As the Decibel Magazine Tour 2016 was nearly finishing, the tour made its way up to a still snowy Toronto and after their exhausting set and having to unload the stage, Skeletonwitch guitarist Scott Hedrick still had enough energy to talk to us during High on Fire's set about the new vocalist, Adam Clemans, the upcoming EP, all the changes to the band, and of course, how happy Abbath's voice makes him.
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Showing posts with label high on fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high on fire. Show all posts
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Tour review: The Decibel Magazine Tour with Abbath, High On Fire, Skeletonwitch and Tribulation in Toronto at The Opera House April 10th, 2016
On Sunday, April 10th, 2016 on a snowy day in Toronto, the Decibel Magazine Tour descended upon our beloved venue, The Opera House. Abbath, High on Fire, Skeletonwitch and Tribulation made up the extreme metal tour of the year bringing a couple different firsts to North America, Skeletonwitch on tour with their new vocalist Adam Clemens and Abbath on tour for the first time.
At roughly 7pm, with a line of us
standing in the snow the doors finally opened and with very little time to
waste, Tribulation took the stage shortly after. Opening with “Strange Gateways
Beckon” this band is just as mysterious as they are fantastic, with guitarist Jonathon
Hultan very light on his feet, dancing and making his way around the stage seamlessly.
While the show continued the band continued to keep the audience captivated in
each and every line they had to shout out. Eventually, very quickly and after
only a few songs, “Holy Liberation” began and cranked through in what felt like
no time at all and Tribulation were done. The audience was mesmerized and even
though they were the opening band tonight, they packed in the venue and made
plenty of new fans already. No one was ready to see them leave, except those of
us who knew what was next.
After a
very short transition, Skeletonwitch took the stage with new vocalist Adam
Clemens, known best for his work with Wolvhammer, opening with “I Am of Death
(Hell Hath Arrived)” off the bands most recent album “Serpents Unleashed”.
Instantly, most previous fans of the band were drawn to the new incarnation of
the band, while not having quite the vocal range previous vocalist Chance
Garnette had, Clemens made up for with sheer destructive Black Metal force. The
band played a lot of songs off of “Serpents Unleashed” with a couple songs from
“Beyond the Permafrost” and “Forever Abomination” mixed in, but it was the new
songs that made everything special, you want to hear what the band will be
bringing soon. “Well of Despair” has been out for a month now, but the song
live is even more destructive, the fast paced Blackened Death sound Skeletonwitch
are known for got the crowd headbanging like some psychos. “Black Waters” was
the other new song shown off and personally sounded a bit more melodic and
chaotic instrumentally than anything previously done by the band. Not knowing
the song made it a bit hard to follow, but that’s fairly common with any song
you don’t know, but all in all it’s a song to look forward to hearing a studio
version of to really take in the madness. Eventually the band had to come to a close
with “Beneath Dead Leaves” and let the pit open one last time for Skeletonwitch
before their final goodbyes.
Due to
an interview taking place at the time, I was only able to catch the first
couple songs from High on Fire, but the interview was worth it, don’t worry
that will be up very soon. Opening with “The Black Plot,” I actually enjoyed
the band more this time than when I saw them on tour with Pallbearer. Maybe it
was just an off day for the band last time, but the new songs like “The Black
Plot” seemed more rehearsed and much tighter than before. The band brings a
traditional Heavy Metal destructive sound that a lot of people can enjoy,
although being the slightly out of place band on a bill filled mostly with
Black Metal. The other song I caught before having the leave the main area was “Carcosa”
which, although a good song and it may have just been my excitement, seemed to
take forever. High on Fire has a lot of energy tonight and it was a shame I had
to leave, but just you wait for the interview.
