Winter Solstice Damnation III | Gigs I should have said something about at the time

There’s this thing that I do when I’m at gigs. I’m getting into it, enjoying the show, and then a few songs into a set I take a photo on my phone. I don’t take many photos, mind you, just a couple of quick shots in succession (because I’m not a homicide-inducing wanker who repeatedly blocks your view with a phone when I’m at a gig). A few seconds later, and with the shots finished, I approvingly assure myself that I’m totally going to blog about this night in the near future.

Except, life and all its tiredness and distractions and mundanity get in the way. Before I know it, I’m at another gig, taking more shots, telling myself the same thing. Then life gets in the way yet again. Eventually, I end up with a phone full of gig photos. And as everyone knows, if it’s not on the internet, it didn’t happen, right?

I do this so often that I finally decided to do something about it, so I started a series of posts very imaginatively called Gigs I should have said something about at the time. Mostly it’s me posting photos from a year or six ago or even more. So this time I’m going to post about a very recent gig — in fact, it took place just last Saturday. Hahaha, who am I kidding? That was when I wrote the draft. This was totally a month ago now.

That makes it one of those Gigs I should have said something about at the time — and totally did this time. Well, kind of. That gig was…

Winter Solstice Damnation III at The Tote, June 24, 2017

As the name implies Winter Solstice Damnation is an annual celebration of bands across the spectrum of black, death, blackened thrash, and other assortments of extreme heavy metal sounds lovingly described in terms like dark and putrid and frostbitten.

Held once a year near the Winter Solstice (like, just in case that part wasn’t clear), it draws in a marvellous assortment of local and interstate bands play this style of music.

Before I progress further, I must concede that I did not make it to the venue until quite late in the evening. Remember what I said about life and all its tiredness and distractions and mundanity getting in the way? So, regrettably, I only caught the last three performances.

Dead River Runs Dry

The first of these (the sixth on the bill) was Dead River Runs Dry, out of NSW. My first exposure to Dead River Runs Dry was a year or so earlier, via a rather good track, Skull Of The Wind, on a Terrorizer magazine CD compilation. It’s an excellent starting point from an outfit that plays what (for lack of a better description) might best be referred as something akin to orthodox black metal, with some soaring hooks and epic melodies thrown in.

Kudos also to their vocalist who played the whole set both shirtless and shoeless. As the “Winter Solstice” part of the festival’s name makes clear, this event occurs on the longest and darkest night of the year. This is Melbourne folks — to put things in perspective, I had to don my thick winter gloves just to actually be able to hold my pint in the beer garden. On the other hand, perhaps this was counteracted by the fact that all members of Dead River Runs Dry were blessed with beards? A good volume of facial hair no doubt helps contribute to maintaining core body temperature — and as a bonus, did you know it acts as a passive sun block?

• Dead River Runs Dry Bandcamp

AK-11

Melbourne’s AK-11 were next up — and they must surely get the award for best outfits. Words are likely inadequate to convey the effort that went into the attire and its stark effect, so the grainy still below (original video via CoveOfQueenSalma - check out some nice footage of the event).

Here was fast, nasty, vitriolic black metal that felt like it was played with a dose of snarly punk attitude, except that the name of the game was hatred and misanthropy.

But… those outfits… if I am not mistaken, that was an Austrian pattern, minus sleeves, matched with DIY corpse paint. Incredibly, the cammo pattern and corpse paint, not to mention front-man Valak’s impressive tattoo sleeves, blended in uncannily well.

• AK-11 Bandcamp

 Ignivomous

Finally it was the headliner’s turn: Ignivomous.

How to describe the bleak death metal darkness that is this band? What is the sound of a group that doesn’t even pretend to venture close to this thing that vanilla folks term “accessible”? If extreme music is meant to be unrelenting and merciless and uncompromisingly bleak and overwhelming in every way then Ignivomous tick every box.

Yet in that beer garden, before they got on stage, I witnessed one chap express his sincere joy and appreciation at finally being able to see Ignivomous live.

“I’ve been waiting 10 years to see you guys,” he said. It turns out he was a long-time fan who lived in the sticks so he’d never gotten around to seeing a live Ignivomous show.

From listening in to this conversation I was once more reminded that one should not judge someone’s character based purely on appearances. This chap wasn’t even wearing a black t-shirt — it was white! — yet here was quite possibly the most devout Ignivomous fan in the room.

A few tracks into the band’s barrage — yes, barrage is a term that gets thrown in far too often, but “set” underrated the aural blindness down the front, as I was — it was revealed that this gig would mark 10 years since Ignivomous formed — and that it would also be guitarist Matt’s last official show with the band. To mark the occasion they even dug into the very early demo days.

After, when it was all done, I was reminded that “ignivomous” is a no-longer-used term to describe the act of vomiting fire. If one had to pick a soundtrack to accompany such an indescribably extreme phenomenon, that would likely be it.

• Ignivomous Bandcamp on Nuclear War Now (note, the download and merch page links seem to be temporarily down).

