Ahoy there, and a merry fuck you! Last time I was at the Middle East, I saw Lights, and being an Indie/Electropop artist, of form there was no pitting, but I wore my Emperor shirt anyway. Y`know. Just in case.
So it had been a while, and Mass Ave is naught to bed with. That is one LONG avenue. It extends from normal Boston to Cambridge and once you traverse the bridge the reference numbers reset, because apparently they seceded and are a whole different city entirely. Yeah. I got a point to review, you putz, and it was free due to the illusion of getting there early and having buddies on the backstage crew. It`s all arcane and you could lose an arm trying to do it, so don`t. And all thanks go to a certain Buddy Teifert for putting this shit together somehow. Probably with more magick.
Scourge
Only one daywalker among the lot of them.
Before I talking about how they performed, I only want to establish a swollen thumbs up to bassist/Black Metally vocals guy Jon for wearing a Christ Is A Cunt shirt. Takes BALLS, man. BALLS.
Or an ass like dat. Scourge blend Thrash, Black, Death, and a handful of Groove to get a strong brand of metal that`s tough to define, but pretty damn cool. They open with an instrumental cover of Metallica`s For Whom The Bell Tolls, which kinda got me scared because it could mean one of two things: Scourge is a Metallica cover band or they`re painfully midpaced. Luckily it was neither, so it set a good bar for the repose of the bands. Go listen to the God Is Not Here EP, be fruitful, and multiply.
Naegleria
NigeriaNaegleria are one of Mass` few Slam bands that Blue hasn`t stuck his shaft in yet, but do well despite the want of ol` Caterpillar Brows, though to compensate, bassist Jake looked positively Amon Amarthy, having wheaty gold hair, a shaggy beard and an Amon Amarth shirt on. Awesome.
The list of the song alone makes it amazing
Named after a brain-eating amoeba that enters through the nose, they`re obviously not a Grunge band. Writing and playing songs with the themes of sex(obv), disease(painfully obv), and senile senior shotgun massacres(not so obv) is not as slowly as some might think. Watching their performance(which was short one guitarist), you discover a lot of subtle nuances that you wouldn`t think come with slam. It`s some complex shit, khed. Not to say that it`s ber technical, but it`s surely a few leagues above Wigger Slam. The lyrics are also reportedly more sensitive than others in the genre, but I`ll only get their book on that. Being a lot of their calibre, the surprisingly lethargic crowd left much to be desired. This is music to kill people to folks, not spectate calmly! I chalked it up to the earliness of the set. Big mistake.
Smite The Righteous
If you`re a regular player of the Genre Guessing Game, you`d almost wish to assume Metalcore due to the three word rule, but put your half-baked assumptions aside and ready way for Technical Death Metal. It won`t go down as the absolute greatest set in history, sure, but they kept it entertaining, tossing out condoms with stickers saying Eat A Fat Penis Kid and a slightly modified STR logo featuring Fetus instead of Rigtheous.
They may occur in black, but they don`t come in Black_ Can`t really say much about their set apart from the fact that there were two vocalists, and one of them had evidently not been a portion of the last performance for some time and was forgetting some of his lyrics, which added to the fun of the point where it wouldn`t be quite as fun if Scar Symmetry had through it.
"So can a fan who`s not dead drunk or stupid take Lars` place?" Hope Before The Fall
To be honest, a lively crowd would have made this set a bit more fun. Meh-talcore becomes a bit more exciting when you get an audience that`s not an oil painting. Even a Chelsea Grin performance becomes an experience when there`s a gaggle of dancers. HBTF may let exactly hit the wrong venue for such a show, because they did encounter some nice breakdowns, and had some okay choruses, but weren`t mindblowing. I won`t exactly love it if they give up at a future show, but if there`s a more willing group of ruffians, there could very easily be aerobics.
Boarcorpse
Oooh they match my tra-la-la. Mmmm. My ding-ding-dong. So I think they can remove the "Searching for 2nd guitarist" add-on off their myspace, seeing as ex-Composted weedler Jimmy Roher is now on tapping duty for this bacon flavored bunch. They played Babypaste, Leave It To Cleaver, and material I didn`t know, but what really made this set was 1) Watching the sheer technicality, 2)Watching OuchDrummer Jimbo pound away at his kit with a big ol` goofy smile, and 3) THERE WERE PITS! Granted, it was just me and a couple other guys jovially pushing one another, but it was something, dammit. Like being sex starved and having someone stare at your penis for 5 minutes. It works. Weirdly.
