Concert Review

3 Inches of Blood, Toxic Holocaust, Early Man, and Asema
The Wild Buffalo Bellingham, WA

I have never been to a show at The Wild Buffalo before, but I was pretty happy with the venue. Unlike other clubs in Bellingham, the crowd was actually able to mosh around and have fun at a metal show. The night started off with a new local band, Asema. This was a talented young band that definitely showed some promise, mostly in the vocal abilities of the lead singer. She was able to spew forth some very amazing guttural growls and screams that blew me away. However, she did not put very much variety in her vocals. Each lyric of each song seemed to bounce back and forth between growls and screams at the same pace making each song tend to blend together. There was one song in which she did try out some clean singing, which was pretty decent but she should stick to what she does best, which are the screams that made the songs. Nothing too great but they definitely seem to show a lot of promise.

Early Man was up next. They are a thrash band with some definite punk aspects. For the live setting, they slayed the audience. There was an energy behind them that does not come across on record. They are too talented to only be heard on their album because there was a raw energy that they disgorge upon the crowd. Most of the people did not seem to be too familiar with this band and were not up front when they began their set. However, once the metal fury was unleashed upon these metal maniacs, they learned exactly what the band was all about.

Toxic Holocaust took to the stage next. They are a brilliant combination of thrash and black metal. The band is the masterpiece of mastermind Joel Grind and they come off with an intensity that would literally kick you in the face if it had the physical ability to. I was able to be in the front row for their entire set which gave me a perfect vantage point to witness the unrelenting barrage of thrash that laid waste to the audience. I became a very big fan of this band as a result of this show and will be trying to catch them every time they come through this area.

Finally the main event was up, 3 Inches of Blood came to the stage. This was the one band that everyone seemed to be there to see. They started of their set with Deadly Sinners, probably the first song of theirs that everyone there heard. Even though I had heard it so many times, I still loved hearing it live. They whipped through many of their beast songs including Swordmaster, Wykydtron, Crazy Nights, Goatrider's Horder, Night Merauders and Trial of Champions. The crowd was worked up into a frenzy that lasted the entire set. The crowd was singing along, moshing, crowd surfing, and just having a great time. Overall, I was very glad I made the trip up to Bellingham for the night. All the bands played well and I look forward to seeing them all again.

Local Seattle Shows

El Corazon

Sunday Jan 25:
Rotting Christ
Mantic Ritual
Epicurean
Ceremonial Castings
Skelator

Friday Feb 6:
Meshuggah
Cynic
The Faceless

Tuesday Mar 3:
Soilwork
Darkane
Warbringer
Swallow the Sun

The Shoxbox
Tuesday Feb 3: (At the Market)
Cradle of Filth
Satyricon
Septic Flesh

The Wild Buffalo
Saturday Jan 24:
3 Inches of Blood
Toxic Holocaust
Early Man

Pure Molten Metal

Today's Rant

I love thrash metal. To be honest, it seems that thrash gets pushed to the wayside too often. In today's scene, metal generally has to have the word core at the end of it to be seen in the media. My problem with that is the fact that adding hardcore diminishes the name of both metal and hardcore. Both have amazing tendencies in their own right and they do not need to be added to each other in order to achieve a new sense of popularity. I have, in my noobish days, been lumped into the metalcore scene because I knew no better. However, I believe that I now know a lot better. I am aware of so many more scenes and bands that I am better for it. Thrash is now one of my favorites, if not my favorite. As I write this I am listening to Kreator. I only recently found this band (in the last year and a half or so) and I am in love!! They have the type of brutality and techinicality that I am enamored with. Thrash gives the listener the ability to witness some of the most techincal guitar gymnastics as well as some of the most passionate vocals. In addition, it contains some amazingly brutal aspects that will completely destory the listener into hundreds of different pieces. Kreator, Warbringer, Exodus, Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch and many others continue to bring the thrash to the masses in a way that has not been seen since the early 90's. So my advice to you all is to witness the pure awesomeness of thrash and embrace the technical, political, brutal, and even melodical tendencies of what truly makes an amazing thrash band. And by the way, I do love Metallica despite their recent subpar albums I am in love with them

Reviews

Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery

This album is one that both amazes and disgusts me. Technically, musically, vocally, this album is damn near perfect. This is an album that I can put in whenever I just need to hear something technical and brutal. The vocals on this album will put any vocalist to shame. Mikael Akerfeldt has some of the most beautiful death metal growls that I have ever witnessed. The bombasts that emits from the depths of the speakers and encompasses the entire atmosphere of the room that the album is playing in completely destroys any other sense one can identify. From beginning to end, I loved this album........That is until I got around to reading the lyrics. As a Christian I could not relate or enjoy the lyrical poetry that can be found in this and most metal albums. This album especially put me off. However, this is one of the times that I love not being able to hear the lyrics to well during the songs. Even though I do not relate or like the lyrics, it is impossible to not enjoy the music, which is why I bought the album. One can put aside those differences because we will not always agree on all aspects of ideals, but we can all agree that this album is brutal as f*ck!!!!!

Pure Molten Metal

This is my new idea where I express my thoughts, views, or any other ideas on metal whether it be a local, national, or global view or it could just be about a band I am really digging at the time. Right now I would like to talk about elitism. For better or for worse, I hope this thought process continues in our scene. I would not listen to about 90% of the bands that I listen to these days because there are people that Have told me that what I listened to was crap. Sometimes they were wrong, but for the most part they were right. There needs to be these elder statesmen in the metal scene in order to inform the new kids what to listen to. If it wasn't for these elitists, I would probably still listen to solely metalcore because from the earliest points I had to find music on my own. I would like to thank the people on Facebook groups for helping me become the metalhead I am today and continue to push me into new directions of amazing bands. Especially the I'm a Metalhead and Proud of It group because it is the one I frequent most and post more regularly than any others. There have been many people in that group that have helped direct me into the direction I am in now. Whether they be elitists or simply people who have been listening to this type of music for a lot longer than I have, I thank them and I hope that I can influence a few people of my own.
\m/

Washed in Blood

This is where I will tell you all about my band, tentatively called Washed in Blood. I am still learning the ways of the guitar while my partner in crime, Cody, is killin it on the bass. Our friend Chris has the pipes to lay anyone and everyone to waste. It will be a while before we post or perform anything so please keep checking back for updates.

Local Seattle Shows

El Corazon

Sunday Jan 25:
Rotting Christ
Mantic Ritual
Epicurean
Ceremonial Castings
Skelator

Friday Feb 6:
Meshuggah
Cynic
The Faceless

Tuesday Mar 3:
Soilwork
Darkane
Warbringer
Swallow the Sun

The Shoxbox

Tuesday Feb 3: (At the Market)
Cradle of Filth
Satyricon
Septic Flesh

The Wild Buffalo

Saturday Jan 24:
3 Inches of Blood
Toxic Holocaust
Early Man