Local opening acts... the support-the-undergro​und side of me can't begrudge them a slot at the bottom of a touring bill that might win them some badly-needed new fans. The side of me that goes out on a weeknight to see a few specific bands (usually no more than half a bill, these days), though, wishes they weren't there.
The first show of the first U.S. tour by Hellhammer/Celtic Frost frontman Tom G. Warrior's new band Triptykon took place at New York's Gramercy Theatre on Wednesday, October 6. The ads all said the doors would open at 7 PM, and I was there right on time, waiting to see psychedelic jazz-metal act Yakuza, who were the listed opener. But at 7:20, out came two baldhead shlubs in cargo shorts carrying pointy guitars, a longhaired dude who looked like he belonged in some other band (he looked kinda like Oli Herbert from All That Remains with a perm, actually), and a singing drummer wearing a Britney Spears-style headset microphone. They bashed through half an hour of ultra-generic black metal; I was pissed at first, but then I just got bored. (They're called Immolith, by the way.)
Yakuza finally took the stage at 8:15. (Full disclosure: I consider frontman Bruce Lamont a friend, and have written the liner notes for his forthcoming solo album.) Their half-hour set, from which one song had been shaved to accomodate Immolith, consisted entirely of material from their 2010 release Of Seismic Consequence. Their music has become steadily more psychedelic and adventurous over the course of five albums in ten years; at this point, they sound like a cross between Pink Floyd and Killing Joke, with Lamont switching back and forth, from a chantlike croon to a hoarse roar, and periodically blowing tenor or soprano saxophone. (This aspect of their music seemed to particularly irritate one d-bag, who was already shouting "1349!" at every quiet moment of Yakuza's set, and at one point shouted "Kenny G!" Lamont responded by growing ever more wild-eyed and frenzied in his performance, but never addressed the audience directly.)
Norwegian black metal band 1349 have a long-standing relationship with Tom G. Warrior—he's joined them onstage in the past, and co-produced their last two records, 2009's Revelations of the Black Flame and 2010's Demonoir. I guess they're okay, but black metal generally doesn't do much for me, and their set—which took place almost entirely in the dark—was a morass of blast beats (the drums, by Satyricon's Frost, were the loudest element of the mix, by far) and noisy, ultra-distorted guitar riffs. I didn't pay much attention to them, and was glad when they were done.
Triptykon finally took the stage shortly before 10:30. I was extremely excited to see them, because I didn't make it to what turned out to be Celtic Frost's final U.S. tour, in support of 2006's amazing Monotheist. And I wasn't disappointed. Tom G. Warrior's guitar tone and playing style are instantly recognizable. He's not the fastest or most technically skilled player, but his caveman-like riffing perfectly suits his harsh, barking voice and the doomy, ultra-downtuned rhythm section he's always depended on, from Hellhammer to Celtic Frost and now Triptykon. While his earlier bands were trios, Triptykon is a quartet, with second guitarist Vanja Slajh, female bassist V. Santura and drummer Norman Lonhard contributing to a churning roar. The songs on Triptykon's debut CD, Eparistera Daimones, are long, heavy, and mostly slow; aside from the two-minute interlude "Shrine," the shortest track is still more than five minutes long, and the album closes with the ironically titled "The Prolonging," which comes in at a staggering 19:22. The set was heavy on Celtic Frost material, including classics like "Procreation (Of the Wicked)," "Circle of the Tyrants," and "Babylon Fell" and two tracks from Monotheist—"Synagoga Satanae" and "Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three: Finale)"—and only three from Eparistera Daimones ("Goetia," "Abyss Within My Soul" and "The Prolonging"). Everything fit together seamlessly, though, and the crowd greeted every song with howls of ecstasy and chants of "Warr-i-or! Warr-i-or! Warr-i-or!" The man himself cracked a smile and said, "It seems like we're home again."

 

Thanks to Metal Injection for bringing this to the world's attention...apparent​ly,Knights of the Abyss (a not-terrible band) are one of the opening acts on the current Cattle Decapitation tour. Other bands on the bill include Devourment, Burning the Masses and Son of Aurelius. Well, Knights guitarist Brian McNulty "slept in" (his words) after opening night celebrations, and missed the second night's show. It was determined that he needed a smack—said smack to be delivered by Cattle Decapitation's tour manager Chris, who outweighs Brian by...well, just watch the clip. It's awesome, and even McNulty can't claim it's unjustified.


