This blog specializes in heavy metal music and how it relates to Washington DC and the surrounding area. Featuring info on upcoming metal concerts in Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia, as well as info on local bands, area concert venues, reviews of live gigs, and lots of give aways.
On Tuesday the 9th of August 2011 there were several metal shows all around the area, quite odd for a random Tuesday. Queensrÿche was playing the 9:30 Club, Emmure was headlining a 14 band concert for the All Stars Tour‘s Baltimore stop at Sonar, and there was also a rare metal showcase at Jammin Java featuring local acts Iris Divine, A Sound Of Thunder and Timelord. However, I skipped all of those and decided to head up to the Ottobar in Baltimore to see Proclamation, a black metal band from Spain. I wasn’t too familiar with them but I figured this will probably be my only chance to see them play live and I’m not one to turn down seeing an obscure black metal band perform live. There weren’t a lot of people at this show though, maybe around 50 by the time the headliner was playing. The bands didn’t seem to mind and played very well regardless.
I get out of work kind of late in the summer and getting to shows in Baltimore on weekdays usually means I’m going to have to miss an opener or two, and this night was no different. I knew I’d probably miss the local opening act, Extermination Angel, but the other three bands on the bill were all touring bands. The first of those scheduled to play was Thantifaxath, a black metal band from Toronto. Apparently they were held up at the border and not allowed to enter the US (something to do with goat heads in their belongings I heard) so they weren’t on the bill. Instead excellent local Baltimore doom act Oak played. I got there just as they were finishing though, which kind of sucks because they’re really good but I’ve seen them before so I wasn’t that upset. When I arrived the door price had been lowered to $15 (even though the Ottobar website listed the show at $18 and said it would increase the day of). A nice surprise though they should have mentioned this and the line up change on their website. The next band up also has quite a mouthful for a name, Abazagorath, who are a black metal band from New Jersey. I’d never heard of them before but they put on a decent show. My main problem with them was their vocalist, a guy who goes by the stage name Nihilist. He seemed to spend half his time on stage hanging out back by the drummer, often not even looking forward at the audience. The vocalist didn’t have a great voice for black metal either, and I saw him reading lyric sheets he had placed on the stage during several of their songs. They were playing some new material for the first time during the set so perhaps that’s something of an excuse but it still isn’t something I expect from a touring band. The guy just seemed unprofessional and hell even the bass player had better stage presence than he did, the guy was decked out in spikes and leather. Regardless, this is black metal and the vocals aren’t the most important part of a band’s sound in this genre. The rest of the band was pretty good and they had some decent songs that got a mosh pit going for a while. There wasn’t a lot of variation in their songs but their sound was good enough that it wasn’t a bad thing really. One of the guitarists was playing an eight string guitar which is kind of weird for a black metal band and seemed a bit unnecessary. I wouldn’t have gone to just see them but they were a good support act on a black metal tour like this.
Next up was the headliner, Proclamation from Madrid, Spain. They’re a three piece black metal band and as far as I can tell this was their first US tour and this was the final stop on said tour. I hadn’t ever heard of them when this tour was announced and I checked out a few of their songs online leading up to the gig but they didn’t seem to stand out that much to me. I found them much more entertaining live I must say. Their songs weren’t overly long, they didn’t try to be ultra dramatic and epic, and their vocalist knew all the words (even while playing guitar). They were just straight up, pissed off Satanic black metal and they were pretty good at it. The band’s drummer really punched it the entire night, the guy just didn’t slow down! He was quick and really kept the pace and energy levels high for their entire set. On top of the relentless drumming, Proclamation had some great guitar riffs in there too. Several songs built up brutal momentum very well and their assault on the ears was quite an energy boost on this Tuesday night. There were no big surprises in their sound but they had just enough variation to keep their songs interesting and I can’t say I was bored at any point during their set. They all came out with sort of corpse paint on, they had black make up on their eyes but no white face paint underneath. They all had necklaces on with various things hanging off of them, bones and upside down crosses and the like. They played 15 songs and they all drank from their beer bottles almost in unison immediately after each song ended. They didn’t really address the audience between songs, other than to bark out the next song’s title. They played a Sarcófago cover and that seemed to please the largely Latin American crown. Otherwise Proclamation kept it straight forward, heavy and blasphemous. No frills and no big surprises but certainly high intensity throughout their set. They did not perform an encore after their set, even though the audience wanted one.
I’m glad I decided to check Proclamation out. The show was worth the drive to Baltimore, even on a week night. I’m going to have to go back and give their studio material a few more listens because I really enjoyed them live. Proclamation won’t change your opinion of the black metal sub genre nor blow your mind, but if you’re into black metal I recommend seeing them if you ever get the chance. As usual I posted photos of both Proclamation and Abazagorath (click their respective names to see them) and I posted some videos from the show below as well. The videos are all pretty dark but you should at least be able to hear the bands alright. I really need to get a new video camera but I don’t see that in my financial forecast any time in the foreseeable future. Feel free to donate one to me, ya know, for Satan or something.
