Recommend me some quality Metal

Finally listened to The Banished Heart today, and it’s good stuff, although in my opinion Winter is better. Probably because I prefer the melodic musical style and there’s more of that in Winter. Still enjoyed it, though.

Agreed! Listened to it a couple of times now. No rust on those guys.

Yes! New Priest is excellent! I accidentally had repeat on when I started playing it and wasn’t at all miffed to find I’d listened to it three times straight through before realizing that.

Halford has a little rust (understandably), as he’s freely admitted in the past. He’s mostly mid-register on this, I miss those insane high shrieks he used to throw around with wanton abandon on earlier albums. He is still awesome though!

So many concerts. . .

Saw Sabaton, Kreator, and Cyhra on last Thursday. Cyhra surprised me by being really upbeat kinda power/classic metal with a lot of charisma and presence for their relatively low billing on the ticket. Kreator were driving, pounding, and absolutely locked on, but the venue’s sound was terrible, so all I got was vocals and the toms on the drumset, so that kinda reduced my enthusiasm a little. But hey, hearing “Violent Revolution” live was definitely a bucket list item. Seeing Sabaton for the third time in as many years was exactly as much fun as the previous go-arounds, especially with a cool setlist with lesser-heard numbers like “Final Solution” and “White Death” getting played. These guys are just so much fucking fun live, it’s almost ridiculous.

SUCH MANY PICTURES

Cyhra

Kreator


Sabaton







Saturday was Nightwish’s second show on their Decades world tour, featuring music from their whole discography. Tracks that haven’t been played since the 90s showed up! I won’t spoil it for anyone who’ll be attending, but this was genuinely the best show I’ve seen Nightwish put on, and this is time number 4! (Seen all three vocalists, too, lol) These guys are consummate performers and dedicated to blowing it out for the audience every step of the way. Just fucking fantastic. GO TO THIS SHOW IF IT COMES WITHIN 200 MILES OF YOU (like it did me–hello 2.5 hour drive each way!)

PICTURES OUT THE ASS










Septicflesh/Dark Funeral upload tomorrow, if I can. I’m still beat from that show (which was last night).

Quick break from picture-posts, cuz these guys come up in the next one.

While the excellent Rapheumet’s Well has been reorganizing around some major lineup changes to support more frequent touring, members Josh and Hunter went and kicked off the amazing new band Xael, whose dramatic, baroque-tinged symphonic, proggy death metal sound is just fucking awesome. And their music videos are still way more awesome than a bunch of relative small-time dudes from North Carolina have any right to be.

The whole (partially released) album is just excellent:

I am greatly encouraged by this report. March 28th in Kalamazoo can’t come soon enough!

I can not get enough Cattle Decapitation lately. I’ve been blowing through their back catalog like crazy the last few weeks. Their first album or two haven’t clicked yet, but the most recent 4 are fantastic beginning to end.

I pretty much got into these guys because of a Youtube recommendation based on my listening history… Best recommendation it’s made yet.

I know this might sound like a stupid comparison, but I think one of the biggest reasons this band was so easy for me to get into is because of how reminiscent it is to me of Devin Townsend’s aggressive work. And I don’t mean to imply that they sound exactly alike so much as various “wall of sound” moments, and diverse vocal styles specifically, keep bringing me back to DT albums like Ziltoid, Deconstruction, and various SYL tracks. This makes C.D. right up my alley.

A couple of my favorite tracks so far:


Well shit now you’re making me want to listen to Cattle Decapitation, which I was positive I didn’t want to do until 60 seconds ago.

So, next show was Tuesday night down in Spartanburg, SC–3.5-4 hour drive with one good friend and one local metal pal who I’m still getting to know. The big upshot for me was that in that town is a Mr. Gatti’s Pizza, which is this chain of low-tier buffet pizza joints with arcades and kids TV rooms. Sort of somewhere between Chuck E Cheese and Cici’s. It’s not good. But I love it. And the only one I had easy access to, in my parents’ hometown, went out of business several years ago. So of course had to go.

Then, it was on to music!

First up was Xael, who I shared above. Excellent symphonic death metal with folk notes. They only got to play one song due to significant technical issues–it was one of their first real shows.

Then came Vesterian, a Charlotte, NC-area black metal band with cool armor and solid technical chops. They’ve got a few albums under their belt and I actually like 'em quite a bit, so getting to see them live was sick as hell.

After that was Thy Antichrist, who are just so ludicrously over the top that you can’t help but love them. Ludicrous medieval armor, the lead singer dressed up like a nature cult satanic priest or some shit with a giant skull staff and elaborate body paint all over him. . . they play some decent atmospheric-esque black metal that actually sounded a lot better live than it had on the albums.

Then came Dark Funeral, the legendary Swedish black metal maestros, back after a long hiatus and better than ever. While Thy Antichrist mistakes shock value and absurdity for personality and depth, Dark Funeral actually have some genuine fucking charisma and power to them that I think only comes with age and experience. Their set was amazing and bleak and filthily heavy.

Finally, after so long a wait, at last came Septicflesh, returning to US shores after something like 5 goddamn years. Their brand of symphonic, crushingly heavy death metal is EXACTLY up my alley, and they absolutely delivered live. Their sound mixing was super fucking on point and they did a great job of letting the orchestral instrumental parts breathe and flow between their live performed segments, and the lead singer’s boundless Greek enthusiasm was just fucking awesome. What a great, great show.

Amazing night. Followed by a 4 hour drive home punctuated by an ill-advised stop at Krystals (another restaurant I can’t easily eat in Raleigh and thus HAD to stop at when I saw one in SC).

Xael

Vesterian

Thy Antichrist


Dark Funeral



Septicflesh



What happened to the Kreator pics? I don’t see any. :(

Damn, I can see them in the edit window but my the actual post. Hmm. Will append them to this post shortly. It’s just a couple.

Cyhra

Kreator



For you, @Profanicus

Also, hello, my name is ArmandoPenblade and I really like to push my way to the front of concerts.

Cool thanks. I am living vicariously through you - my concert-going days are way behind me. :)

No worries; they should be getting behind me, but I’m a self-destructive idiot :)


Man, the lighting in GroundZero is horrible for high-res low-blur action shots, but goddamn if the combination of fog, mood lights, spotlights, and all the other crap going on there doesn’t combine to make some really evocative photos.

Well, you’ve convinced me. Just bought tickets to their show on the 23rd.

So fucking good!

Plus, hey, free CD!

Good calls on Heavatar and Xael, @ineffablebob and @ArmandoPenblade. Have been enjoying both of those.

And in the spirit of cool upcoming local bands (an areas where SoCal seems sadly underrepresented relative to its population), check out the “what if Thin Lizzy but D&D?” stylings of Gygax.

Oh this is fuckin’ delightful

Holy fucking shit, @Thraeg, thank you so very much for this!!
I’ve been a huge Lizzy fan since 1974, and own every album they ever made, and somehow I’ve never heard of Gygax. This band sounds more like Thin Lizzy than even Black Star Riders. Amazing. I’m loving the hell out of this. Found both of their albums on Youtube and am currently listening while I attempt to find them to purchase in CD format.

Their sound is an almost perfect combination of the Eric Bell era and the classic Gorham/Roberson era. Truly impressive. Again, I thank you.

This is Asterism.

They are a Japanese middle school student band and ridiculously talented for their age.