiplash-inducing shifts in genre earned them that adjective. Their performance was incredibly high-energy, a quality that characterized all three bands’ performances. Krysta contorted her body on stage with the same merciless ferocity that she contorted her voice. Guitars were flung around bodies like hula-hoops. No song, however viciously intense, was safe from a sudden lounge-attack. IWRESTLEDABEARONCE was fun and fearless and combined a great sense of humour with their avant-garde aesthetic. Any band that performs a song titled “Alaskan Flounder Basket” and sells a t-shirt with the image of a dude in corpsepaint freaking out about breaking a nail on it is alright in my books.

My most-anticipated band of the evening was definitely DARKEST HOUR, as The Eternal Return has been a key component of my early-spring soundtrack. The crowd was buzzing before they took the stage and ecstatic when the lights finally went down. As a long-time admirer of the band, I was pleased as punch by their live performance. DARKEST HOUR is one of those bands that makes me feel as though I am losing control of my body in the very best way possible. Whether they were playing something from their newest album, like “The Tides” or “No God,” or drawing from their impressive catalogue, it felt as though their instruments were plugged directly into my central nervous system. It wasn’t me banging my head or throwing my shoulders into the people around me; it was merely DARKEST HOUR moving through me like an electrical storm.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN certainly know a thing or two about theatricality. They took the stage in complete darkness, raising the feeling of excitement in the room from “barely tolerable” to “hyperventilation.” They played their set with the stage sparsely lit by a few harsh white lights, which allowed the band members to step forward and suddenly be starkly illuminated, or step back and disappear. Their sound filled every inch of The Opera House with an intensity that seemed to set my entire skull vibrating. DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN were merciless performers, never letting the audience relax for a moment. Not only did their wicked on-stage energy hold everyone rapt, but so did the possibility that at any moment Greg Puciato might dive directly into the crowd and continue to perform while crowd-surfing.

I woke up the day after this show feeling like I’d been worked over with a pipe. I was sore as hell, nearly deaf, and had been kicked in the head by the headliner’s frontman – all signs of a highly successful night.

The Wreckroom is often home to early shows – particularly on Weekend evenings when they want to be able to still cater to their regular club crowd that come in after 11 PM. The advantage of early shows is people who fall asleep before midnight still get to see some live music. The bad thing about early shows is sometimes when it is pouring rain and people are running late they completely miss the opening act (which was Battlesoul) and only make it in time to see the last song for the second act (which was Will of the Ancients).

More clubs than usual were showcasing live talent this evening, as this was one of many shows to be included in the Canadian Music Week Festivities. Even with some live music competition, albeit not too much metal, a reasonable size of folk metal enthusiasts along with a few others filled up the small area between the stage and the bar that fills most of the center of the club.

After some technical difficulties Germany’s Suidakra kicked off minus their bagpipe samples. While some bands in this genre might sound sparse without the added traditional instrument accompaniments, Suidakra managed to sound as if nothing was missing. The audience picked up steam and a few picked up their heels to the heavily Celtic influenced “Dead Man’s Reel”.

After a short intermission Israel’s Orphaned Land presented to Toronto their version of Middle Eastern Heavy Metal. Foregoing the traditional metal uniform of all black, the band performed dressed in Arabic influenced white and accessories. At first the vocals seemed to overpower everything and almost drown out the guitars but eventually they were brought down to a more amiable level.

Lead singer Kobi Farhi looked very Jesus like as he preached to the crowd. He provided encouragement for the audience to participate by jumping and clapping. For some of the songs the audience was in need of a clapping tutorial, as they couldn’t quite get the slightly unfamiliar rhythms in sync but everyone appeared to be having fun on a rainy Saturday evening.

Many years in the making, Our Circle Is Vicious finds European hardcore outfit Rise & Fall becoming more experimental and dynamic in approach. While this proves to be interesting and they occasionally slip into some straightforward, guttural attacks exemplified on tracks such as “It’s A Long Way Down,” for the most-part, these 10 endeavours are almost too cerebral to be instinctively compelling. A solid effort is put forth with thick guitars, crashing drums and searing vocals yet the band’s almost overtly-technical approach to what was once a pretty uncomplicated style is a head-scratcher. It seems as if they’ve started to turn into something a bit more metalcore/The Haunted than one would expect yet to each their own. Overall, Our Circle Is Vicious is an amusing if not altogether convincing move; decidedly slower than it seems it should be and while that ensures faster tunes blind-side, it also means enduring some plodding, almost boring songs at the same time.

