1349 & Tombs @ the Basement

Here’s my first concert of the year. It came on the day I found out David Bowie died so it served as a catharsis to vent out some of the depression hanging in my chest. Normally I would have had a harder time getting motivated to get out of the house at 9:30 at night but I had been wanting to see both bands for some time. And since my family over at Cvlt Nation was sponsoring the “Chaos Raids” tour, I felt even more obligated to make it out.

My wife had to work late so we got to the Basement right when Tombs was doing their sound check. We missed local openers the Vimur and Full of Hell. The latter I have previously seen with Mutilation Rites. Bassist Ben Brand from Woe was still in the band and had a pretty mean tone. The big surprise in the unexpected line up changes is the addition of Fade Kainer from Batilus/ Statiqbloom he often splits the vocals duties with Hill and has his own personality when it comes to his stage presence which honors the more black metal elements of the band, but also brings forward the more industrial influence that has been simmering under their surface. These cast a larger shadow in the live sound and the more post-punk moments were toned down, obviously touring with a band like 1349 they have had to bring it in the most furious fashion possible. Addition to the band and adds a lot to their sound. His synth work added punch to the low end as he accented certain hits.

First off before we get into their set, which cares what you think of black metal's more theatrical elements, these guys are the real deal and played with dead serious conviction. The stage was set for the ritualistic pageantry of black metal. The drummer first came out in a hoodie and full corpse paint on to adjust his drums before returning to the stage covered in sigils scrawled over his bare torso. Frost was no able to make it over so they employed Jon Rice of Job For A Cowboy, and I can’t imagine Frost being better than this guy who didn’t even break a sweat, but for a little guy hammering everything out with power and machine like precision . Singer Ravn brandished Gwar like gauntlets on his forearms and had a stage presence that was commanding and engaging. The mix shifted and the vocals were much more audible from the house p/a, so the closer you stood to the stage the more his croaks and screams faded behind the buzz saw guitar.

The band’s energy and intensity keep the momentum of their set flying by you no matter if they were playing blast beats or not. They won the Atlanta audience over due to the fact they have a punk rawness to them live. With Archaon handling all the guitar duties by himself, some of the layers that are on the album were given a more stripped down and straightforward treatment. From behind his cowl their bassist kept the rumble going for the occasional run up the neck Archaon took, but these happened so quick the wall of razor sharp sound kept it’s lacerating attack. While the material from “Cauldron of Chaos” dominated the set they came out and for their first three songs crammed “I am Abomination” , “Nathicana” and “Sculptor of flesh” in your face . If you have not caught these guys yet and call yourself a fan of black metal you are doing yourself a disservice. In fact both bands are a must as they approach their respective sounds with all the passion of their black hearts.

King Diamond & Slayer @ Mayhem Fest 7/29/15 in Atlanta

Mayhem Festival has been getting some bad press about poor ticket sales and I am here to tell you its not trolls or press trying to bad mouth metal, its the truth. Last show I saw at Aaron's Amphitheater was Iron Maiden who sold the place out, this was a harsh contrast, not even half sold I'd say a quarter sold, maybe thirty percent once Slayer came on. The doors opened at one in the afternoon and I had no intention of seeing bands like the Devil Wears Prada or Whitechapel...even Hellyeah is pushing it for me.
My girl friend's finals put us a little behind schedule so we missed the first three King Diamond songs..."The Candle" ,"Sleepless Nights" and "the Eye of the Witch" and got there during "Welcome Home". The first thing I noticed was King's voice sounded great. The stage up was a similar version of what King had when he came through in October. This is my 6th time seeing him so I had a few shows to compare it to. I have seen him in a festival setting before and did not remember the guitar tone sounding like your average wall of chug. Then I realized they had tuned down. At times this made King sound flat as the original notes transposed to the lower key sometimes better than others . King Diamond's set did not have the sort of sound problem's Slayer's had but we will get to that soon enough.
The theatrics were toned down a little no burning coffins. He mainly stuck to acting things out with the dancer who took on multiple roles from Grandma to Miriam. He hit the same songs from his October set, focusing heavily on his three best albums "Them" , "Conspiracy and "Abigail" with "Digging Graves" from " the Graveyard" and two Mercyful Fate songs "Evil" where like you might have seen on the inner webs Kerry King joins them on stage  and "Come to the Sabbath". The final three songs were all from "Abigail"..."the Family Ghost" , July 7th 1777" and "the Black Horsemen". King Diamond was in good spirits about the sad state of affairs, having been somewhat of an outsider from traditional mainstream metal due to his outlandish singing style being an acquired taste, he seemed to be glad to be playing in such a setting, if this had been in Europe it would have been a much larger turn out.
While waiting for Slayer we found some of our friends, and I looked at passing band shirts with the stand outs aside from your more typical fare  being Paradise Lost and Destruction. Then Slayer took the stage with a lot of bombast and pyro, but their sound was thin. It was my first time seeing them with Gary Holt in Jeff's place. The first half of their set was newer stuff which all sounds the same to me. "God Send Death" was the only song that stood out until they hit "War Ensemble". Up until then I was bored by the other Six songs. They had clips of  supposedly gruesome things , but hand's down the movies Morrissey had playing behind him during his show were way more brutal than what Slayer had going . It was during Mandatory Suicide" that  I turned to my girl friend and said "See now this finally sounds like music" and then as if on cue the guitar's cut out .  This was worth a laugh. They also hit "Chemical Warfare" where Tom proved his voice has no held up any where close to King Diamond's, but ignoring the high notes all together. We also caught "Ghosts of War" and left during "Dead Skin Mask".

