Why the dry spell? Well, as some of you may know, I am wearer of many hats, and a player of drums in many bands, and I am kept busy in a variety of ways that don't necessarily facilitate the luxury of sitting in front of my computer composing flowery prose about my nightly activities. Plus I get really frustrated when I can't find the flyer and/or ticket stub for the show that I went to. I'd rather not do a show review at all than release an "incomplete one." Graphics are required to keep the attention of the common people. Lo and behold, I also wrote some reviews of shows in 2011 that I simply didn't bother to publish, for one reason or another, and those will probably be seeing the light of day sooner or later. I might even try to squeeze out a top ten shows list of 2011 before too long. Still got at least a week! I'm not one of those impatient bastards who puts out a "years best" list in fucking November. Fuck all of you that did.
Anyway, I didn't get to the show completely on time because I had a short band practice after work, then me and Leo were hanging out and got pizza and beer, and I missed the opening band, which I thought was going to be Ritual Necromancy, but instead it turned out to be Acephalix, which was good, not that I don't like them, but I've seen them a FUCKLOAD of times, and I will see them again. Ritual Necromancy was cool, fun, but not breathtaking. I'm stoked to no end that the death metal renaissance of the past few years has swung the pendulum back to "dirty death metal" and away from suburban kids in cargo shorts emphasizing pinged harmonics and sweep picking, but I'm not still hearing any of the vital hooks that pleased me so much in the old Swedish stuff, or MEMORABLE slow riffs like Autopsy has. This kind of murky, gloomy Death Metal is more mood music than song music, and the mood is total self annihilation, crushing of the spirit and withering of the body. I love Incantation too, but I'm trying to think of a riff of theirs that I can hum, but I can't. I can remember distinctly the mood though, of sitting through in Incantation album. It's like being on a 747 with one bad engine, passing through an oppressive dark cloud for 45 minutes. Ritual Necro are definitely flying on the same airline.
I was getting pretty drunk a the bar, and also made it across the street to Leo's place to polish of a 24 ounce can of Tecate between bands.
Anhedonist was next. I love these guys. As people and as a band. They're some of my best friends in the city of Seattle, and even If for some reason I wanted to say something bad about them, I couldn't, so fuck you. In addition to being a lumbering, repulsive beast of a Death Doom band, Anhedonist has taken it upon themselves to not only take Mournful Congregation from Australia down to Texas with them for the Rites of Darkness festival, but they brought Cruciamentum (UK) back with them to California, and they have also driven around such bands as Oak from the east coast, and are just a generally useful bunch of folks. Here's to internationalism and cooperation in the Death Doom scene!
I was getting pretty drunk and talking to girls and stuff.
I remember Cruciamentum being fun, more straightforward and aggressive than Ritual Necro. These English seemed to be full of piss and vinegar, and maybe it was all those pints clouding my mind, but are these guys letting their UK roots betray them by allowing crust-death Bolt Thrower elements to seep in? Like I said, I was getting pretty drunk, but having a good time.
I was pretty tired and wasted, but I had to stick around and see Dispirit, because I had never seen them before! Every single other Dispirit show I have either missed the band by being late, or simply missed the show altogether because I had to do something else, or play somewhere else, or be on tour. So I stuck it out and diligently watched their whole set, a option that many of the night's club goers chose to forsake. I was not disappointed at all by my choice, and found Dispirit to weave a thoroughly righteous tapestry (a rotting tapestry depicting a ritualistic ceremony of course) of gothic doomy black metal. It's hard to pick out the details when you're fucked up and the sounds are screeching around in a half empty club at 1AM, but I still feel like I got a lot out of it.
Luckily all I had to do afterwards was walk across the street, eat more pizza and pass out on Leo's couch.
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