(Deathwish Inc)

Rating: 6.5

By Adrien Begrand

The trend of re-releasing albums as tarted-up “special editions” has been a disturbing one over the past six or seven years, a cynical attempt by record labels to cash in on the loyalty of metal fans. Sure, some savvy labels try to give fans bang for their buck, Nuclear Blast’s lavish, mailorder-only deluxe editions for instance, but nine times out of ten the extra bells and whistles, be they a bonus track, a making-of DVD, expanded artwork, or merely a lousy cardboard slipcase, are only worth a cursory glimpse or listen at best. Although the fad is not as rampant as it was around 2005 (remember how many different versions there were of Mastodon’s Leviathan there were?), we do still get the odd, lazily tossed-off reissue from time to time, the most recent of which being the, erm, “Deluxe Tour Edition” of Testament’s comeback album The Formation of Damnation. Despite the fact that this album came out two years ago and there are a ton of 2010 releases that I really should be writing about, when this CD arrived in the mail, I nevertheless thought it was as good a time as any to take another close critical look at the record to see how it’s held up over the past 24 months.

When it first came out, my initial reaction was cautiously positive at best. There were some very good moments, I thought, but I also thought it had some significant flaws: the production felt unnecessarily busy, some songs struggled with consistency, and I just wasn’t hearing the brilliant melodic sensibility by guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson that drove such favourites as Practice What You Preach, The Ritual, and The Gathering. In addition, I found some of the lyrics to be on the weak side, and egads, that album cover was atrocious. Seriously, can anyone tell what the hell that image is?

It’s funny how some records creep up on you long after first coming out. By the end of 2008 I still didn’t think it was worthy of my year-end list, but throughout 2009 I found myself gravitating to that pesky record more and more. A track would suddenly appear on the MP3 player’s shuffle or on Sirius, and I’d find myself increasingly absorbed. Its incessant appeal got to the point where even a few weeks ago I found myself completely obsessing over the album, streaming it on Spotify at the computer, blasting the CD in the car. Yeah, I was now able to now belatedly admit, this is a damn fine record. Flaws and all.

That’s right, I still hear weak spots on The Formation of Damnation. The title track is a waste of time, an unnecessary reversion to the band’s more aggressive sound of Demonic. It’s not a bad track; it’s just an awkward fit, Chuck Billy’s death growl clashing too much with his far superior, more melodic style on the other nine tracks. As far as the lyrics go, “Leave Me Forever” still feels overtly maudlin, while “The Eagle Has Landed” is doubly flawed, its tale of 9-11 not only feeling too dated, but also failing to offer any unique perspective on the disaster, consisting merely of a matter-of-fact account (”So many people killed / Two thousand nine hundred and seventy four”) and an uncomfortable “call to arms” (”Time to stand and deliver when evil flies our way”) coming nearly seven years after the country was led down a rabbit hole that it won’t soon crawl out of.

In the end, though, the songs on this album win out, resoundingly so. Awkward lyrics and all, “The Eagle Has Landed” is a brilliantly catchy song, which along with the contagious gallop of “More Than Meets the Eye”, gets Formation off to a rampaging start. It’s during the middle of the album where its real strengths lie, however. “Dangers of the Faithless” wouldn’t sound out of place on The Ritual, Billy’s vocal performance both authoritative and nuanced. “Killing Season” possesses a vicious swing to it, almost as is drummer Paul Bostaph was inspired by playing Dave Lombardo’s beats during his time with Slayer. “The Persecuted Won’t Forget”, meanwhile, exudes a total The New Order vibe, Peterson’s snaky opening riff leading towards hard-charging, palm-muted verses propelled by Bostaph. “The Henchmen Ride” is even stronger, as the band proves they can still walk the line between aggressive and accessible better than anyone. As that track proves, the importance of Billy’s more melodic side cannot be underestimated either. From day one the man has been a master of injecting strong melodies into his snarled vocal lines, exuding a kind of swagger that 20 years ago could only be matched by the likes of Armored Saint’s John Bush and pre-Black Album James Hetfield. Billy’s is one of the definitive voices in metal, one that simply sounds ageless.

