01/6/23, St Vitus, Brooklyn NY
If you’re unfamiliar with Sunrot, you need to change that! Holy shit! This in-your-face, power sludge\crust band filled the stage and kicked off the three-band bill right with immediate and intense energy and the best kind of noise.
If someone said let’s see a Jazz Metal Opera. I’d look confused for a second then I would be all in. That’s exactly what happened when I saw La Suspendida, “The Suspended Woman,” in Long Island City New York at The Phaxall Gallery’s Culture Lab for a three-night residency. It’s an innovative Opera that combines the best of Jazz and Metal music. This groundbreaking concert combines three seemingly different genres into a unique and dynamic sound that will be sure to wow audiences. The drama is based on a notorious incident in history where a doctor’s obsession with a young patient of his was so great that he kept her body as his lover after her untimely death.
Chicago is renowned for being home to some of the country’s most acclaimed concert venues. Lincoln Hall resides just north of downtown and has been voted as one of the best spots for live music in the city by sites like Yelp and Foursquare. The owners of Schubas Tavern opened their second location in 2009 in a hundred-year-old building and have been hosting transcendent live appearances since. Soen picked well to make this their Midwest stop on their one-month-long North American tour.
Deep from the depths of the Adirondack wilderness comes the all-mighty Blackbraid! Making their New York City debut at St. Vitus Bar’s’ “A Sortilege of Hell – Two Nights of Eschatological Vehemence and Mayhemic Splendor!” … as it was so eloquently put. Playing alongside Pan Amerikan Native Front, Vilkacis, and Ixachitlan, Blackbraid’s addition to this epic lineup truly lent itself to the long weekend of celebration and straight-up heavy metal havoc in the name of Indigenous People’s Day.
Back in the saddle after a prolonged hiatus I got to cover some Black Metal for Ghost Cult Magazine in 013 Tilburg on the 29th of September 2022. It’s good to walk the halls of the familiar venue again after a few years of mostly quiet, and several months since Roadburn. Tonight we come for Watain’s new album tour, The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain. They are joined tonight by Bölzer, Tribulation and Abbath, an excellent package.
First time at the O2 Apollo, a lovely, antiquated venue, it has a very old-school theatre vibe to it, and as would become apparent for most sets tonight the sound and lighting were top-drawer. Continue reading
Finally! After three years the Devastation on the Nation Tour blazes through New York City! … with two, back-to-back, scorching hot shows!
I was lucky enough to catch the Saturday Matinee, in true New York fashion. I opted for the 430 PM show in an effort to save my aging infrastructure from a night of TOTAL obliteration.
This night featured an eclectic group of Metal bands. Sure, they’re similar in an overall way. But each band’s brand of metal keeps your ears from getting tired. These are the best kind of tours, where sonic diversity conquers all.
This is the most New York show I’ve been to in a long while. It felt like one big local show. That’s what happens when all five bands come from here. That being said, this show started earlier, doors at the renovated Irving Plaza were at 6 pm. or 1800 for non-Americans. Every few steps you ran into someone you knew. I saw a lot of faces that this was their first show since you know what. It’s rare to see in metal shows nowadays but this show had a host! Bassist extraordinaire, Dan Lilker from Nuclear Assault and Brutal Truth fame. MCed the whole night.
Roadrunner, Boston, MA 4/9/2022
Finally a show at the brand new venue in Boston, Roadrunner, filled with essentially local acts.