A final word

No, the Tote was not packed to capacity that night, yet the turnout was Aussie-decent, given the prevailing winter conditions. Plus, it was reassuring to see the beer garden less than full during actual performances.

I will never cease to consider myself fortunate — and neither should you — for as long as this phenomenon we call the ‘scene’ continues to exist in Melbourne.

Every other week there is an event that involves usually (but not always) black-clad, usually (but not always) long-haired people getting up on stages and (yes, always) making one hell of a racket as they play dark, nasty, messed up noise.

Whatever the merits of individual bands, it is a privilege to know that the forces of darkness are not going away any time soon.

You haven’t lived until you see a Manowar tribute band at a dodgy venue with a cockroach problem

A Manowar cover band – yes, that got your attention – playing through a malfunctioning sound system at a small dive bar with an alleged cockroach problem.

It wasn’t quite the strangest gig I’d ever been to, but it certainly was peculiar ones. For one thing, did someone say Manowar cover band?

The Triumph Of Steel, Melbourne, November 5, 2016 @ Whole Lotta Love.

Yes. They’re called The Triumph Of Steel and you should definitely see them live.

Consider how much Manowar are the gigantic anti-hipster hipsters of heavy metal. More metal than any metal that ever metalled in Metalville on plant Metal, Manowar are so densely absorbed into everything Manowar — with everything they do being so jaw-droppingly, cringe-inducingly, they-can’t-be serious-grade uncool — that to be serious about liking Manowar seriously is inherently cool.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Manowar, particularly the first half a dozen or so albums in the Manowar discography. It’s just that, if Manowar managed to convey even the tiniest sliver of tongue-in-cheek irony, people would probably be less inclined to believe that Manowar had long, long, long since disappeared up their own arses. Alas, non-seriousness with Manowar there just ain’t. Disregarding the unbelievably homo-erotic band promo shots from their earlier era, the true silliness of what Manowar became is evident in, for example, in printing all lyrics for an entire album in genuinely illegible faux-runes, thereby defeating the purpose of providing lyrics in the first place. Or maybe it started with the line of Manowar Warrior Shield condoms?

From their sixth or so album onwards, Manowar didn’t just jump the shark – they swam some laps together, hung out at the bar afterwards and became best of friends. Consequently, as far as the Manowar of today goes, the Manowar vision of what constitutes heavy metal is single-mindedly inflexible.

Which of course means that The Triumph Of Steel aren’t just any old cover band. They’re a Manowar cover band – and faithfully mimicking a band that morphed into a parody of itself takes a very special kind of wheel on fire.

Thankfully, the Triumph Of Steel were wonderful when I saw them on November 5, 2016 at a little bar called Whole Lotta Love. They put on a good show and did not lack dedication, a feat that is even more notable considering their technical and pest-related (more on this shortly) challenges.

Vocalist Igor’s melodic voice was outstanding. Indeed, merely being a good power-melodic vocalist isn’t easy, but only the leatheriest chaps can properly pay direct homage to Manowar vocalist Eric Adams takes. Filtered through his rich accent, it would have made for a captivating show — were it not for the poor old malfunctioning PA.

"Faaahiiighting, faaahiiighting, fighting the world!"

Through absolutely no fault of their own (I was informed by what I was assured was a reliable source) the house PA was just not playing ball. While the guitar came through ok, the vocals jumped between excessive quietness or cut in and out, possibly because of a loose connection. It wasn’t too bad from the bar and beyond, but it was excruciating at the front of the small stage where I wanted to stand. My gig compadre pointed out that the band were in all likelihood oblivious to what was going out the front. This was probably a good thing as it would have been a shame to see them thrown by somethign that wasn't their doing.

Towards the end of the set, enough beer had been consumed, or perhaps the track selection struck the right power chord (or perhaps a combination of both) that the men at the front (and they were all men) of the stage really got into it. Fighting The World material, it seems, holds a special place for Melbourne heavy metal lovers.

And so The Triumph Of Steel finished their set, to an audience that was small but sincerely appreciative, for the power and the glory and the singalong choruses. When it comes to heavy metal, Manowar are one-of-a-kind, and this Manowar cover band played their role faithfully.

Gig compadre and I stayed back for a drink or two where we had a bit of a chat to guitarist David, who seemed like a nice chap. Last drinks were called and then… cockroaches.

Or to be perfectly honest – one big cockroach, casually making its way across the dance floor. I pointed this out to the reliable source mentioned at the start of this story, who responded by saying that the venue had, apparently, quite recently enlisted the service of a pest controller — but then the joke was that said professional must have missed a spot.

A week or so after the gig I found myself hanging out with a friend, where I casually mentioned this peculiar evening. She mentioned how she’d once ended up there with the intention of enjoying a quiet drink. It was an uneventful night, said the friend (who — and this will become relevant in a moment — is what you’d call small-statured), until she went to the bar and noticed how she rather stood out from the other patrons. She was dwarfed by the great many enormous people all throughout the room who, it turns out, were there to enjoy the dedicated BBW night that was regularly held at the venue.

