In an
underground bar, literally down two flights of stairs, is the Coalition. The
Coalition is known for being a great venue for small bands to play, especially
Metal bands, and tonight was no different, while this show was extremely short
notice the turn out wasn’t too bad for a night of old school Heavy Metal from AxMinister, insect themed Blackened
Doom Metal from HIVE and Symphonic
Blackened Death from the always wicked Erimha.
Tonight
was a late one, with AxMinister
taking the stage at 10pm to start off the show. I don’t know how I’ve never
come across these guys before; they played some great traditional Heavy Metal
about history and had a killer stage show to boot, with frontman Nicholas Klaus looking like an
executioner and their drummer constantly changing hats/helmets/masks throughout
the set. While the set was kept short the band played a fair amount of songs
including “Salvation” where their
drummer rocked a Roman Centurion helmet, “Visceral
Speed” which is just a great Thrash/Speed Metal tune that should remain a
main stay for the band and before starting up into their last song guitarist Liam Maguire broke into his own
rendition of “Eruption”. These guys
deserve mad props, the turn out for the show as a whole was rather limited due
to it being announced just a week prior, and for whatever reason some people don’t
show up until the headlining band and just skip the supports but even with this
the band wasn’t deterred from giving it their all, playing an amazing set and
making at least one new fan.
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| Photo by Jenna McCarthy |
At
about 11pm, HIVE took the stage with
their signature brand of Blackened Doom Metal and their crazy stage outfits.
Each and every member wore a cloak that covered their body and the Brood Mother,
who performs vocal duties for the band, has symbols and writing all over theirs
while having a piece of fabric covering their face. The other members, instead
of fabric wore the old time doctor’s masks, which was ominous but felt like it
fit the idea of this insect based band. HIVE’s
set was rather short, which makes sense as they only have an EP out at this
time, the band played the entirety of “Emergence”
and basically laid out the life and death of a locust and the crowd loved it.
The response was positive and a lot of the crowd were saying how good it was
afterwards, which is always a good sign. My only complaint is I like movement
and interaction from bands, it keeps the energy of the crowd up, but I’m sure
between remaining ominous and those outfits it can be rather tough and will
probably be something the band will figure out as they progress.
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| Photo by Jenna McCarthy |
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| Photo by Jenna McCarthy |
Finally
around the witching hour, it was time for Erimha
to take the stage and man, even if the crowd wasn’t big, they were pumped. From
the first note of “The First Law”
the crowd was in awe, the pit opened up for those who wanted to be part of it,
the chanting was met with response from most the crowd and the night was at its
absolute best. Playing a mix of songs from their second album “Reign Through Immortality” and their
latest release through Victory Records
“Thesis Ov Warfare” it was amazing
to see the energy these guys had. Highlights of the night were “Condemned To Desolation” which is just
a monster of a song and “Fragmented
Existence” which, while being slower, is an amazing song to get the hair
going and no one wasted any time getting theirs flying around. While the set
seemed short, coming up on about 50 minutes, no one was unimpressed with Erimha, everyone had a good Friday
night and looked like they all left happy.
AxMinister Performance: 80/100
HIVE Performance: 80/100
Erimha Performance: 90/100
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