 

On Friday, November 26 (the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as "Black Friday"), Metallica will be releasing Live at Grimey’s, a CD recorded at Grimey's New & Preloved Music in Nashville, Tennessee on June 12, 2008. The disc, performed in front of a small group of fans in a basement that holds 150-175 people, max, will only be released to independent record stores that participate in the annual Record Store Day. (For a list of participating retailers, click here.)
 
Live at Grimey’s will be available as a single CD or double vinyl. Here's the tracklist:

No Remorse
Fuel
Harvester of Sorrow
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Master of Puppets
Sad But True
Motorbreath
Seek and Destroy

Here's some video of their performance of "For Whom the Bell Tolls":
And just FYI, if you can't make it to an independent record store on 11/26, or you can't wait that long, this show is available as part of Metallica's download series at LiveMetallica.com for $4.99 in MP3 format or $6.50 in FLAC.

 

I was in high school when Joe Satriani's second album, Surfing with the Alien, came out. Some guy I knew had a copy on cassette, and I remember being blown away by the opening title track. I wasn't a big fan of instrumental guitar music, because most of it seemed like one riff pounded into the ground, like "Tequila" or surf music. But this was a whole different thing. It was impossible not to be thrilled by his high-speed runs and his ability to combine amazing instrumental technique and memorable melodies. He wrote actual songs, not just riffs designed to support wanky soloing or "stunt guitar" effects.

I didn't really keep up with Satriani's career after that, but he's had a pretty astonishing run, selling millions of albums, headlining the G3 tours with other shredders (Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Paul Gilbert, and Michael Schenker, among others) and currently playing as part of Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith. (Their 2009 self-titled debut album is better than you probably think; you should check it out.)

Anyway, Satriani's got a new album out this week—his 14th studio disc, it's called Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, and as you might guess, it's not a collection of acoustic blues numbers or jazz standards (that would be the astonishingly boring new Eric Clapton record). Here's Satriani himself, talking about the first single, "Light Years Away":
I've got three signed copies of Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards to give away. All you have to do is correctly answer the three very easy questions below via email.

1. Which member of Metallica did Joe Satriani give guitar lessons to?
2. What death metal band did Satriani produce a record for?
3. Which band offered Satriani a permanent membership after some gigs as a sub (he turned them down)?

Send your answers to msnmetal@gmail.com. You've got until Tuesday, October 12 to get your answers in. Cool? Cool.
 

This week is a great one for fans of New Orleans sludge/doom. Not only is Down's Diary of a Mad Band finally coming out, but Crowbar's second and third albums, Crowbar and Time Heals Nothing, are being reissued, as is the Live +1 EP that bridged the gap between them. There's some other stuff coming out, too...

Down, Diary of a Mad Band (Down/ADA): This 2CD/1DVD live set/documentary by Phil Anselmo's weed-fogged, sludgy Southern doom quintet has been a rumor for years. The film footage all comes from the group's 2006 European tour, as does the live audio, recorded in London in the wake of their second album, Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow.... But legal battles over which label—Warner Bros, who'd originally passed on it, or E1, the imprint the band offered it to—had the right to put it out kept it from emerging. Ultimately, Warner wrested it away, as major labels tend to do when battling indies, though theoretically it's emerging on Down's own imprint. Whatever. The point is, it's a quality product. The live footage and audio recordings are fantastic, with Anselmo keeping his between-song ramblings to a minimum as the band cranks through a 16-song set (17 on DVD; "There's Something On My Side" is video-only) with tautness and power, from the opening "Losing All" to a nearly 12-minute version of "Bury Me in Smoke" to close the show.

Crowbar, Crowbar/Live +1/Time Heals Nothing (E1): Crowbar have been a cult act for two decades at this point; their blend of sludge, doom and hardcore, with angst-filled vocals that fall somewhere between Life of Agony and Judge. (If you kids reading this don't know who Judge or Life of Agony were, you've got some awesome listening ahead of you.) Anyway, this stuff has been released twice before—the original editions came out on Pavement Music in 1993, 1994 and 1995 respectively, and then in 2008 the Polish label Metal Mind remastered them, pairing Crowbar and Live +1 on a single disc and reissuing Time Heals Nothing with bonus tracks from Crowbar's debut album, Obedience Thru Suffering. But if you didn't pick those up (they were limited edition imports on gold discs), you should get these. Crowbar has recently reactivated and is worth your attention anyway.