Well since there aren’t any shows I’ll be going to this week for me to review, I wanted to at least write about SOMETHING here and DCHeavyMetal.com reader James gave me the idea of talking about one of the local bands in the area. Well, I didn’t want to deal with picking favorites, so I’ve decided to write a sort of local heavy metal history lesson about a now broken up band from Northern Virginia, Witch-Hunt. Witch-Hunt was a black metal band that formed in 1992, put out a few demos and a couple of full lengths and eventually broke up in 2004. I really didn’t know who they were until an old friend of mine, Dave Schmidt, took over vocal duties for them. I started looking into their back catalog then and digging up their history.
In the summer of 1992 the brothers Brian and Ben Straight formed Witch-Hunt and put out three demos over the next couple years, First Kill, Born Dead and Fearless. I’ve never heard these so I can’t really comment on their sound. However, it was in 1994 when Erik Sayenga moved up to Northern Virginia from Florida and began playing with the band as the bass player (even though he was a drummer). This line up put out the demo Darkened Salvation in 1994 which started to get them noticed in the area as well as in the international underground tape trading scene. Again, I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of this so I don’t really know what it sounds like. During this early period in the band’s life they were playing local gigs, mostly at the Teen Hut and a place in Dumfries, Virginia called Tiki Fala.
After releasing the demos they put out their first album, Prophecies Of A Great Plague in 1996 on X-Rated Records. By this point Ben had moved and thus left the band and Erik took over the drums. Seth Newton was added to the line up to play additional guitars and also keyboards. The total playing time of Prophecies Of A Great Plague was under 25 minutes long so it’s really more of an EP. A few of the songs are worth hearing, particularly the lead off track Fragments and the track A World Lit Only By Fire. The album’s production is primitive but still listenable. You couldn’t just download Pro Tools from the Pirate Bay back in those days, but there really aren’t any mid-nineties American black metal albums that had stellar recording quality. At that point the band kept it to a fairly slow tempo for black metal. This recording is closer in pace to something like the first two Dimmu Borgir albums (but without keyboards dominating the other instruments) than say Marduk or Mayhem. Hell, this album would probably be called blackened melodic death metal these days. They started playing shows along the east coast until the band went on hold for a little while when Erik Sayenga joined Dying Fetus as the touring drummer and went around the US with them. Upon his return Brian Straight decided to quit the band to pursue a professional career outside of music, leaving Seth Newton to take over vocals and all instruments other than the drums.
This line up, really just Seth and Erik, wrote and recorded nine new songs that they finally released as Souls Enshrouded Fire in 2000, also on X-Rated. This album is quite a step up from Prophecies Of A Great Plague in both production and song writing. The band picked up the pace considerably on this album. They added more keyboards to the mix as well as some guest female vocal parts on a couple songs. The guest vocalist is Dawn Desireé (from Rain Fell Within) and her performance on the song Enshrouded is as excellent as you’d expect from someone who I would call the best female vocalist to ever play in a metal band in this area. Her haunting voice makes the track my favorite on the album. Also worth hearing a few times are the songs Ablaze Thy Majestic Kingdom as well as And The Sun Fell Forever, just some solid local old school black metal there. The album as a whole has a much stronger European metal influence in the sound and is one of my favorite black metal releases from the DC area. After this release the band added Richard Johnson on vocals and guitarist Eric Buchannan as well as a guy that I only know of as “Phil” on bass. They started playing more shows with this line up and they severed ties with X-Rated around this time as well.
After drummer Kevin Talley, along with Jason Netherton and Sparky Voyles, quit Dying Fetus to go form Misery Index, Erik Sayenga once again joined Dying Fetus, this time as a full time member. He did a few tours with them and can even be heard drumming on Stop At Nothing, the 2003 full length release by Dying Fetus. During this time Witch-Hunt had several line up changes. Richard and Phil both left the band. My friend Dave Schmidt joined the band on vocals, as well as Fionn Himmel, aka Camulus, who became the new bass player. In 2002 this line up put out a new demo to shop for a new label with. It only had two songs on it but it is by far the fastest and most brutal material the band ever put out. Quite an impressive leap musically compared to their previous releases, though I have to say the mix on the recording isn’t very good. The core of the Witch-Hunt sound is still there, but the songs are faster and yet the band is very tight. This demo allowed them to get booked as the opening act for Polish death metal legends Vader on their European tour in September of 2002.UPDATE: Turns out I got this wrong and this was really Erik touring with Dying Fetus opening for Vader. Do’h!