What a strange thing it is. But actually, it’s just another great night out in Melbourne. I love live music and events in this city and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Ulcerate, Denouncement Pyre, Altars | Death metal at the Bendigo Hotel | June 27, 2015

“What are you doing for the weekend?” someone asked? “I’m going to see some wonderfully disgusting, filthy death metal at a wonderfully, disgusting, filthy venue,” I said.

Ok, so the Bendigo Hotel is actually not bad a venue, and is hardly disgusting and filthy. Indeed, if you’re a live rock music kind of person from Melbourne then you may be acquainted with the toilets just down the road at the famous Tote hotel. Now they’re pretty special!

The Bendigo Hotel is one of those venues that is brilliant by virtue of the fact that it puts on gigs and music that most other venues won’t touch, among them a high proportion of Australian death metal, black metal, punk, and rock gigs — music that gets people running and screaming. Plus, it’s got a nice beer garden.

The occasion to visit the Bendigo Hotel was to see an extreme metal band showcase, featuring two Australian death metal outfits (ok, one was technically blackend thrash for the kvlt purists; hands up all two of you), plus some well known gentlemen from New Zealand.

Altars are a local outfit I don’t know much about. I’d call them an underground Australian death metal act, playing thick, heavy and complex extreme music that Morbid Angel lovers may appreciate.

Denouncement Pyre are another Melbourne band, playing a fierce brand of what some like to refer to as blackened thrash. They’re on the Hells Headbangers record label and heavy metal shop and have a thing for playing tight, heavy, blackened death metal.

Ulcerate were the headliner and are arguably New Zealand’s best known extreme metal band right now. They play complex, technical, dark, thick, oppressive death metal; they have time changes and ever-changing murky guitar riffs; they all have short hair; and they’re on the well-known Relapse Records store and label that provides international distribution. Choice bro!

It all looked like it was going to be a good gig. But first, we had to get there! You see, public transport in Melbourne is fundamentally designed to get people into the city and out again. As we soon discovered — or perhaps we should have known better, seeing as we both live there — travelling through the inner city isn’t quite what as easy.

We had the audacity to visit a friend’s house beforehand in Richmond, which took a train and a tram to get there. From there it was another two trams plus an extensive walk through the back streets of Collingwood. We called it the scenic route. In winter. In the dark. That’s pretty metal, right?

Eventually we got there but before I go any further, I should get one or two things off my chest.

Denouncement Pyre at the Bendigo Hotel (pic: Bed)

Australian death metal

I always say — because it’s something I feel very strongly about — that people get way too obsessed about making it known just how rubbish a certain band was they didn’t like. The mere fact that you were there becomes all the more reason to cry even louder about it, even if the performance wasn’t actually that terrible and merely didn’t knock you off your socks. Indeed, if you want to know what real rubbish sounds like, just glance at this week’s iTunes charts or last year’s most streamed music.

I guess that’s my feeble excuse for disclosing that I didn’t see much of the first band, Altars. The tremendous amount of changing trams, the long walk, and the sheer enthralling scenery of the back street of Collingwood had thoroughly worn me out. I did say the Bendigo Hotel had a nice beer garden.

Denouncement Pyre

Denouncement Pyre live was the outfit I was most looking forward to. I could attempt to half-arsedly describe the Denouncement Pyre live set, but you’ve heard similar accounts a million times before, filled with terms like “brutal” and “heavy” and “savage”. It’s far more meaningful if I tell you that one person in our entourage who is not at all into black and death metal — but who still gets out plenty and is into some cool music — made a point of saying how much he liked it. When someone who doesn’t own or wear a bullet belt says how tight your death metal band is, then you’re onto a good thing.

Denouncement Pyre are a band going places – literally. They’re playing Maryland Deathfest 2016. Plus, a cover of Motörhead — Sacrifice near the end was a great way to close proceedings (also, everyone should listen to at least on Motörhead album every day).

My only real complaint was the conduct of one or two punters in the front row. Call me old and cranky, but — now that I’m no longer of that age where I can happily drink and party all night, grab two hours of sleep and still survive a shift at some shitty casual job, and then have enough spark to head out again that night — I’ve also grown noticeably less keen on copping beer showers.

Now, During Denouncement Pyre, there were one or two interesting characters near the front. One chap (not the dude shown below; he was having an awesome time), a rather rough looking gentleman, was clearly and very intensely into the music, which was a good thing. Much rage and blasphemy was evident in him, if the way he invoked the Elder Gods in the sky of the Bendigo Hotel band room ceiling was anything to go by. This too was a good thing.

Not so cool was the fact that all this skyward blaspheming evidently wasn’t enough to appease those dark deities and bring about the desired Apocalyptic Reckoning — those Elder Gods demand more, in this case in the form of a beer sacrifice (maybe he knew that Motörhead track was coming?). 

Denouncement Pyre put on a tight set. This guy (not the Beer Blasphemer) in the front was awesomely getting into the drumming.