Wolvserpent, Blood Seed (20 Buck Spin): This band used to be called Pussygutt. Seriously. Then they decided they wanted people to actually come to their shows and buy their records, so they changed their name to Wolvserpent. They're a guitar/drums duo who play ominous, doomy instrumental music, adding extra instruments (synths, violin) as necessary in the studio. It's not boring, though; they're not another Pelican. This album, which is being released on vinyl only by 20 Buck Spin and limited to 500 copies (though it's available on MP3 from Amazon.com), has one track per side. "Wolv" is anthemic in a way that's almost reminiscent of early Melvins, but with violin and what sounds like a synth version of female vocals buried in the mix. "Serpent" is heavier and more aggressive, almost heading into Triptykon territory and featuring vocals (but no lyrics, as far as I can tell). It's impressive, ritualistic stuff—not recommended for people who just wanna bang their heads, but if you like metal that's clearly got emotional resonance for its creators, you should definitely give these two a listen.

 

This past Thursday night, I found myself in San Francisco on non-metal-related business, and decided to take in a show. Despised Icon, Misery Index, and Revocation were playing at DNA Lounge, a small club only blocks from my hotel. It was $16 at the door. When I got there, I found out there was also a local band, Arise, opening up. I wasn't too happy about that, but at least it was only one local band and not three.

Turns out Arise are pretty good. They're unsigned, but have two EPs to their name - Guerra Es Nuestra Unica Esperanza (War Is Our Only Hope) and City At War. They've packaged these in a double digipak, which I grabbed from the merch table. They're currently prepping their full-length debut, The Age Of Kings Is Dead, which will be self-released. Here's a short teaser they've put together.
Their set was a little disjointed, because they write songs in multiple styles. The first thing they played was deathcore, bass drops, ultra-guttural vocals and all. But as the set went on, they played thrashy songs, straight-up hardcore songs, and various style-jumping combinations thereof. They're political, and culturally aware—frontman Feo sings in both English and Spanish. I came away impressed. Someone should sign these guys.

Revocation was up next. I was really looking forward to seeing them, because both of their albums—Empire Of The Obscene and Existence Is Futile—have been getting heavy play in my iPod for a while. Their music combines technical death metal (frontman David Davidson is a serious shredder) with anthemic rock power; bassist Anthony Buda and drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne are ridiculously tight, with Dubois-Coyne actually managing to inject swing into death metal, which ain't easy. Second guitarist Dan Gargiulo helps keep their intricate arrangements together onstage, and has apparently been recruited as a full-time band member.

The band's short set was great. They sounded really good for the most part, with a full, ripping guitar tone and plenty of bass and drums, but they weren't getting a good monitor mix and kept asking for tweaks from the sound man after each song. On the third song, for some reason he dropped everything down absurdly low, until the guitars almost disappeared and all that was left was vocals and drums—it sounded like a demo tape being played through club speakers. Things got back to normal for the last two songs of the set, though.

After they'd finished loading out, I grabbed Davidson and asked him a few quick questions (my camera's battery was dying) outside the club. Then I went back to the hotel and fell asleep without seeing Misery Index (who I like) or Despised Icon (who I don't like); the cross-country flight and time change had caught up with me. Here's the interview.


 

Crowbar's second and third albums, 1993's Crowbar and 1995's Time Heals Nothing, along with the 1994 Live +1 EP, are being reissued next week by the E1 label. (There will be a new Crowbar album in early 2011, and the band is touring soon.)