While the band seemed to be doing better than ever they were suffering from a lot of internal strife. Unfortunately they ended up disbanding in the fall of 2004 due to continuous infighting. Erik Sayenga quit Dying Fetus in 2005 and focused on other projects, including Warthrone. In that band he joined former Witch-Hunt vocalist Richard Johnson and they actually retooled the songs from the Witch-Hunt 2002 demo. These songs were released on the first Warthrone album, titled Ghost Storm Eulogy. The band has since moved to Florida and I haven’t really heard anything from them since. Erik also played in a band called Mordichrist with Chaq Mol of Dark Funeral. It’s a pretty interesting project that is worth checking out, sort of black/sludge/doom with female vox. Witch-Hunt bass player Camulus went on to do his own thing in a solo project also called Camulus (changed name to Fuamnach at some point) as well as playing with the folk metal band Andsvara. My friend Dave, who is only on Witch-Hunt’s final recording, went on to play in several other local metal bands, notably Bethledeign, Black Horizon and as one of the two founding members of Wolfsschanze. Now he’s a machine gunner in the US Army. Brian Straight apparently now lives in Colombia and I found a blog post of his from about a year ago that was very useful in researching this blog post. I’m not sure what happened to the other members of Witch-Hunt. Since Witch-Hunt broke up before the days where every band had a MySpace page you won’t find them there. They used to post some of their songs for free download, though their website is long gone now. So if you’d like to hear them I’ve taken the liberty of uploading what material of theirs I do have and you can download that here for free. I have also posted all of the old flyers and photographs I’ve found of the band doing research for this post, most from the mid nineties. Some are old pictures of the band with people like Corpsegrinder, Jason Netherton of Misery Index, John Gallagher of Dying Fetus, and even one with the legendary Chuck Schuldinger. You can check all of those out here. If anyone in the band is pissed I’ve posted these let me know and I’ll take them down. If anyone reading this has got any of their demos from before Prophecies Of A Great Plague I’d love to hear them, leave a comment and maybe we can work out a way where I can get a copy. I hope you all enjoyed hearing about this once great band from the DC metal scene, they were too good to just be forgotten so hopefully this post will help keep their music alive.
The Brooklyn based black metal band Liturgy played a gig on Tuesday the 5th of July 2011 at DC9 and even though I was running a fever I still headed up there to catch them play. I’m glad I did as it was an entertaining show, even if I was feeling as sick as a Cerberus. I was running a bit late getting there, and apparently a third “band” had been added to the lineup but I didn’t see them play. I heard it was a few guys with laptops and synthesizers or something and that sounded awful so I didn’t even want to go upstairs to find out more. It’s bad enough DJ nights are taking away more and more booking spots at venues, apparently now they’re creeping into the opener slots as well. Anyways, the next band was called Dope Body, from Baltimore. To put it bluntly, they were awful. They weren’t particularly heavy, certainly more rock band than metal. Their songs were highly repetitive which wouldn’t be awful if they were playing something more interesting than chopsticks. The vocalist had a lot of stage presence and was moving all around the stage but when the band announced they still had a few more songs left to play I decided to go downstairs and sit for a while. I was really feeling sick by that point and this band just wasn’t doing it for me at all.
After a short while I moved upstairs again to see the band I came here for, Liturgy. Liturgy is a fairly controversial band in the metal world. The thing that seems to make them the most controversial is that they don’t adhere to what metal heads expect of a black metal band, and they do that on purpose. They don’t wear corpse paint or spikes or any of the other stereotypical black metal imagery. It should be noted that not all “true” black metal bands like that stuff any more either, many saying it’s been over done. I can’t remember the last time I saw any of the old “inner circle” black metal bands wear corpse paint on stage, other than Immortal that is. Yet Liturgy is often labeled as hipsters though I didn’t see any skinny jeans or ironic tshirts. Maybe I’m not up to date on what constitutes being a hipster these days. (Please don’t bother explaining in the comments, I don’t care). Regardless of appearance, Liturgy is black metal with a lot of atmosphere and progression. They’re comparable to bands like Wolves In The Throne Room, Krallice and Weakling in that way, though they have their own distinct sound. They’ve got a bit of indie rock aesthetic in there too, though not in that Alcest shoegazey way. Their older material was definitely more rooted in black metal but now they’re starting to drift away into something different, something that is their own. Honestly, their music simply isn’t as dark as most black metal bands, but that’s not to say it isn’t bleak. The music often goes from dark and brooding and elevates itself to something lighter, and sometimes back again. The band’s main man, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, has angered many in his interviews with his views on metal and it’s community. But live, the guy seemed extremely soft spoken. When he was playing his music and screaming into the microphone during the songs it seemed like he was letting it all out. When he did speak between songs he spoke so softly, sort of mumbling, that I could hear people in the audience asking what he had just said. Not what I was expecting at all from the guy who’s words have pissed off so many in the underground metal world. They played several songs from their new album (see the concert’s setlist here) and they fit in well with the older material that was in there as well. The vocals were highly reverbed and their songs went through slow progressions, sometimes almost seeming to stall if it wasn’t for the band’s drummer keeping everything moving so well. He kept the show moving long and he really stood out to me live. My fever broke midway through their set and I started sweating all over the place but I didn’t mind, the songs kept me captivated for their entire set. By the time they finished I was sweating profusely but I was feeling better, surely it was Liturgy’s take on black metal that helped me transcend my illness, if even just temporarily (I was back to being sick the next day).
The audience wasn’t your typical black metal crowd, but that’s totally fine by me. It’s nice to see people outside the typical metal ‘clique’ going to see metal bands. I did recognize a few faces and a few of you came up to say hi and that you like reading my site, that’s always awesome and I often don’t know what to say and start rambling incoherently. There was a good sized crowd for a Tuesday, especially considering it was the night after a major holiday and at a venue that rarely gets metal bands. I really enjoyed watching Liturgy play that night and I’m glad I got to see them start off their tour that night. If you’re someone who thinks black metal must be kvlt and fit into some rigid standard to be “true” then you’re not going to like these guys. If you think black metal only means the ultimate in blasphemous and unholy music, again, you’re not going to enjoy Liturgy. If, however, you’re interested in seeing a band experiment with what black metal is and can be, I highly recommend checking them out. It was an interesting ride and I can’t wait to see them again, hopefully I’ll be feeling better for their next area appearance.