Entire volumes could be written (and probably have) on correct behaviour at a heavy metal show, be it a pub, a festival or a squat. That unspoken line that dictates when it’s cool to be thrashing like a maniac and when you’re expected to mind your personal space is a silent code that blow-ins, onlookers and other non-metal types find hard to comprehend. Kind of like when foreigners try to comprehend Aussie rules footy.

For the uninitiated, all that good, friendly, violent fun at a heavy metal gig means learning a whole new etiquette, much of which can only be truly understood by being in the thick of it. And while the Rules of Metal abound with oddities, contradictions, and exceptions, the one thing everyone does agree on — whether you’re making a grim statement on the human condition by misanthropically crossing your arms in the front row, or running laps in a circle pit with 400 other human bumper cars — is this simple rule: don’t be a tool!

Now this gentleman wasn’t doing the right thing by his beer. Appearing somewhat tired and emotional, he had his arm outstretched and his beer at the end of it, swaying about, threatening to spill over at any moment. While there are those who may enjoy dousing themselves in beer, I personally prefer to go home dry. There were at least half a dozen of us and we all stepped back, resulting in a subtle but nonetheless unnatural gap near the front of the stage, a gap that should have been filled with banging heads and thrashing hair.

But here’s the odd thing.

As Beer Blasphemer did his thing there was suddenly some unexpected body contact with a fellow innebriator. It was hardly a collision, nor was it that dramatic, but it was definitely a close meeting of personal space.

Beer Blasphemer slowly raised his head and looked menacingly at the other chap.

“Here we go,” I thought, readying myself to retreat from something that looked like it could blow up — whereupon Beer Blasphemer promptly smothered the guy with a glorious man-hug, a warrior embrace that would make a Norse chieftain proud. It happened several times and they all had a great time.

No violence ensued and the Elder Gods were pleased.

Ulcerate

All this excitement was getting too much for an oldie like me, so once Denouncement Pyre finished we returned to the beer garden. Eventually I got back to the band room to catch the last three or four tracks of Ulcerate’s tar-like brand of complex, technical death metal.

It’s great to see a death metal band obviously enjoying the music they love. They must have worked hard for it throughout their discography and have some notable recognition by being on the well-known Relapse Records heavy metal record label. They took the time and effort to tour Australia, which cannot be cheap when coming from New Zealand.

I especially liked the ferocious vocals, and the rest of Ulcerate were exceedingly precise. It’s the first time I’ve seen a metal drummer — on a kit that must have occupied half the stage — play live with some large headphones, which, I was told later, was a click-track. His look of concentration could have stunned a small child, and the whole setup suggested that this was someone who was highly dedicated to their craft (although I heard at least one comment of “isn’t that cheating?”).

If only there’d been a momentary lull in the applause and cheering between songs. That way everyone could have heard me yell out “Choice bro!” I’d been hanging out all night to say that but all that crowd approval meant no one would get to hear me do it.

So I enjoyed Ulcerate but I concluded that it wasn’t quit my cup of tea, this dark and heavy music meandering a little too much for my liking. There were nonetheless many in the audience who evidently were far more into this brand of New Zealand death metal than I was.

And yes, I still bought Vermis, the fourth album in the Ulcerate discography, for $20, from the death metal merch table.

Ulcerate live. Yeah, I know it's a rubbish photo. Send me a better pic if you've got one.

Ulcerate: Vermis

There’s an old bit of conventional wisdom that says value equates to a dollar a wear. It’s the same with music, particularly if you collect a lot of physical media like I do.

A dollar a listen per track means a $10 album, once listened to 10 times in full, has paid for itself. This formula is great for a $5 CD, since you can probably bring yourself to listen to something at least five times if you want to be absolutely sure it’s not for you.

However, it can be a problem if you invest in a fancy box set that turns out to be disappointing. Imagine, having to listen to a mediocre album 50+ times just to get your money’s worth!

At the time of publication I’d listened to Vermis about six or so times. This means I’ve got another 14 full listens to go before I get proper value from it.

Maybe by then I will have become a full convert and Ulcerate’s death metal will have become my cup of tea?

Top Tuesday 27.05.14: Australian grindcore and classic black metal

So I once had this plan to make Top Tuesdays a regular thing. The idea was to not be too clever, but to simply talk about what’s been on high rotation this week.

After checking when I did the last one (because it was totally going to be a regular thing) I found that it was… uh… just over a year ago. So I should really be more consistent.

ALTERNATIVE AND UNDERGROUND MUSIC THIS WEEK

It sounds odd, but I have not enjoyed this week’s Top Tuesday releases very much. Most of this week’s the items on high rotation this week are the latest ‘discoveries’ from a secondhand metal collection I bought in June 2013 (‘novelties’ may be a more appropriate term). A labour of love, every week I’ve managed to get through a handful of albums from the original 200-CD lot, give or take a few. At last count I’ve whittled it down to the last 70.

