Wolves in the Throne Room, Nommo Ogo, Neck of the Woods at The Venue – July 13th 2014

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The Venue – July 13, 2014

Wolves in the Throne Room (WITTR), a Washington black metal duo, released Celestite, an experimental synthesizer album on July 8th and followed with a North American tour. Nommo Ogo, a California psychedelic electronic band and Vancouver’s own Neck of the Woods (NOTW) were also on the bill.

NOTW is a band that showcases many different styles of metal and it is obvious why the were Wacken Metal Battle Canada finalists. Progressive bass rhythms accompanied the double kick and wailing guitar while Jeff Radomsky, a hardcore vocalist, spent most of his time pacing around the audience screaming. “Two Smokes” ended the five-song set and was set ablaze by two guitars and slowly grooved into a fast melodic double kick crusher.

Nommo Ogo walked on stage hidden behind beekeeping hats and their electronic equipment. They created an ambient experience full of crashing high pitch noises among low deep rhythms. Their most recent album, The Sea of Night is aptly named as this music seems to be best suited for staring off into the abyss.

WITTR did not play any songs off their newest album and instead stuck to their black metal. Distortion rang out and it was loud as they played their first song, “Thuja Magus Imperium.” The only light came from lit candles as the stage was dark. The band did not say a word to the audience for the almost hour-and-half set, except for the screeching growls of the singer. Heads were drooped for the popular “Vastness and Sorrow” and Venue filled with atmospheric black metal that Wolves in the Throne Room innately create.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to The Skinny Magazine for publishing this review and thanks also to Beatroute for providing the opportunity to review the show.

Anciients, Black Wizard, Skull Vultures, Destroy All at The Biltmore Cabaret – June 18th 2015

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GUEST SPOT ON VANCOUVERMETAL.NET: ANCIIENT’S TOUR KICK OFF WITH SERENA NAVARRO

10474167_10154288016850273_883546322_nI walked into the Biltmore Cabaret for the first time to find a red, deep glow about the venue. I have only really known small venues in Calgary and it was a comforting and hazy place to host Anciients’ kick off Canadian tour.

Destroy All were the first band up and started on time. This 4-piece was not any ordinary metal band, showcasing 3 different vocalists all with their own unique sound. The main vocalist/bassist, Aron, was seemingly a fan of Venom as he was screeching out some killer vocals with their first song Leviathan Rise. Deep and high vocals from the other two guitarists fit well with this all-encompassing range of metal styles. Emerge Now From the Ashes was their second song and was laid down with some progressive drum beats. The end of the set was a crushing song named Long Live the New Flesh and was fun to thrash out to. Destroy All played a short but sweet 25 minute set.
10474362_10154288019545273_1910036_nSkull Vultures were second on stage and were hard hitting and beautifully constructed. With sounds that emanated Neurosis and Gorguts, Skull Vultures are an up-and-coming band. Eli’s guitar wailing rang out clear with the first song,Reclaim. The drummer was a fill-in for the show, but proved he was worthy of being there by playing a drum solo for about a minute and a half which ended with the crowd cheering. Only Darkness started with a slow bass line of doom proportions and proceeds into Jason’s guttural war cry and speed which were a welcoming sound amongst the progressive drum beats and the beautifully high-pitched ringing of the guitar. Skull Vultures finished off their set with a song titled No Reason and it was over too quickly, in my opinion. They only played around 25 minutes, but I wish it was longer.
10466711_10154288023585273_418617790_nBlack Wizard came up on stage and all the hair came too. You could tell it was going to be a stoner-iffic time. This band was LOUD, and I mean feedback loud. I had to leave the pit because, even with my earplugs, my ears were getting fucked by this Clutch-inspired dual-guitar 70’s band. Hair was swinging everywhere! The drummer, Eugene, was exciting to watch, with his ever moving body and head banging. The crowd really got going when Eliminator was played: their only song on their Bandcamp website. Vocalist Adam gave some crushing growls amongst his pure clean vocals and it worked quite well. About 3 songs into the set, Adam had some troubles with his guitar but the band kept playing until he fixed it. The following song began with a dual guitar riff of epic proportions and proceeded into a lovely slow and sludge orientated song. Black Wizard was overall a really good band, but the sound/venue was not working in their favour.
10470663_10154288025825273_1715283770_nBlack curtains were draped around the front of the stage in anticipation of Anciients playing. An ambient sound started coming from the monitors and around 120 people began making their way to the front of the venue. The curtains were drawn back and southern metal riffs rang out with their first song, Raise the Sun. The second song, Overthrone, started fast, but ended slow and people were starting to groove. After the second song it seemed the crowd was in a weed coma as Kenny, the lead guitarist and vocalist, had to spur the crowd asking “How you guys doing?” with the crowd cheering again. The intro to the next song, Faith and Oath, picked up speed and the crowd followed by head banging. The Longest River took us on a 9 minute progressive, stoner-metal journey and no one in the crowd was complaining as bodies were swaying. Anciients ended the show with a new song that began harder and faster than the previous ones, but progressed into a beautiful slow head drooping sludge that covered the crowd. Anciients played just shy of an hour and the band was really thankful everyone came out and supported them on a Tuesday night. Anciients, Black Cobra and Black Wizard are touring Canada right now. Check out Anciients.ca to find out when they will be in your city!