I gave away a pair of tickets to this concert and now I’m giving away a pair of tickets to see Torche at the Rock & Roll Hotel on Saturday the 16th of July, be sure to enter here. Now check out the videos below that I shot at this concert. The lighting is really dark but the audio should be OK if you want to hear how they sounded.
DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a free pair of tickets to see Liturgy play at DC9 on Tuesday 5 July 2011! I can’t think of a better way to work off a 4th of July hangover than by being enveloped by some pure transcendental black metal for a while. DC9 is a small venue so this show will be up close and personal. All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment below telling me what American black metal band you’d like to see playing a venue in DC next! It can be Liturgy or another band, but they’ve got to at least be based in the US. Be sure to use a valid email address you check regularly when you enter so that I can email you when you win. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you or add you to any lists, I hate that shit too. One winner will be chosen at random from all the valid entries at 6pm EST on Wednesday 29 June 2011.
Liturgy is a somewhat controversial black metal band from Brooklyn that has more of a non-metal head fan base than your typical black metal act. They don’t wear spikes or corpse paint on stage, or even black band shirts with illegible fonts. Basically they get a lot of hate for things that have nothing to do with their music at all. I find this kind of funny since the metal scene is supposed to be a place where the outcasts can hang together, though it seems if you break from the tradition people want to make you an outcast and labeled a hipster or something. Anyways, their sound is reminiscent of bands like Wolves In The Throne Room or Weakling, though they’re definitely doing their own thing. And that’s what I like about these guys, regardless of positive or negative press and who it comes from, they’re doing their own thing. Making metal music they way they think it should be made regardless of anyone else’s opinions on the matter. This show will be a good chance to check out a black metal band doing something different, and that’s a great reason to come see them. If you don’t want to wait for the contest to end, or it is already over when ya read this, you can get tickets here from Ticket Alternative for $8 (they’ll be $10 at the door). If you’ve never been to DC9 it’s right around the corner from the 9:30 Club and is easy to access from the U Street metro stop as well. The address is 1940 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001 (click it to see it on a map) and is open to anyone ages 18 and up. Be sure to spread the word about this contest to your friends and check out this video of Liturgy playing their song Pagan Dawn live.
I’m not doing a super detailed Maryland Deathfest recap this year because I missed all of day three, Saturday, so I could attend the wedding of a good friend. However, I was there for day one, two and four and I shot a ton of pictures and video footage, including 70 minutes of the Neurosis set and 82 minutes of Coroner’s set (that footage is below). Each band I saw gets a blurb and a photograph and a video and you can hover over any image to see which band it is if you just want to skip to the ones you like. You can click on any of the photographs to see more images that I shot of that specific band. I hope you all enjoyed Maryland Deathfest as much as I did, or at least enjoy checking out all this stuff I shot for ya. You can see all the other pictures and videos that I didn’t use one this post on Flickr (here) and YouTube (here) if you want more of those. So anyways, here’s Maryland Deathfest IX over Memorial Day weekend 2011 as seen through my eyes (and lenses).
Day 1 – Thursday
The first day of the fest was all indoors on the main stage at Sonar and it was the only day that sold out. Most of the early sets were grind bands. Miasmal was playing when I got there. I didn’t know anything about them but they really impressed me. I was too far in the back to get any decent shots though so my first pics and videos from the fest are of Southern California grind act Lack Of Interest.
Next up was Flesh Parade, a reunited grind band from New Orleans. Their vocalist made a lot of anti-gay comments and talked about how he loved smoking weed between almost every song. Flesh Parade had a bunch of people come out in various costumes (Santa, a surgeon, a Teletubby, a ketchup bottle, etc…) and start a crazy circle pit that involved dozens of glow sticks and inflatable animals and penises being thrown around the audience and onto the stage. These characters, dubbed the Party Patrol (picture here), would show up during various sets throughout the rest of the festival.
The next band was grind act Extortion who came all the way from Australia to play Deathest and they were pretty intense stop and start grindcore. When they finished playing the vocalist for Lack Of Interest came out on stage telling everyone to give them a bigger hand because he liked them so much (and he told us we all should too!).
Extortion was followed by North Carolina based stoner act Buzzov•en, quite a contrast from the previous acts. These guys looked and talked like they walked out of a backwoods scene in Deliverance! The band isn’t super heavy but more of a groove base, sorta rough around the edges and definitely southern in sound. They were a lot slower than the grind bands before them and it seemed they would have fit better playing just before the night’s headliners, Cathedral.
Next to play was Tragedy, a rare appearance by a band people had been waiting to see. They’re not really a metal band at all but a very aggressive punk band along the lines of Discharge or early DRI. The band is originally from Tennessee but relocated to their current hometown, Portland, Oregon. People were pretty psyched to get to see them live and the audience energy level was at a peak for day one while Tragedy played.