Infinite Descent
I only got a little distracted by the mathematical theorem and actually paused to learn about it briefly, so blah.
Infinite Descent easily had the largest herd of the night, so I`m guessing the rumors that they don`t play frequently and this would be their live show weren`t complete speculation. If their business cards(yes, business cards) were to be trusted, they represent an epic sort of Progressive Metal. While I didn`t get lots of a feeling for the Epic character of their performance, they certainly do bring the Prog and the Metal. No 20 minute songs, no ADD time signatures, just an unmistakable need to keep songs going and search new territory throughout their course. Further investigation will need to be done, but bassist Phil for some odd reason made a run through the audience, wielding his instrument like a bayoneted musket, staying on the base for 30 seconds, and run back on stage. I should`ve asked what happened there, but hey, the usher went on without a hitch. Or was that a thumb? What is "a hitch" anyway? Oh well, I got myself an inflatable flail out of this. For ye uneducated, it`s a mace on a chain. Expect to be hit by it at the next Palladium show.
Necronomichrist
Sadly, no connection. Ah, Necronomichrist, the controversialest local band I can conceive of. Maybe it`s the not-so-Christian friendly lyrical themes, their preference for barbed wire wreaths and pentagrams made of nails, or the fact that their mention is both blue and brings up that no-good H.P. Lovecraft.
Or the crucified Muppet, Animal. Don`t know with him. This set was a bit of a mixed bag. Necronomichrist plays chilling Blackened Death Metal with the service of keyboards, andwere apparently the only band worthy of a continuous pit, but the downside is that a drunken asshole was the chief exponent of said pits. Luckily the security guards caught wind of the shenanigans and ejected him from the venue, allowing everyone to absorb the negative energy created by being super cool.
Nemecide
Darth Buddyous I really should heed to more Nemecide. The only song I knew was Summon The Hydra-Yeti, which they played first, leaving me to simply watch awkwardly for the remainder of the set. I enjoyed their performance, and still a rather disobedient guitar cord that kept coming loose while poor little Brother was stressful to play didn`t stop them in their tracks. Mucho energy from Stephen, who had the mannerisms characteristic of a Hardcore vocalist, but it didn`t detract from the Melodic Blackened Death style that Nemecide employs. Must buy Incursion. Someday.
Thy Will Be Done
If you need Jesus, just ask for J. Costa. Sadly TWBD didn`t capitalize on the major lulz that could`ve been earned from them pointing out that they, a Christian set were opening for a band that`s not rather so Christian, but nonetheless, it was a good show. This is a band I`d probably like a lot more if I observed them 3 years ago as opposed to that night, blending Groove, Thrash, and Metalcore to make entry level Heavy Metal that won`t break your father or 15 year old brother. Once again, lack of crowd energy kinda killed what could have potentially been a real fun set, especially since it was near the end of the dark and that`s when the crew is the most souped up. Blame Cambridge once again. J. Costa has a use of stage banter, but it`s the case that gets a few rounds of applause, and at least he was aware he was munching away at his band`s playing time. I question if he even has crumbs in his beard. And what a beard it is!
Vital Remains
Preaches abstinence and a drug-free lifestyle on Opposite Day At last, the crme de la crme, Wily Coyote and the gang storm the point and demand circle pits right the love now. And we, the willing minions, do not resist the master`s orders. We ran the fuck around! Scott Wily could very easily be Satan`s second mouthpiece. Why only second? Because Glen Benton`s the first, of course. Having officially replaced Glen both in studio and on stage, Scott Wily is surely not fucking around when he asks for pits. Unlike others who may ask for some effort and hold up if they see too many folded arms, Scott continues until at least two foolhardy young`uns are out there running track. Blasting through greats like Devoured Elysium, Hammer Down The Nails, and the almighty Dechristianize as the closer, where basically everyone I knew, myself, and Scott Wily`s lady friend jumped on level to advocate the last of the Sky Frie, had a tiny pit, and tested to avoid getting the signature spiked armbands in our faces. It was cool, to say the least.
I really want to stop multitasking while writing these things.
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