Now I’m rather keen to get through this lot before the end of the year. Hence the high rotation of tracks which I may not be all that into. After all, every true music nerd knows that to really understand an album, you have to give it a proper listen to see if it grows on you. Of course, it could be a grudge listen maybe, but it’s still a proper listen. Because how else can I complain I didn’t get my money’s worth?

Here is what has received particular attention this week.

Very, Very Dead & Gory: A Veritable Paragon Of Wholesome Family Entertainment

The name is the best part about this band. And by “best part” I mean this outfit has a funny name. And. Well, uhm… yeah.

Very, Very Dead & Gory was a Melbourne-based outfit playing generic, thinly produced Aussie dickhead grind core. I mean that in the best possible sense. I couldn’t understand any lyrics on A Veritable Paragon Of Wholesome Family Entertainment but I’m going to assume that if one could, the prose would be masterfully hilarious. I’d like to imagine that the guys recording this had a blast, just dicking around, drinking (most likely) and making bad music. The music on this album is so dumb it’s fun. Indeed, check out the shamelessly sampled Burroughs Asshole (sic), a spoken word sequence ripped from Naked Lunch about a man whose asshole began to talk.

The closing track, Let The Grass Grow, is a 12+ minute epic — of which 8 minutes consist entirely of a recording of a lawnmower in action.

No doubt it was a brutal lawnmower.

 Very, Very Dead & Gory: A Veritable Paragon Of Wholesome Family Entertainment.

Alas, the band name and album title are the best parts.

Emperor / Enslaved: Hordanes Land

If you know your black metal then you’ll know why this split album is historically significant. Two of black metal’s most important acts made their ‘proper’ debut on this release.
Both Emperor and Enslaved started out on this record by playing that atrociously-produced, fuzzed out, shrieking, dangerous new music that became known as black metal (ok ultra kvlt smartarse, yes, it’s technically second-generation black metal — and if you can point that out, you’ve presumably also written to Metal Archives and asked them to remove your band listing because someone on the internet got a hold of one of your 50 hand-signed goat skin cassette pressings and uploaded the details on the internet).

Where was I? On Hordanes Land, both Emperor and Enslaved tried their hands at daring experimentation, though it’s often hard to hear it properly because of album’s toilet-grade production.

Despite the ostensibily subversive nature of black metal, paradoxically, black metal is also legendary for being so insular. Not in this case though: Emperor sow the seeds of what would become super-dense guitar fuzz and keyboard production (although the songs are essentially demo tracks); and Enslaved just do some straight out weird sounds and arrangements.

It’s not surprise that both Emperor and Enslaved eventually became black metal bands that took on densely produced, weird, progressive music as a trademark sound — the latest Enslaved album  RIITIIR and Emperor main-dude Ihsahn’s solo work being perfect examples.

Also, can I just say that I am in possession of the *cough* original Candlelight Records pressing?

Emperor / Enslaved: Hordanes Land.

When less was better.

Suiciety: Deeper Vision

Generic, weak vaguely-thrash-inspired hardcore, with some vague, equally generic metal bits.

I’ve given it three listens and it just doesn’t do it for me. There are a couple of ok riffs and decent choruses but otherwise that’s it — I just couldn’t find anything memorable here.

They’re from Melbourne, so that’s a plus, but this just isn’t my cup of tea.

As I said at the start of the piece, you have to give it a proper listen to see if it grows on you. After all, how else can I complain I didn’t get my money’s worth?

Suiciety: Deeper Vision.

Aussie hardcore that just didn't do it for me.

Marduk: Swedish black metal hits Australia

I’m a firm believer in unplanned fun. That is, the less expected a night, event or catch-up is, the greater the likelihood of it turning into a memorable occasion.

Such was the case very recently when I found myself in the city and decided to catch a gig headlined by Swedish black metal masters Marduk. All unplanned of course.

I had been in the CBD to celebrate with my day job work colleagues (yes, I have respectable day-time employment ). The team would be moving back to our now-refurbished suburban office after three or so months of temporary work in the city, so I’d organised a table for a dozen people at Mrs. Parma’s restaurant. This place easily has the best chicken parmas in Melbourne — and a magnificent assortment of micro-brewery beers to boot — and after polishing off a Mexican parma (my favourite) and finally managing to sample the splendid 3 Ravens beer I’d heard so much about, a few of us hardier folk decided to kick on. As soon as we left, we found a bar almost directly next to where we’d just come from, but a few glances between us quickly resulted in a decision not to enter.

To quote a certain popular meme, one does not simply enter the first bar one finds when ‘kicking on’ for the night.

 

This never gets old.

So we bypassed that one and ended up at the Hofbrauhaus, where along with some fine Bier, I felt like a small part of my life had now been successfully fulfilled after I sampled the peach, chocolate and plum schnapps.

Sensing that the night was drawing to a close and feeling pretty good about everything so far, we bid our farewells and I headed to the train station. That’s when I spotted some long-haired, black-clad, bullet belt-ridden freaks — not an unusual sight in the city, but there were quite a few of them here, forming a line outside the well-known concert venue that is the The Hi-Fi bar.