Finally the headliner of the first night was Cathedral. They are from Coventry, England and their lead singer, Lee Dorian, is a legend of the doom metal genre (he was also the original vocalist for Napalm Death). The band had recently announced their plans to break up at the end of the year and this one off concert would be their last performance ever in the US. They played a set with a lot of their old classics as well as some fairly obscure material for fans to commemorate the occasion. It was a good start to the fest, and although the last three bands weren’t grind it still felt like a pre-fest day instead of being part of the rest of Maryland Deathfest proper, mostly due to the single indoor stage I suppose.
Day 2 – Friday
Day two of Maryland Deathfest IX was the first day to use the two outdoor stages. I didn’t get there as the doors opened so missed the early bands but I did get there in time to see the Norwegian blackened thrash band Aura Noir play. They didn’t bring along the former Mayhem guitarist Blasphemer to play with them so they were a three piece. However Apollyon, the current bass player for Immortal, was there and he introduced the band as the ugliest metal band in the world! The set was fast paced and pretty straight forward and what you’d expect from them, just sold black thrash metal.
The next band I watched was the Raleigh, North Carolina band Corrosion Of Conformity. Their sound is somewhere between stoner rock, southern rock, thrash metal and punk. The band has been around since 1982 and this was their classic line up of Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman and Reed Mullin but they were noticeably missing Pepper Keenan (he has been a member of the super group Down for some time but is still considered an official member of C.O.C.). The band seemed to really enjoy themselves on stage, the drummer, Mike Dean, seemed to be smiling the entire show. I guess they had more time to play than they had expected because at one point they asked if they could do another song and they were told they had another 20 minutes left to play!
After Corrosion Of Conformity played the sky looked like it was getting ready to storm. I wanted to see the Italian grind act Cripple Bastards playing on the indoor stage but I skipped it because I didn’t want to lose my spot in the front row to see the day’s headlining act, Neurosis. The Oakland, California based band rarely plays shows due to medical reasons of one of the members, and this was their first east coast concert in 10 years or so. When they were supposed to start playing the sky opened up and a thunderstorm rolled through, but the crowd didn’t disparage and actually started chanting Neurosis. I was worried they might not play because the outdoor stage’s roof was leaking water onto all the equipment. Their show was delayed but they did come out and the rain soaked crowd roared with approval. The lighting during their show was poor, the big lighting rigs had been covered due to the storm, but they did have a projector displaying all kinds of stuff on the band and the stage. The set was really awesome, and the vibe in the air after the storm only enhanced their performance. This was by far my favorite set of all of Maryland Deathfest IX. Neurosis has never been a highly technical band, they’ve got a sound you just sort of experience and their mastery of mood manipulation was in peak form during this rare performance. It’s hard to describe but luckily I’ve posted about 70 minutes of footage of them performing, check it out below.
Although Neurosis headlined the day there were still a few bands left to play inside after Neurosis. Their set ran later than expected because of the rain so I didn’t get to see a lot of Kylesa‘s set, who was already playing indoors. I’ve already seen them twice this year so that wasn’t the end of the world for me. The spiraling lights they have on during their show looked really good on the black walls at Sonar. Next up was Exhumed, a gore grind/death metal band from San Jose, California. This was their first US show in six years! To start their show they held up the backs of their guitars with each having one word of “Gore Fuckin’ Metal” on the back of it. Their set was brutal, as to be expected. Quite a fun show really. They brought out a real chain saw on stage at one point and I laughed as the guy swung it low in the photographer’s pit, making them all duck to avoid the whirring saw! At the end of the set Matt Harvey decapitated some dummy Gwar style on stage that sprayed blood all over himself. A nice way to end the set!
The final band to play on day two of Maryland Deathfest IX was the Swedish black metal band Marduk. The stage was very dark and I wasn’t close enough to get any decent photos of them but I did shoot some video. They played mostly newer material (read: slower) and as usual they didn’t play my favorite song of theirs, Infernal Eternal. Their new stuff isn’t bad, I really liked their Rom 5:12 album, and they did play a song off Panzer Division Marduk, but the band has lost a lot of it’s raw energy and aggression over the years. Still, they’re pretty tight live and since their set started late they ended up playing right up to 2am! The venue even put on their last call lights while they played their final song, which you can see video of below.
Day 4 – Sunday
I got to Maryland Deathfest on Sunday just in time to see Anaheim, California’s Gravehill playing on one of the outdoor stages. These guys love fake blood! They’d eat random fake blood capsules throughout the show and it got all over them. Matt Harvey was back on stage with these guys (he also played with Exhumed and Cretin at the fest) but he broke a string midway through the set and didn’t come back for a few songs. And although he dumped blood all over himself at the end of Exhumed’s set, he was the only member of Gravehill who wasn’t covered in it at the end of the set. Anyways, their songs were black and thrashy with a bit of a punk attitude thrown in and the vocalist’s self deprecating banter between songs was entertaining too.