My
interview finished just as High On Fire were closing out, meaning when i got
back to the main area, the crowd was just thinning out a bit for the smokers to
take a quick break. Sneaking back up close, Abbath’s introduction began and
needless to say, the crowd went mad. After an epic introduction, the sound of
marching feet began and out came the band, everyone except Abbath himself, but
soon enough, just before the vocals of “To War!” started, the man of the hour
made his way in front of Toronto. All eyes were on the frontman as the band
cranked out songs, old and new, including “Winter Bane” from the first Abbath
album, “Warriors” from the band I and Immortal’s “Nebular Ravens Winter”. When
the band began “Ashes of the Damned” it was hard not to watch the frontman, if
you know Abbath, you know his signature Black Metal grunt, and this song is
full of them. While Black Metal is meant to sound evil, Abbath is hard to sake
to seriously, constantly making faces and striking poses for photos, you can’t
not be happy when seeing this band live. If you watch drummer Creature, you
might feel uneasy though, dawning a demon mask, whoever is behind the set knows
what’s going on. Creature will stare straight forward for 99% of the show,
barely needing to look at what part of the set his sticks are hitting and if
you watch it too long, you’ll start to get that “are you human?” feeling. When
the band broke into the Immortal track “Tyrants” you knew shit was going down,
the pit opened to its largest size and the crowd went wild, hair was everywhere
and people were being thrown around like there was no tomorrow. In the songs slow
section, roughly half way through, Abbath began to make poses and try to get
the crowd as loud as he possibly could, and it worked, before breaking back
into the headbanging madness. “Count the Dead” put a break between two more Immortal
songs, “One by One” and a song that personally, I was overly excited to finally
see, “Solarfall.” Abbath took every chance he got to take to the very front of
the stage during “Solarfall” and again, got the blood pumping. “Root of the
Mountain” followed with “All Shall Fall” afterwards. The band left the stage
and after a ton of cheering and chanting Abbath retook the stage, asking “so
you want some more?” and caused absolute chaos one last time with “In My
Kingdom Cold,” saying goodnight, promising the bands return and leaving the
stage.
Tribulation Performance: 85/100
Skeletonwitch Performance: 95/100
High On Fire Performance: 80/100
Abbath Performance: 95/100
Overall Experience: 90/100
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Adrenechrome "Tales From Adrenechrome" Review
This is a band I’m not certain on how I would classify, they
have a lot of groove to them but they’re full of heavier section, so how about
we just call this Heavy Metal. Adrenechrome
are a Canadian Metal band that can show most older bands how to write, with so
many sounds from other bands you’d almost think they had Mastodon and Megadeth in
the studio with them one day then High On Fire and Baroness the next. All “Tales From Adrenechrome” needs now is a
studio report called “Tales From Tales
From Adrenechrome” just to start confusing people.
Right
off the bad you face “A Familiar Face,”
which starts off the album sounding like an incredible Mastodon jam, after the
intro plays out you’re jumping right into “Lockstep”
which begins again sounding a bit like Mastodon
from the “Blood mountain” era, but
the interesting part is when we get to the chorus. The chorus takes on more of
a Dave Mustaine, softer Megadeth feel. The contrast between the
high speed almost harsh vocals and slower cleaner vocals is nice and allows the
musicianship of the band to show that they don’t have to be playing 1000 chords
a minute.
“God Sized Shadow” takes on a more Baroness sound knocking the speed down
a little bit and keeping the tempo a little more constant, the only real change
is right near the end as the song slowly, well, slows down up to a final
conclusion of “she says hello.” The albums closing track “The Led Elephant” and talk about saving the best for last! Building
up slow until it hits the point of explosion the song kicks into high gear
going the incredible guitar work of both Tim
Kehoe and Chris Friesen, not to
mention the vocals of the latter mentioned Friesen that almost offer a tone of
desperation while yelling “we cannot win.” The song closes out the same way it
opened, with a slow crawl to the end playing probably what is one of the best
riffs in this album with constant double bass pounding away in the background
until it comes to a halt.
Adrenechrome wrote one hell of an
album, then recorded one hell of an album and finally, released one hell of an
album. This is good ol’ Heavy Metal full of Rock N’ Rock sounds and grooves
from bands that most modern Metal fans love, plus look at that album cover! The
comic book inspiration mixed with Metal makes for an amazing formula for great
album covers, this is style the band
should embrace and release with each album, but that’s just my opinion. There’s
no reason for anyone not to check “Tales
From Adrenechrome” because it’s probably better than most albums you’ve
heard this year.
5/5
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