So is this new version of Formation worth buying if you already own the album? Not a chance. We do get a bonus disc, but it’s only a collection of three live tracks and a scant enhanced portion (do people still think CD-ROMs are a good marketing tool?) that has annoyingly truncated MTV video clips of said live tracks as well as the patently unmemorable clip for “More Than Meets the Eye”. If you have yet to pick up this fine, remarkably resilient record, though, now’s as good a time as any. Plus, if you get this new version, you’ll be treated to a new slipcase that, despite being a rather hilarious pastiche of meaningless metal clichés (iron cross, pentagram, horned skull with forked tongue), does keep us from seeing that atrocious original artwork inside.

(Nuclear Blast)

Rating: 8.5

Not without the requisite controversy among the black-metal community, once again it appears Darkthrone is determined to carve their name in the big stone book of metal/punk crossover, as another of those rare-treat bands who can appeal to both the ‘airies and the baldies at the same time. There’s just that matter of their tr00-kvlt fans having a hard time with them putting out anything that doesn’t sound once more like Ravishing Grimness.

It shouldn’t come as a shock to many at this point (unless perhaps you’ve been living under a rock the last few years), but the crust that forms Circle the Wagons –much as it did on 2007’s F.O.A.D.- is about as far removed from the rip-and-slash Transilvanian Hunger sound as you can get. It’s argued, of course, that the band doesn’t even sound like Darkthrone anymore, – it’s also argued that Darkthrone sound better than ever – a great divide amongst listeners. I know, I know – it’s only black’n’roll, but I think I like it.

But, to the songs: The first thing you hear is Fenriz gurgle “M-P-D-S!” as a four-count intro, presumably a shout-out to Metal Punk Death Squad. It freight-trains into his song “These Treasures Will Never Befall You”, and the song comes off like a cheap-lager-besotted fist drunkenly hammering through a plaster wall. It’s followed up with Nocturno Culto’s “Running For Borders”, which, with its greasy-dungaree riff, and loogie-in-the-throat vocal, conjures up the sound of bands with burly names like Tank or Fist – or would, except that neither Tank nor Fist ever got this heavy. As for the cleverly(?)-titled “I Am the Graves of the 80s”, the first thing that sprang to my mind was the tortured-throat vocals of GG Allin. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the song’s riff sounds like classic Murder Junkies, and I only hope no one had to get smeared in poop to wrench that vocal out of Fenriz.

Fenriz’ vocals on the title track caught me off guard at first, and this is a common point of contention for many listeners. It’s almost like he attempted to channel the ghost of Ian Curtis were he doing a lounge act. It took some getting used to, but after a few listens, the song totally grew on me, even with the ‘sung’ vocals. Darkthrone then come as close to writing something anthemic as they ever likely will, in “I Am The Working Class”, which sounds as pissed-off as a song with that title should, but then, remember – Fenriz does work in a post office. You can almost hear the spittle and venom dripping from his mouth as he snarls each lyric as though he’s trying to stab it into you.

Nocturno Culto’s tracks (“Stylized Corpse”, and “Eyes Burst At Dawn” especially) tend to lend themselves a bit closer to something resembling black metal than Fenriz’ songs, especially vocally – there’s still a whiff of something foul and rotting caught in his throat. The final track, Fenriz’s instrumental “Bränn Inte Slottet” (which translates to something like don’t burn the castle) starts off with a cultish chant of the title, and then lumbers into these massive classic 80s-sounding riffs.

Ultimately, all of the songs are memorable and much more accessible, which is indeed where the debate lies.

All in all, it’s another polarizing Darkthrone album.

(Peaceville)

Rating: 7.0

]]> http://www.hellbound.ca/2010/03/darkthrone-circle-the-wagons/feed/ 0 http://www.hellbound.ca/2010/03/lewd-acts-black-eye-blues/ http://www.hellbound.ca/2010/03/lewd-acts-black-eye-blues/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:38:36 +0000 Sean http://www.hellbound.ca/?p=3164

By Keith Carman

You know a band is onto something when they can redefine what you thought were the parameters of a particular genre. In the case of Lewd Acts and this debut full-length, that would be making us realize that there is actually another meeting point between the various coastal versions of old school hardcore that we’d never considered. Essentially, this just means dividing up the factions of influence to new ratios but it still ensures there is something fresh to what these guys are up to. Pulling their venom from the blunt attitude of New York yet factoring in some of Los Angeles’ adrenaline and even including some of the new school—one could call Converge “new” in comparison to Lewd Acts’ other influences—via harmonized guitars and non-linear structures, the end result on Black Eye Blues is beastly and thick, almost pushing towards what Cursed were up to on their final opus but falling just short of that doom influence. Leaden and imposing while still agile and heated, Black Eye Blues isn’t redefining the world of hardcore overall but it’s still bold, inspired and original enough to be stunning.