Why of course, I remembered. Some Swedish black metal dudes were in town. And they’d be performing. Live. Playing Marduk's new album, 2012’s Serpent Sermon. Would it be… worth catching them live perhaps?

I will preface this by saying that I’m not much of a Marduk fan, at least in the sense that I own and know only one album in the entire Marduk discography: Heaven Shall Burn… When We Are Gathered (along with the accompanying Glorification EP).

So I’m not a huge fan in the sense that I don’t know that many Marduk songs.

On the other hand, Heaven Shall Burn… is one of my favourite metal albums of all time. Released in 1996, it has some of the best black metal I’ve ever heard. Tracks like Glorification Of The Black God, The Black Tormentor Of Satan and the simple-yet-utterly-awesome (and exceedingly difficult to pronounce) slow epic that is Dracul Va Domni Din Nou In Transilvania — these tracks rock my socks of every time I hear them, though I’m sure the true kvlt haters out there will disagree.

The best Marduk album I’ve ever heard. It’s also the only one I’ve ever heard.

So basically I love this one release and don’t know any other Marduk albums. Since I also love a lot of black metal in general I figured I’d call a mate, Nick, to find out if, just on the off chance, he might be attending tonight. It turned out he was, so we caught up five minutes later and I was at the door shelling out cash for a ticket.

But then… I quickly realised that I was confronted with a problem. As mentioned previously, I’d come directly from work. Here I was at an extreme underground black metal music gig and I was quite literally the only person there dressed in business shoes and corporate slacks. At least my (I’m told) expensive and genuinely non-knock-off Tommy Hilfiger polo shirt which I wear on special occasions (like social events with work colleagues) was black. Nonetheless, my heavy metal cred wouldn’t cop this for long. I quickly bee-lined to the Marduk merch table and acquired an Australian Tour Marduk shirt, which incidentally, in a dejected gesture of defeat, I exchanged five minutes later for the next size up. I might have to cut down on those lovely Mexican parmas…

IGNIVOMOUS, PORTAL, ORDER OF ORIAS AND MARDUK LIVE

The first band on the bill played what you might say had an ‘acquired’ taste. Ignivomous played not so much a blend but more of a solid brick of unrelenting, fast, never-ending brutal death metal. Every track was a plutonium-heavy rapid assault which, while I don’t mind in reasonably small doses, wouldn’t suffer from the addition of some variety, hinted at in the occasional creative riff change. Here’s some Ignivomous live video from a previous gig if that’s your cup of tea.

Next was Order Of Orias, a band I’ve seen several times and which I’ve blogged about previously. I rather like Inverse, Order Of Orias’ 2011 debut full-length album. It conveys a strongly fatalistic and malevolent atmosphere (remarkably, said to have been produced on a shoestring budget), even though I’ll concede that I probably couldn’t name most of the tracks from the album if I heard them come on my playlist. I just like chucking on this album — the operative word here being album, rather than individual tracks — and soaking up the bleakness as a whole, which is why at the time of writing this band ranked number 46 on my personal Last FM chart stats out of almost 1600 artists.

As they came on stage their opening track was preceded by an interesting (pre-recorded in this instance I think) somewhat ambient-leaning instrumental track. Nick pointed out that this was from new or in-progress material that he’d heard, describing some of it as “coming from outer space”. I agreed, and if this brief preview is indicative of material to come then surely there’s something here to get excited about.

Then the ‘real’ playing started. They were as tight and heavy as the last time I saw them, while vocalist Anthony, boot perched on the foldback, roared ferocious invocations, as if summoning some elder evil force. This is a band that I’d really like to think is going places. Literally in fact. Last year they played the DeathkultOpen Air festival in Germany. Hopefully when a new album comes out they’ll be doing more of that.

Australian black metal. Or blackened thrash. Or… hell, I can’t keep track of what the kids call it these days.
Order Orias. Live at Marduk. Surely you can tell from the high quality phone pic?

The curveball performance for the night was Portal. Despite the fact that there's a relatively long Wikipedia entry for Portal, an attempt to describe this band’s performance with mere words wouldn’t do justice to what actually occurred. It’s black metal. Death metal. Crazy metal. The below photo, thankfully of a slightly higher quality than the above pic, may give you some idea of what it was all about.

You totally had to be there.

I counted two eight-string guitars. Black hoods on all the members. A five-string bass. Mad drumming. The vocalist’s crazy headdress. And that totally dissonant and crazy, tempo-changing, blast-beatingly over the top dissonant sound that, combined with the intense volume, transformed the whole spectacle into a creeping blanket of occult noise.
Also, did I mention that they did their entire performance in that attire?

Yet despite the cacophony there appeared to be some intense musicianship going on here. Alas, if only I could hear it! I closely watched one of the guitarists and his hands slid up and down his instrument like some deranged octopus. “There’s some technical shit right there,” Nick pointed out.