The next band I saw perform was the Texas based death/thrash three piece act Nokturnel. They were alright though they didn’t really do much that stood out to me. Their lead singer/guitarist was saying he felt particularly inspired after seeing his favorite band, Voivod, play the fest the night before but still they didn’t really do that much for me. It was death/thrash alright but I didn’t really find much interesting about it. Maybe I’d have liked it more if I knew some of their material.
Next I caught some of the Czech punkish thrash band Malignant Tumour playing, again with the party patrol people in the mosh pit. These guys looked right at home with the party patrol, wearing ridiculous costumes, fake beards and wigs that seemed like they were taken from the set of a Cheech And Chong movie. Their bass player was running all over the stage and it was such a spectacle to see that it was hard to take your eyes off them when they were on the stage. These guys were really a lot of fun live!
Next I had a problem, there were two bands I wanted to see playing at exactly the same time. I decided to try to catch some of both of their sets, and I started by watching Orange Goblin play on one of the outdoor stages. They’re from London, England and I’m pretty sure this was their first US concert. They’re a doom metal/stoner band and I’ll tell you they were totally awesome live! The vocalist, Ben Ward, had a great charisma on stage and got everyone pumped when he jumped off the stage and ran up to the crowd yelling “Let’s start a fucking riot!” at the beginning of their set. They really blew me away live and I didn’t want to leave their set early but I did because I wanted to catch another band indoors.
That other band playing at the same time was the brutal death metal act Skinless from upstate New York. This was the band’s last concert ever and they were breaking up once the show was over. For this special show they had the original line up play. I missed the early part of the set to see Orange Goblin but I wanted to make sure I saw the end of their last set. They kept the intensity turned up to the max while I there and the lead singer even did a stage dive into the crowd, chorded microphone still in hand, and continued to grunt lyrics until he was pushed back to the stage. They finished up their last brutal set and then they thanked the audience for the fun over years and then they all left the stage for the last time.
The next band I saw was the reformed hardcore punk band Citizens Arrest. I really only saw a bit of their set because I needed to head out and get some food so I could make it back in time to get a good spot for the night’s headliner, Coroner. They were ok but I didn’t really know much of their material but I could tell the punk fans were enjoying the chance to see them live.
When I got back from eating I the 80s thrash band Nuclear Assault was starting their set on one of the outdoor stages as the sun was setting. They played some of their old classic songs mixed with newer material. Their bass player Dan Lilker mentioned he remembered playing in the exact same spot last year, though he was performing with Autopsy then. The set was good but I left early because I wanted to be in the front row for the night’s headliner, who was up next.
The last night’s headliner was the Swiss technical thrash band Coroner. They had broken up 15 years before and though they had recently played a festival in Europe this was their first US concert in 20 years! The trio was the original line up, though they also had a guy playing keyboads on the stage but I don’t know what his name is as the band doesn’t list him as an official or even live only member. They were on the same stage Neurosis had been two nights before but they had all the cool lighting rigs working as well as fog machines. That stuff all helped set the mood for an awesome set by one of the legends of underground metal. Their set was never boring and they really killed it live. They performed two encores at the end of their set, one of which was a cover of the Jimi Hendrix song Purple Haze. I shot a lot of video of them live from up front, over 80 minutes worth actually, all of which you can see below.
After Coroner finished their headlining set outdoors there were still a few bands left to play indoors. The first of these last three bands was the one I was most excited to see, the technical death metal band from Spain, Wormed. I never thought I’d have the chance to see these guys play live so this was pretty cool for me. They played what was the heaviest set I saw all weekend. Nonstop brutality from start to finish and just a crazy amount of energy. I’m really glad I got to see these guys tear up the stage, totally awesome!
The next band was the Dutch grind act Last Days Of Humanity. They were pretty damn intense but by this point I was starting to get a bit tired (it had been a long four days!). I shot a bit of video before I went and hung back a bit during their set in the hopes that I could rest my feet and get up closer later for the last band of the night.
The final band of Maryland Deathfest IX was the mysterious band Ghost from Sweden. Unlike pretty much any of the bands at Maryland Deathfest they sing all their songs with clean vocals. They aren’t very brutal and their sound lies somewhere between Mercyful Fate and 70s rock. The band stays anonymous though you could see members of In Solitude and Repugnant (both bands who played the fest this year) on the stage during sound check which would lead one to believe Ghost is made up of members of those also Swedish bands. Anyways, I thought the crowd for Ghost would be a bit more laid back due to their type of music as well as it being the end of the fest and people just being tired but I was wrong. The crowd was really psyched to witness the band’s first US concert and they became really rough, while at the same time singing along to every word. It was all a bit ridiculous really, and the costumes on stage just sort of added to that. Apparently Ghost has a rather ravenous fan base and I simply don’t care enough about them to deal with that just to see them up close so I ended up hanging a bit farther back by this guy in an elaborate Cthulhu costume. That’s right, hanging out with Cthuhlu was safer for all my cameras than getting fairly close to Ghost performing live, wtf? I was hoping the set would be more impressive but with the audience singing along so loud it was drowning out not only the singer, Papa Emeritus, but the rest of the band as well. The set was short too, lasting only around 40 minutes. They have released just one album and I was hoping they’d play maybe some covers or something to fill out the set list some but they didn’t (though they did play a Beatles cover two nights later in New York). For a band with so much hype I was hoping for a better show, but it was just OK.