(Deathwish)

Rating: 7.5

By Gruesome Greg

You could say that I’m leaving the best for last. Before I’d even heard a note of this record, I knew that it was going to be on several people’s Top 10 lists for 2009. Those are some pretty lofty expectations, yet I’d hafta say the critics have a point. This Blue Record goes from heavy to melodic to acoustic and back, offering something for all fans of heavy rock; from Priestess to Pentagram, Angel Witch to Acid Witch, Kansas to Jerusalem…

While “A Horse Called Golgotha” is the so-called college-radio single, I prefer its predecessor, the doomy “Ogeechee Hymnal”. This record’s getting good buzz in true doom circles, although several slow-motion headbangers have a beef with John Baizley’s vocals. Bobby Liebling, he is not, but I think they’re just bitter that the success of Baroness is dragging Peter Adams away from Valkyrie…

Alas, this isn’t a record that can be taken in small doses, on a track-by-track basis. You gotta listen to the whole thing, in its 45-minute glory, and experience all the changes in tempo, in mood, in feeling. And man, this record really has feeling. When they dubbed “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” the prison guard’s request that the inmates play piu forte became “more feeling.” Granted, that flick’s 40 years old, but if he wanted more feeling, in hindsight, he coulda just said “Play some Baroness”…

(Relapse)

RATING: 8.5

By Keith Carman

Thrash metal’s inherent underdogs, longstanding outfit Hirax never seem to garner the respect, attention or praise they so diligently stalk. Some of that might be chalked up to sheer luck but as this latest release proves, there is an element of plain old desirability that plays a large role. A solid offering that never slips below expectations, El Rostro De La Muerte admirably strives to create some elbow room between Exodus’ Pleasures Of The Flesh and Testament’s The New Order. However, the overall sameness of each track and vocalist Katon W. De Pena’s unique albeit unaltering shrill squawk fail to offer a real sense of dynamics. The result is one where no severe faults can be picked out but at the same time, nothing extraordinary asserts candidacy for essential—or even notable—status. It’s one of those, listen-if-you-have-it, forget-it-if-you-don’t affairs, which kind of sucks because it feels like trying to make a relationship with a nice but unexciting person work when you should really just move on.

(Thrash Corner)

5/10

By Bill Adams

When Airborne appeared out of the wilds of Australia with some amped up blues riffs and a campy bad attitude three years ago, listeners were perfectly aware of what they might be witnessing: it was like time had wrinkled a little and delivered another AC/DC before the old one had the chance to leave. Now, with the release of No Guts, No Glory though, Airbourne has been proactive on the matter; in the thirteen tracks that comprise the album, they’ve removed all doubt that they ARE indeed the next AC/DC come early.

No, as stated, this shouldn’t exactly come as news to anyone. When Airborne appeared in 2007 with Runnin’ Wild, they were already showing intentions to become the heirs apparent to the throne sat upon for so long by the brothers Young and Brian Johnson but the band has really stepped up its game with No Guts, No Glory. Now, instead of trying to work through any formative years as AC/DC did, Airbourne has leapt directly to where the going gets great with NGNG. With great big riffs and guitar heroics that it took the death of one lead singer for Angus Young to reach, Airborne hits the ground running with their own call to arms, “Born To Kill” and will shock the hell out of listeners that may have expected a sophomore slump. From there, Airbourne touches every requisite base as they stampede their way through; the band has their hard luck anthem in “No Way But The Hard Way” (which could be read as their take on “It’s A Long Way To The Top” without the bagpipes), “Blonde, Bad And Beautiful” hotwires “Whole Lotta Rosie” with “What Do You Do For Money,” and “Raise The Flag” lifts “Jailbreak” with a bit of warfare imagery in place of imprisonment. Would Airbourne even dream of denying any of this? Let’s hope not, because there really is no way to miss it and a denial of the obvious similarities in the material (they’ve even thinned down the sound of their Gibson Explorers to sound like SGs) would mean that the band has woefully underestimated the deductive reasoning of their audience.