The video below might somehow convey the overall effect, despite the loud volume completely obliterating the audio on my phone. I do feel that if Portal’s stage presence had been any less over the top then it’d be easy to dismiss them as laughable and gimmicky. Which admittedly, to some people, may very much be the case.
As it was, for those who dig it, the combination of technical musicianship (whether that’s your cup of tea or not), extreme volume, and impossible-to-look-away-from stage presence combined into what may best described as an overwhelming force that twisted things into another dimension.

Black metal TISM.

Finally Marduk hit the stage. Or rather, assailed it, blasting away and playing furiously to a whole bunch of songs that I would have almost certainly appreciated even more if I recognised even one of them. Alas, not a single cut from Heaven Shall Burn… When We Are Gathered was played that night. Still, I wasn’t complaining.

Mortuus, Marduk’s vocalist, showed himself to be an accomplished front-man, invoking the crowd into not so much a frenzy, to use that old cliché, but rather, a decent and vigorous amount of movement and head banging for those at the front and centre who chose to do so.

It was a contrast to the comparatively sedate motions of guitarist Morgan. You wouldn’t think he was the band’s founder and sole continuous member since Marduk’s uniquely-named first release (find it here — note: the album artwork at this link is NOT even remotely worksafe), or that he was a talented multi-instrumentalist. It didn’t stop him from playing all those killer black metal guitar riffs though.

It was also good to see this stompin’ evil Swedish black metal band show what resembled a sense of humour. At one point, Mortuus commanded the crowd to make some noise. The response was instantaneous, but he pulled a face and did a so-so gesture with his hand. He then commanded the crowd to try again. No, it wasn’t the funniest of stand-up comedy routines. But in comparison, the previous band performed an entire set draped in black hoods. So at least there was something resembling rapport…

 

Marduk live. Black metal goes Down Under.

The gig ended with an encore and as we stepped outside I instantly regretted not bringing ear plugs. For a full day afterwards all sounds were draped in an uncomfortably familar and unhealthy muffled filter.

So I went home, content in the knowledge that, at least for this week, I’d done my bit for heavy metal. I went to the gig. I supported the local Australian metal scene. I bought the World Serpent tour shirt. I even got a Marduk patch to add to my Iron Maiden jacket.

My only regret? Other than neglecting to use earplugs and suffering from tinnitus all weekend?

That awesome Mexican chicken parma. Much as I love ’em with all my stomach, they forcibly make themselves felt again the next day.

Not everyone has this reaction I hope (I’m not very big on chilli and spicy food) but in my case I’m certain it’s due to those jalapeno slices. I find them hotter than the blasphemous hellfire found in so many Marduk lyrics. And I got to relive — or is that relieve — it all again the next morning right after my first coffee…

This is the greeeeatest moment in my liiiAAAAAGGGHHHHH MY SPINE!

I recently moved house and was going through some old boxes when I found some ticket stubs that over the years were at various times proudly affixed to my wall with Bluetack. They’re from two gigs played over a weekend in October 1997, when I was 15 or 16.

I was devoutly into metal at the time and I just loved going to gigs and jumping around to heavy music. Being underage, my choice of venues was severely limited, so every Thursday I’d religiously scan the entertainment pages in The Age newspaper and also watch Recovery on Saturday mornings on ABC TV with Dylan Lewis (who was something of a douche) in the hope of catching a three-minute segment called All Things All Ages or some such. It was often a futile pursuit as there were very few all-ages gigs and even fewer all-ages metal gigs, which is how I ended up at a Millencolin gig.

I was young and didn't know any better.

I’m being a tad sarcastic when I say I’m not much of a fan of Swedish pop punk. In fact, my knowledge of this band is limited to one track on an obscure punk compilation. But it was an all-ages gig and a mate had invited me to come so why the hell not. It’s what you do when you’re 15.

From memory there wasn't much worth repeating from the gig. The Living End were one of the supports and were still vaguely cool back then — while writing this update I worked out that this gig was played just one month after the release of the Second Solution / Prisoner of Society EP. Apparently (and by apparently I mean Wikipedia told me) this release became the highest selling Australian single from the ’90s.

The HiFi Bar, as it had recently been renamed, was kind of dark and I recall gleefully leaping into what passed as a circle pit and promptly getting smashed in the head. I pulled out and didn’t jump back in. Also, my mate got into an argument with someone who had supposedly stuck a lit firelighter at him. Or something…

As I said, I really loved jumping around and going nuts to heavy music. Secretly I’d have liked to talk to girls even more but I was way, way, way too shy for that.

BEST LINE-UP EVER

Look at this stub and tell me that isn’t a totally killer line-up.

Where were you on this glorious day?

Headlining were Canadian metallers Strapping Young Lad when they had just started getting really big after the release of the City album.

Supporting were two superb Aussie bands: Canberra’s psychedelic metal warriors Alchemist, who had recently released Spiritech (one of my favourite albums of all time and a criminally underrated masterpiece); and ‘hatecore’ purveyors Damaged, a band that was notorious for Matt Skitz’s drumming and destroying venues and fans (literally and metaphorically). And they were playing an all-ages gig. Which I was attending!

