Metal Reviews

saw The Black Dahlia Murder + Karybdis (meh) and Ingested (double meh). TBDM crushed everyone.

the show was recorded in decent quality and livestreamed on Youtube, here it is in case you're curious. wish they'd caught more shots of the crowd, it was fucking brutal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_VEbb_fkFQ

Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, and Hypocrisy are playing London in late November. Has anyone seen any of them live?

Amon Amarth seem awesome live, but Berserker sounded terrible the one time I heard it. Arch Enemy I haven't heard anything with Alyssa, and the later stuff with Angela was pretty bad in my opinion (some great moments, but mostly boring, and the choruses were absolutely fucking awful). Never heard Hypocrisy, admittedly.

It's £40 including fees. Should I bite?

AA came to London with Testament in 2016 but I couldn't make it then :(

I've seen Hypocrisy twice back in 2005 and 2006 and they're awesome. Missed em last time they came around though. Amon Amarth is decent live.

You have the correct opinion on Arch Enemy (high in the mix, poppy choruses with those type of vocals are garbage!), that band died when Johan left, not that it was all, or even mostly Angela's fault.

I'd still go based on your prior experience with Amon Amarth, and husker's Hypocrisy live report. Hypocrisy have an extensive, and mostly great back catalog.

nice! bought it, going with my cousin, should be fun, if freezing (it's November 30th and the o2 in Brixton is very cold - hopefully not so much in the pit!).

i had to pay £1.65 in ticket delivery fees. how was the ticket delivered, you ask? IT'S A FUCKING E-TICKET. jesus fuck. live nation, who sold me the tickets, is merged with the assholes at ticketmaster, and the combined entity is a publicly traded company. i get it, you need to make money, but don't fucking insult my intelligence by having me pay a TICKET DELIVERY FEE for a ticket that is going to come by FUCKING EMAIL! by all means, bump up the also bullshit transaction fee, but charging me a ticket delivery fee is taking the piss. fucking corporations, man (i work at one ).

Just saw Converge live in London, with Fange, Sect, and Terror opening, in that order.

Skipped Fange, Sect were meh, Terror were solid, some great riffs, but too many fucking breakdowns. A delight for fans of the genre, I guess. So much of hardcore sounds the same to me. I imagine this is what a muggle feels when they listen to death metal lol.

Converge were absolutely CRUSHING. Fantastic show, with tons of energy, a monster behind the drum kit, and excellent execution throughout. 3-4 fast songs for every slow one, good for a breather. I'd say it was one of the best shows I've personally seen, definitely see them live if you get the chance. Including the £2 to put my bag away, it was £23.95, pretty decent imo.

Crowd-wise, there was a fair bit of hardcore dancing in the opening acts, but almost none with Converge, thankfully. Can't stand that shit.

Amon Amarth were excellent when I saw them, but that was on the Twilight of the Tunder God tour before their new stuff became overly derivative. If their setlist leans more heavily on their older material, I'd say jump all over it. Saw Arch Enemy when they were touring with Megadeth on the Gigantour back in the day. They were good but nothing to write home about.

Alice Cooper with Halestorm later this month, Soulfly in September and both GWAR/Sacred Reich and Guns n' Roses in October. Cautiously optimistic with the Gunners since Slash and Duff are back in the band. Axl, as always, will be the wild card.

Lizzy just plays rhythm, not leads right? I guess you'll know later this month if you don't already. I hear Halestorm sometimes on the radio and it isn't bad.

really looking forward to them that's November 30th... and i just bought tickets for December 2nd to see Archspire, Inferi, Beneath The Massacre, and Vulvodynia.

saw Archspire in December 2018 and they fucking CRUSHED it, Inferi i'm very curious to see live, they have some great moments in their albums, BTM not amazing but seem fun from what i heard, Vulvodynia i'll probably skip if they're the first band to play. gore/porno grind/slam/whatever is not really my thing.

Nile and Hate Eternal for £22 in late September and Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel for £33 in early March. do i bite? do Nile play the faster songs or the slower ones live, mostly? does their sound suffer live? i imagine it does...

Zad, you going to the Manchester show for the thrash acts?

I'll decide closer to the time. The venue is a bit of a slog for me...

I might go see Dream Theater in late October. Who knows.

Don't think DT have announced European tour dates yet, although they did promise a full Scenes of a Memory 20th anniversary show next year from what I remember. Definitely there for that.

Got ticket for Devin Townsend / Haken in December!

Seeing King Diamond in November and Acid King in October, already have the tickets, man.
Fuck I can't wait.

Might be going to 1349/UADA and Morbid Angel/Watain/Incantation.

saw an "orchestral reimagining" of Frank Ocean's "Channel Orange". it's a pretty cool album, but this was pretty boring, singers and band plus 4 near-inaudible violins to make people pay £17 to see what was basically a glorified cover band.

Saw GNR last week and am pleased to say they were damn solid. The band was razor sharp as expected, Axl paced himself well throughout the 2+ hour show and the set was packed with all the usual suspects but was still eclectic enough to keep you guessing. Having Slash and Duff back in the band seems to have made all the difference as Rose hasn't looked or sounded this focused in years. Where the band goes from here, only the gods know, but I'm happy to see one of my musical foundation stones killing it again after struggling through irrelevance for so many years.

Hawkwind this Friday, Immolation the Thursday after!

Devin Townsend and Haken on Tuesday, Taake and Wode Friday, then Boris and Arabrot on the Monday after!

Tony MacAlpine last week, Nile/Terrorizer and Death Angel/Exmortus this past December and the Static-X Wayne Memorial Show in November.

Sepultura/Sacred Reich in April. New single from Quadra sounding properly thrashy with new drummer Eloy Casagrande proving a more than capable replacement for Igor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2nZ3n8_e3k