After the show was over I quickly left the venue and got to my car. Apparently after Ghost played there was an incident with security guards beating someone and then pepper spraying innocent bystanders for whatever reason. I luckily avoided that and only read about it online the next day. A shame that the fest had to end on a sour note like that, perhaps they’ll have better security next year. In all the fest was fun as usual and while I missed seeing some of the bands on Saturday I still had a great time at this year’s Deathfest. I got some cool merch, drank some beers, got some good footage and ran into a bunch of friends all over the place. They’re saying that they are planning something really special for next year since it will be the 10th anniversary of the festival and I can’t wait to see what that entails (and don’t worry, I’ll pass on the info to you all too as soon as I find out). Sorry this post has taken so long to get up but I had thousands of pictures and videos to sort through to put this together. Thanks for reading it and stay tuned for more going on in the local metal scene from DCHeavyMetal.com
It’s not every day one of the “inner circle” bands from the infamous Norwegian black metal scene of the early 90s comes through the area, the last time was almost two years ago when Mayhem played Maryland Deathfest in 2009. So when Immortal came to Sonar on Sunday the 20th of February 2011 you just knew going in that it would be epic. To the best of my knowledge this was their first appearance in the area since I saw them play the now defunct Phantasmagoria record store in Wheaton, Maryland with Satyricon in March of 2000. They were only playing six concerts on this mini tour, and Baltimore was lucky enough to get one of them. They brought along Texas based black metal band Absu for the tour but there was no local support for this show.
Immortal has a certain duality in the metal scene, on one hand they’ve got a lot of credibility in the metal underground being that they’re one of the main second wave black metal bands, and through their band’s evolution they basically invented the blackened thrash subgenre of metal. That said, they’ve also been known to be one of the most ridiculous bands in black metal in regards to their image, laughable posing in photo shoots, things like witch hats and crab walks showing up in music videos, and a general willingness to embrace most of the idiotic image stereotypes of the black metal genre. Immortal has been called the Kiss of black metal but they’ve been able to keep a legion of fans by putting out albums with some damn good songs on them. Their original guitarist, Demonaz, had to leave the band due to severe tendinitis in 1997 and so bass player Abbath took over as guitarist. The band didn’t slow down until 2003 when they broke up for several years. They did get back together but they hadn’t played a concert in the mid-atlantic region since then until this evening.
When I got to the venue, about 10 minutes before the scheduled time for the doors to open, the line was already stretched around the block. All kinds of people from the local scene were there as well as people coming in from out of town and it sort of reminded me of when Carcass came to Sonar on their reunion tour in September 2008. Once inside I quickly staked out a spot as close to the front as I could and awaited Absu to start playing. I’d seen them in June 2009 at Jaxx but now they were a three piece, apparently this was just their second show as such. It didn’t hurt the fullness of the sound at all, but it did make it easier to see the band’s main man and lead vocalist, Proscriptor, play the drums. He’s quite a talented drummer with some unconventional drumming techniques that are pretty fun to watch live. For some unknown reason he had this sort of studded belt thing on as a headband, apparently some of Immortal’s image sense is rubbing off on him. He never dropped his “metal” voice while on stage even between songs and he kept the introductions entertaining too (check out his introduction to Four Crossed Wands in the video posted below to see what I mean). The band was in good form and was as good of a US based warm up act as there was going to be for Immortal though you could tell by the end of their set that the audience was ready for the reason they all came out this night.
Immortal sure took their time getting to the stage, finally arriving a good 45 minutes or so after Absu had finished. They played for at least 90 minutes and didn’t talk a whole lot between songs, but they didn’t really need to as their material stands on its own. Immortal was never one of the more political or religious of the Norwegian black metal bands, their lyrics mostly focusing on the fact that it’s damn cold in the north which isn’t really something to talk about between songs either. Their set list (photo of it here) had 14 songs and consisted mostly of songs from their latest two albums, 2009’s All Shall Fall and 2002’s Sons Of Northern Darkness. Totally awesome for the newer fans, but I was hoping they’d play a bit more off of Damned In Black and Blizzard Beasts. Still, it’s not like some bands where the newer material is just awful or something and considering how young a lot of the people in attendance were (at least up front where I was) it wasn’t surprising they’d play a lot of the newer material. The trio played very tight, the music was pretty energetic and the crowd went crazy from the beginning. When there were lulls in the music Abbath would strike a menacing pose and egg the crowd on by raising his arms and gesturing to keep the energy up. There were several crowd surfers throughout the night and during the song Grim And Frostbitten Kingdoms some dipshit threw a beer bottle on stage which caused the band to suddenly stop playing. Abbath got pissed and dared whoever threw it to come on stage, but they played on (I’ve got video of this below) and in fact seemed to have a renewed vigor through the rest of the song and into the next track, Withstand The Fall Of Time. They didn’t do any fire breathing on stage, which I was hoping for, but they did keep the corpse paint, leather, spikes and boots. There was a lot of fog used too, and Horgh, the drummer, was pushed so far to the back of the stage that you could hardly see him the entire night through all the fake smoke. He did not have his Satan’s Goalie Pads on though, haha. I really could have watched Immortal play another 14 songs but the show did end a bit after midnight after a pre-determined encore performance (hardly an encore when the songs are already on the setlist!).