Even so, it can’t be said that the similarities between the songs on No Guts, No Glory and any given AC/DC record take away from the album or seem mawkish. It has been a very long time since music like this sounded so energetic; on No Guts, No Glory, Airbourne rock out like true believers and they have the chops to back up their ambition. It’s actually pretty great to hear that someone else has taken up the gauntlet and, even better for the band, it’s pretty much self-sustaining because rock like this never really goes out of style.

(Roadrunner Records)

Rating: 7.5

Review By Natalie Zed, Photos by Albert Mansour

I arrived at The Opera House at 7:20pm. Somehow, I had missed LAZARUS A.D. entirely, and walked in during the middle of EVILE’s set. When the hell did this show start? It’s rather challenging for people like me, who enjoy being dorkily early to things, when shows start at 6-freaking-pm.

After the requisite coat-check, acquire-beer, locate-roommate dance, I expected to settle in and watch EVILE’s set from the comfort of the bar. After about a song and a half, I abandoned my passive position and found myself right up front, snapping pictures and headbanging away. EVILE brought a great deal of positive, infectious energy to their performance. They were also gracious performers, generously praising their tour-mates and effusively thanking the crowd. “We Who Are About To Die” and “Enter The Grave” went over particularly well, especially with the younger contingent of the audience. This band was just plain fun to watch, and I’m looking forward to their return to Toronto with OVERKILL and VADER next month.

NACHTMYSTIUM’S set was short, tight, and almost impossibly refined. This is a band that knows exactly who they are and what they’re on about. A great deal of time and energy has clearly gone into carefully crafting and refining their performance, and it shows. They command a remarkably strong stage presence and project complete control over their performance. I caught myself wondering, though, whether such refinement, such precision, might have strayed over the line and become mechanical. In the end, even a sense of industrial coldness works for them and adds to their caché rather than detracting. NACHTMYSTIUM might have gunmetal at its heart.

Something mysterious happened just before VOIVOD came on stage: in the span of time it took me to buy a drink, the crowd managed to double in size, as though a silent VOIVOD-alarm suddenly went off in every metalhead’s mind. Lily the Pirate (my kickass roommate) and I got as close to the stage as we dared, expecting to be crushed. The crowd really surprised us, however: despite the excitement vibrating through The Opera House, everyone was incredibly well-mannered and polite. It seemed contextually perfect that VOIVOD’s performance was greeting with such quintessential Canadian courtesy.

VOIVOD gave all that they had to give and did not disappoint. Snake is a hell of a showman, owning the entire stage, smiling like a crocodile and dancing like a zombie. The setlist skewed towards older material, which the crowd devoured. The selection of material from Infini that they played, including “Global Warning,” was greeted with a slight reserve that morphed into full-on reverence once Snake raised a lighter to the ceiling and dedicated their performance to Piggy. It’s been a strange, death-filled year already for the music world, which made that moment of tribute even more poignant. The encore mercifully allowed the crowd the opportunity to purge any softer feelings that might have been generated. VOIVOD conserved their energy and played their hardest right at the very end of their set, going out in a blaze of fists and sweat.

Guilty admission time: I was not expecting to love KREATOR. A bit of this expectation comes from experience, as I tend to be far more impressed with supporting acts that headliners (for example: I adored DEVIN TOWNSEND’s performance back in January, but was very lukewarm about BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME). The majority of this assumption, though, was me being hetero-normative. When I think of German thrash, it fits firmly in the “metal that’s mostly for dudes” category in my brain. Silly and sexist, of course, but however unconscious it does make me a little reserved.

KREATOR, of course, positively destroyed The Opera House. “Hordes of Chaos” raised the energy level in the room to near-riot level early on, and “Enemy of God” and “Extreme Aggression” kept it there. Whatever chilliness I’d initially felt evaporated almost immediately, and there was rarely a moment when my fist wasn’t in the air and my neck muscles weren’t burning. Mille’s take on crowd control bordered on cheesy, but the cliché only served to create a call-and response environment that made the experience all the better. The band and the audience knew exactly what they wanted from each other, and each delivered. It was loud and fun and deeply satisfying.

I left this show feeling even more cheerful than I usually do–which is saying something. Metal puts me in a spectacular mood, but there was something especially good-natured about this show that added and extra shine to the evening. The combination of solid performances, helping a dude find his glasses by the light of my phone (a service that has been done for me in the past and oh how grateful I am for the courtesy), and the incredibly positive attitude of everyone at the venue warmed my black little heart. It’s not just the bands that are responsible for a good show; it’s also the audience.