Is this the state of mainstream metal? Would it made that big of a difference if say Motorhead had been added to the bill? I remember when Slayer would have packed the place out by themselves. Is it because they are pulling a Kiss and only have two original members? It doesn't effect Kiss that much. This was like a Cheap Trick level crowd, where the band is on a Spinal Tap like decline. Kerry King has gone on record blasting the promoters of the tour, but while we got free tickets from a friend, I would have been pissed to have paid money to see Slayer clock in and plod through a set where over half the songs sounded the same. Ticket went down to 7 dollars day of the show,  the cost of seeing a local band. It's a sad state of affairs. The first video I posted of the show in Arizona shows this was not just in Atlanta , who is notorious for low turn outs. At the end of the summer I'll take a look at the other big tours and show you how they fared when the numbers come in and see where metal is heading.

Live Review : Christian Death @ the Masquerade

O.k before we get into how the stage was set with cob webs draped over the drums and mic stand a roses abounding lets get the elephant out of the room...

Some goth die-hards will be reluctant to give the non- Rozz Williams line-up of the seminal death -rock act a chance, if they don't out right scorn it. Valor took over as the singer in 1985 and Williams tried to reclaim the name in 95 resulting in a legal battle. Which Valor claims never took place, maybe it didn't I was too high at the time to keep up or care about that drama. He said it all went down with Cleopatra Records and they didn't want to deny Rozz's fan and said his version just had to say featuring Rozz Williams. Sound fair enough as long as his version said featuring Valor Kand  but it's water under the bridge unless you ask the people over a rozz.net on Facebook who are still trolling the Christian Death page to make sure justice is done.

 The conclusion I came to is this...it's like Ozzy and Dio. Ozzy is Black Sabbath. Rozz is Christian Death. Dio is technically a better singer than Ozzy, just as Valor is technically a better singer than Rozz , however both Ozzy and Rozz have the personality that makes their bands come to life. Mob Rules and Heaven & Hell are good albums. Sex, Drugs and Jesus Christ is a good album. So it's ok to go see Valor as it was o.k to go see the Dio Sabbath. The big difference being Rozz Williams is dead, so there are no other options, so we get off the hook better than Sabbath fans because Dio could still sing his songs and he is dead , Ozzy is back with the band but can no longer sing.

Now that they years and the drug lifestyle have worn on Valor as well he sounds more like Rozz than he use to and after last night  the playing field was leveled vocally between the too but he still hits more of the notes than Ozzy 

Maitri who joined the band as the bass player back in 1992, took a more commanding presence on stage than Valor , who introduced himself as "Satan or at least that who some people think he is " this kind of deprecating humor took on a Spinal Tap air. Valor almost seemed apologetic at times and this being the third date of the tour  maybe he just needed to get his sea legs back on stage.   

 Maitri held the audiences attention for a few reasons depending on which members of the audience you asked. Young goth boys who hadn't ventured out from in front of their computers since dragon con to see a woman in the flesh where particularly enamored by her, as she was clad like a sequined stripper. Her high heels seemed like an odd fit to stalk the stage in while slinging her bass and her skirt was more like a few strands of black to decorate her panties. It was more than she is wearing on the cover of her album "lover of sin" and like Thrill Kill Kult they adopted a very over sexual theme since the 90's so they stuck to that theme, despite rocks steps toward feminism, but like metal this kind of sleaze goes back to the bdsm themes in early goth, so some objectification applies. Hey it worked for Lords of Acid.  

Drummer Jason Frantz did and excellent job of keeping the songs moving. Drummers are never the strong point to goth, come name some great goth drummers...I'll be waiting. The bass players normally run the show and let the guitarist and singer romantically waltz around the proceedings, so having a drummer that was really solid gave them more of a metal edge.  The newer material they Valor said was being introduced and sold exclusively on this tour was much more metal at one point there was a riff that reminded me of something from Metallica's Black Album,so almost dumbing it down metal. This did prompt Valor to explain what tuning his guitar down to drop d meant. 

The crowd did fill in a little better for Christian Death, though the Rozz resent would be one suspected reason for the low turn out. I only caught the opening band locals Board of Whores best attempt to win the crow over with a cover of Concrete Blond, when I asked the bartender how  the rest of their set was she said very 80's, so there is her word for. If asked a decade to pick for Christian Death featuring Valor Kand's set was I would say very 90's. It was a good decade for Cleopatra Records so little wonder thats where their evolution ended them up at. I think it would be a nice gesture to the fans and an olive branch to do a tour that served as a Tribute to Rozz, reach out to bands like Mephisto Waltz and Sex Gang Children with Rikk Agnew , Gitane Demone, and Eva O.  It wouldn't be goth without the drama and what else have they got to do. Sure if Valor swings back though town I'll saunter in again and hope for the best.