It was a really fun show, and while Immortal didn’t play a ton of older material, it was still a bad ass concert. Absu was a great opening act too, though I wish they’d allowed a couple of the local black metal acts to open. I managed to work my way to the front row by the end of the show and got some photos that I’m really pleased with from there, and Abbath even posed a bit for me during their final song. You can see all my photos from this show on my Flickr page here. I also got 2 videos of Absu and 3 of Immortal that are all embedded below. The last video is the one with the beer bottle throwing incident, which happened about 1:20 in. Check them out and get ready for the next sure to be epic black metal show to come to the area, Rotting Christ, Melechesh and Hate playing Jaxx on March 9th. Oh yeah, and I’ve started a Facebook page for DCHeavyMetal so help me out and “like” the page (here) if you’re a fan of this site. Now, check out these cool videos.
playing the 9:30 Club, Emmure was headlining a 14 band concert for the All Stars Tour‘s Baltimore stop at Sonar, and there was also a rare metal showcase at Jammin Java featuring local acts Iris Divine, A Sound Of Thunder and Timelord. However, I skipped all of those and decided to head up to the Ottobar in Baltimore to see Proclamation, a black metal band from Spain. I wasn’t too familiar with them but I figured this will probably be my only chance to see them play live and I’m not one to turn down seeing an obscure black metal band perform live. There weren’t a lot of people at this show though, maybe around 50 by the time the headliner was playing. The bands didn’t seem to mind and played very well regardless.
The next band up also has quite a mouthful for a name, Abazagorath, who are a black metal band from New Jersey. I’d never heard of them before but they put on a decent show. My main problem with them was their vocalist, a guy who goes by the stage name Nihilist. He seemed to spend half his time on stage hanging out back by the drummer, often not even looking forward at the audience. The vocalist didn’t have a great voice for black metal either, and I saw him reading lyric sheets he had placed on the stage during several of their songs. They were playing some new material for the first time during the set so perhaps that’s something of an excuse but it still isn’t something I expect from a touring band. The guy just seemed unprofessional and 
hell even the bass player had better stage presence than he did, the guy was decked out in spikes and leather. Regardless, this is black metal and the vocals aren’t the most important part of a band’s sound in this genre. The rest of the band was pretty good and they had some decent songs that got a mosh pit going for a while. There wasn’t a lot of variation in their songs but their sound was good enough that it wasn’t a bad thing really. One of the guitarists was playing an eight string guitar which is kind of weird for a black metal band and seemed a bit unnecessary. I wouldn’t have gone to just see them but they were a good support act on a black metal tour like this.
three piece black metal band and as far as I can tell this was their first US tour and this was the final stop on said tour. I hadn’t ever heard of them when this tour was announced and I checked out a few of their songs online leading up to the gig but they didn’t seem to stand out that much to me. I found them much more entertaining live I must say. Their songs weren’t overly long, they didn’t try to be ultra dramatic and epic, and their vocalist knew all the words (even while playing guitar). They were just straight up, pissed off Satanic black metal and they were pretty good at it. The band’s drummer really punched it the entire night, the guy just didn’t slow down! He was quick and really kept the pace and energy levels high for their entire set. On top of the relentless drumming, Proclamation had some great guitar riffs in there too. Several songs built up brutal momentum very well and their assault on the ears was quite an energy boost on this Tuesday night. There were no big surprises in their sound but they had just enough variation to keep 
their songs interesting and I can’t say I was bored at any point during their set. They all came out with sort of corpse paint on, they had black make up on their eyes but no white face paint underneath. They all had necklaces on with various things hanging off of them, bones and upside down crosses and the like. They played 15 songs and they all drank from their beer bottles almost in unison immediately after each song ended. They didn’t really address the audience between songs, other than to bark out the next song’s title. They played a Sarcófago cover and that seemed to please the largely Latin American crown. Otherwise Proclamation kept it straight forward, heavy and blasphemous. No frills and no big surprises but certainly high intensity throughout their set. They did not perform an encore after their set, even though the audience wanted one.
and give their studio material a few more listens because I really enjoyed them live. Proclamation won’t change your opinion of the black metal sub genre nor blow your mind, but if you’re into black metal I recommend seeing them if you ever get the chance. As usual I posted photos of both Proclamation and Abazagorath (click their respective names to see them) and I posted some videos from the show below as well. The videos are all pretty dark but you should at least be able to hear the bands alright. I really need to get a new video camera but I don’t see that in my financial forecast any time in the foreseeable future. Feel free to donate one to me, ya know, for Satan or something.
transcendental black metal for a while. DC9 is a small venue so this show will be up close and personal. All you have to do to enter to win is leave a comment below telling me what American black metal band you’d like to see playing a venue in DC next! It can be Liturgy or another band, but they’ve got to at least be based in the US. Be sure to use a valid email address you check regularly when you enter so that I can email you when you win. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you or add you to any lists, I hate that shit too. One winner will be chosen at random from all the valid entries at 6pm EST on Wednesday 29 June 2011.
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