Crowbar's sound was a potent mix of sludge, doom and hardcore—loud, occasionally fast but frequently very slow, heavy and lyrically depressing as hell. Song titles like "All I Had (I Gave)," "Through a Wall of Tears" and "Existence is Punishment" tell the story. Unfortunately, their often excellent music was wrapped up in some of the worst album covers of the 1990s. Let's take a quick look (through our fingers) at their misbegotten efforts.
Crowbar's first three albums all had roughly myth-based covers. Their debut, 1991's Obedience Thru Suffering, started it all with a take on the legend of Atlas. But this Atlas looks like he's losing his grip on the world, and being crushed by it at the same time. Not a bad image (indeed, it's far and away the best album cover they ever had), but the way it's framed in that archway with darkness on each side just makes the space seem wasted.
1993's Crowbar was their breakthrough, helped quite a bit by production from Phil Anselmo (who now works with Crowbar guitarist Kirk Windstein in Down). The songs are heavy, mixing doom metal riffs and hardcore breakdowns with Windstein's sobbing-lumberjack, Life of Agony-esque vocals up front. But the cover, seen at left, sets the pattern for their entire career. It's a decent drawing, except that the two vertical columns on the left and right are flanking an equally skinny central column with some dude tied to it, and way too much empty space in between. Plus, the band's name (calling that cheap font a "logo" would be absurdly generous, but they never changed it) runs across the bottom, rather than the top, of the image, almost disappearing in the process.
The band's next full-length, 1995's Time Heals Nothing, had a slightly better illustration on its cover—some ancient-world guy, chained up and wrestling with two demonic mermen—but it still doesn't really work. Why are all three figures on pedestals? And why is there all that black space behind them? This time, it's the color scheme that's making the band's name—and the album title—disappear into the design. Plus, it looks like a sketch, not the final product.
The absolute worst offender among these reissues, though, is the Live +1 EP. This literally looks like they went through dozens of live photos, in search of the one that would make the band look as unappealing as possible. I've got no bias against fat people, but this photo is singularly unflattering (look at the way Windstein is slurping on that microphone), and the font used for the title is terrible. There is seriously no excuse for design work this shoddy. It looks like a demo made by middle-schoolers. Morbidly obese middle-schoolers.
The group's fourth album, 1996's Broken Glass, could have been the best cover of their entire catalog. The looming church is a nice image. But even this one seems thrown-together. (Stained glass imagery would be used much more effectively by Entombed on 2001's Morning Star.) And the album title is buried again, this time nearly falling into a shadow on top of the church. Did you spot it before reading that sentence?
Next we come to 1998's Odd Fellows Rest, and I really don't think I need to say anything at all, do I?
2000's Equilibrium came next—was Windstein trying to disassociate himself from the record right on its cover, or what? Oh, well, at least he managed to find an uglier font for the title than the one he persisted in using for the band's name. And in purple, no less.
The band almost stumbled onto a good cover with 2001's Sonic Excess In Its Purest Form. If only they hadn't made the rudimentary design error of turning the band name and album title sideways. But the shade of yellow they chose went very well with the dark blue-and-black central image. After the debut, this is the best cover in the whole Crowbar discography. But that's really not saying very much at all.
The band's final studio album (for now), 2005's Lifesblood for the Downtrodden, tried to class things up a little, with that framework running around the edges of the image, and the big floating fleur-de-lis (in case you didn't know they were from New Orleans). And it almost worked, except for two things: 1) the design within the fleur-de-lis contrasts in an ugly way with the background photo; and 2) once again, the color they used for the text, and the thinness of the font, makes the album title disappear into the image, the last word in particular.

Look, I like Crowbar. And I'm no graphic designer. But I really hope that whatever they come up with for their next release, it's better than anything they've crapped out so far.
 

The car company Scion has done a hell of a lot for underground metal the past few years. They've put on two editions of the Scion Rock Fest, a free day-long show featuring tons of killer bands. The 2009 edition featured 32 acts, including Mastodon, Baroness, Neurosis, High On Fire, Converge, Eyehategod, Zoroaster, Kylesa and Pig Destroyer; the 2010 lineup included Cannibal Corpse, Shrinebuilder, Voivod, Ludicra, Brutal Truth, Hate Eternal and 17 more similarly ferocious groups. Now they've joined forces with the folks at Adult Swim and offered a free 16-track metal sampler that you can download here. It includes rare or unreleased songs by Death Angel, Torche, Ludicra, Kylesa, Black Tusk, Red Fang, Black Cobra, Saviours, Witch Mountain, Isis, Jesu, Pelican, Zoroaster, Withered, Boris...and Skeletonwitch, for whom they've also put together the awesome video below.
Adult Swim & Scion present Metal Swim