Unfortunately Damaged pulled the plug at the last moment and were replaced by Segression. They played an ok sort of mix of groove metal with some nu-metal thrown in for good measure but I’ll never forget this band name because I once knew a girl whose first words to me were: “Do you know Segression? I’m going to fuck the drummer.” True story. The first words I mean. I doubt she proceeded with her intended plan.

If I may digress for a moment, I’d also like to point out that this was in the days of pre-fast internet and so radio, particularly community radio, played an important role in spreading the gospel of metal. All these bands were played on at least three separate radio shows each week, which I’d listen to religiously. My long-gone favourite was Demon Night from 10-12 on Wednesday nights on 106.7 PBS FM — seriously, it was the best show EVER! The Hard Report ran on 102.7 RRR FM on Sunday nights from 10-2 and was responsible for my chronic tiredness at school on Monday mornings. And then there was Three Hours Of Power, played nationally on Triple J every Tuesday night from 10-1. My formative metal years were shaped by community radio. I loved the humbleness of these programs, how dead air was a regular occurrence when the announcer (usually the only person in the building by that time of night) ducked into the toilet and the track mysteriously finished early. Or how the promo cart would hurriedly be faded out half-way because it was the wrong one, or a phone would start ringing in the middle of an interview. Radio really meant something back then — and to make matters even better I’d generally make back the cost of my RRR and PBS subscriptions from the free prizes I’d win.

Forgive me, I was merely enjoying the nostalgia…

We showed up half-way through Segression’s set and found the somewhat sedate crowd doing what early crowds (and particularly alcohol-free crowds) do this early in the afternoon, which is not much. But you know, they had that polite and appreciative applause between songs, a sound most support bands are only too familiar with.

Alchemist was next up, and it was an experience which to this day I can only describe as mesmerizing. My theory is that Alchemist live in 1997 was — like all good things in life when you’re young — simply better when you first began experiencing it. MAD magazine? Heavy metal? Sex? These thing and so many more were always at their most awesomest and exciting when you discovered them for the first time.

I wish I could travel back in time and re-live that 45 or so minutes of watching them play live. One moment the crowd was going off to these huge, rhythmic, thick riffs and then it all went a little… tripped out… as the headbanging gave way to quiet interludes of synthy, fascinating, rich sounds interspersed with samples and effects in the background. And then back to the rhythmic headbanging.

Maybe my memory has been contaminated by my fondness of the event, but I could swear that the moshpit was swaying to the breakdown in Chinese Whispers (switch off your anti-stupid shield for a second and read the comments in that YouTube video).

And finally… Strapping Young Lad. If you like metal then hopefully this band needs little introduction. I’d owned the City album for a few weeks and had a particular fondness for the tune Detox, which also got a lot of radio play. In fact, repeated listens of this this tune on radio was what got me into this band. As I said, radio meant something back then.

But believe it or not, I’m not the biggest Strapping fan. I dig it and have all sorts of angsty nostalgic feelings form that time but personally I just don’t rate them up there with the likes of Iron Maiden. But boy, what a performance. Front-man Devin Townsend is the epitome of a showman and the awesomeness all started before anyone even played a riff. The entire crowd was kind of WTF-ed as he walked on stage and started miming to this weirdly melodic introduction, kind of like this one.

Anyway, Devin comes on stage and people are sort of looking at him weirdly with this odd sense of expectation as he does this routine. And then… it began. Oh dear Lord, did it begin. And keep going.

A veritable wall of white hot, crazy noise, with a rapidly balding long-haired Canadian dude doing his best to make everyone go utterly apeshit. Industrial strength, white-blue searing heavy metal of the utmost intensity.

One thing from this gig that I will never forget is my first and last ever stage dive. There was some surfing and diving going on and being young and energetic and extremely sweaty I figured it’d be a neat idea. Towards the end of the gig I finally managed to fight my way around to the front, climb on stage, look down at the crowd and think as I sailed through the air that oh man, this is the greeeeatest moment in my liiiAAAAAGGGHHHHH MY SPINE!!!!!!

Turns out the crowd caught my spread out arms; my knees, however, smashed straight into the concrete floor. I can still remember the snapping sensation in my back. So that was the last time I ever stagedived.

What an era, eh? Getting your head smashed in a circle pit. Almost breaking your spine after leaping from the stage. Kids going from zero to apeshit by the power of great music without any alcohol. Back then you wore your mosh-induced injuries as a badge of honour.

But here’s the best part.

This Strapping Young Lad gig which I TOTALLY ATTENDED was IMMORTALISED in the form of a LIVE ALBUM. That’s right, people. This gig was recorded and later released as No Sleep ’Till Bedtime i.e Live In Australia. And I was THERE dammit.

I SAID I WAS THERE!!!

I’d like to think that if you throw on a decent pair of headphones and carefully listen to this album you’ll hear, buried somewhere in the crowd noise, the soft cracking sound of a 15-year-old boy’s knees colliding with a concrete floor.