Words and photography by: Serena Navarro

Edited by : Bailey Macabre (Vancouver Metal)

Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Aeon, Tribulation at Commodore Ballroom – February 11th 2015

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VANCOUVER — Cannibal Corpse performed on a Wednesday night at the Commodore Ballroom and brought Behemoth as their co-headliner.

But first, Sweden’s Tribulation started the night off right with a mixture of old and new metal. It was kind of like a rock and roll/death metal/progressive mix and I dug it. The band played songs from their most recent album, The Formulas of Death.

Aeon, also from Sweden, was the second band up onstage, and they gave their dose of death metal to the crowd but not before a lengthy sound check. Aeon’s vocalist, Tommy Dahlstrom, jerked his mic off throughout the set between his depthless growls.

There are many bands that one wants to see throughout their lifetime and for me, Behemoth was one of them. Excitement grew within the crowd as the stage was outfitted with occult stage props. Vocalist Adam “Nergal” Darski graced the stage with two torches on fire and the band performed “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel”. Halfway through Behemoth’s set a surprise guest helped Zbigniew “Inferno” Prominski on the drums, and the two of them were getting their groove on. The Commodore Ballroom stunk of testosterone, body odour, weed and beer and then Behemoth played their popular “Ov Fire and Void” and the place went a little hazy. It was lovely.

Finally, Cannibal Corpse brought their standard dose of aggressive growls and death metal. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe it’s because I got thrown on my ass in the pit, or maybe it’s because my taste in metal has evolved but I wasn’t digging Cannibal this time around. They played their popular songs to the crowd’s delight and I sat back and watched the young folk have their time in the pit.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for the opportunity to review this show.

Black metal progenitors Mayhem are the bearers of Satan’s flame

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VANCOUVER — Mayhem, the infamous Norwegian black metal band, was formed in Oslo in 1984 by guitarist Oystein Aarseth (“Euronymous”), bassist Jorn Stubberud (“Necrobutcher”), and drummer Kjetil Manheim. Suicides, homicides, and the burning of churches – yes it’s all related quite heavily to Mayhem and will forever be. Although littered with controversy over the years about band members being neo-Nazis, misanthropic and anti-Christian, Mayhem has continued making music, which has been characterized by the band’s revolving door of musicians. The possibility of the music standing for itself was always a question the metal community took to heart. Many a conversation and heated arguments have been had over the years. Regardless, Mayhem has continued on, with the current line up consisting of Necrobutcher, drummer Hellhammer, vocalist Attila Csihar, and guitarists Ghul and Teloch.

Esoteric Warfare, Mayhem’s fifth studio album, was released, with hesitated excitement, in June of 2014 – almost seven years after their last album, Ordo Ad Chao. Teloch, the current rhythm guitarist of almost four years, made some time to answer questions via email.

Teloch explains that the lyrical theme of Esoteric Warfare is about “mind control, secret nazi societies, cold war and flying saucers… Attila (the vocalist and song writer) is really into stuff like this, where as I am not a believer of all these conspiracy theories.”

Attila Csihar, vocalist of Mayhem for over ten years (replacing previous vocalist “Dead” after he committed suicide) and vocalist for the infamous album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, has recorded some of the most eerie and ghoulish ululations produced by a living entity for their new record. Seriously, it’s beautifully horid.

“We are into the more fucked up things in life…instead of flowers and machines for the kitchen,” Teloch explains about creating Esoteric Warfare. “It started with me making a vocal guide for Attila and we built the lyrics and vocal performances around that. He is a dream to work with and is always open to try new things.”

When asked about the musical aspect of the album Teloch confesses that it’s mostly straightforward Mayhem material for the first four songs “but the rest of the album is more experimental… I tried introducing some new elements.” For example the song “Milab” was written “as a very soft song, but it still has that creepy Frankenstein feeling to it that I like,” Teloch explains.

The inspiration for such demonic sounds from the album comes from a Canadian source. “Actually I was trying to make a Voivod-inspired song, but more evil,” Teloch confesses. “I get inspired by everything… a noise from a car parked outside my window… simple things like weird sounds that surround me in my daily life.”

Teloch responded to some controversial questions about Mayhem’s past and the contributions of Dead and Euronymous by simply stating, “This is Mayhem, so the intensity is quite rough sometimes when discussing things. I didn’t know the Euro or Dead, so I don’t speak about them. I hear some of the guys that knew them talk sometimes about them yes, of course. They were a big part of this band’s history… but then again I’m more interested in the future then the past.”

Mayhem just might be around for another 30 years if Teloch has his way, “but it’s not getting easier with this kind of extreme metal. Maybe its time to slow down a little bit for the next couple albums so that we can have some slow songs to play when we hit 70 or 80 years old,” jokes Teloch.

So, perhaps we can expect some slower songs from the next Mayhem album, but for now it’s all about the crude, obscured and maniacal metal.

By Serena Navarro

Mayhem perform at the Rickshaw Theatre January 26.

Thanks to Beatroute for publishing this article.

New Venom album – From the Very Depths

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Spinefarm Records

From the Very Depths is the 14th album by legendary extreme metal progenitors Venom. Following in the vein of 2011’s Fallen Angels, Cronos’s bass is present but the guitars take over most of the record. From the Very Depths is riddled with power chords, making the teenage metal fan in us all swoon. Loud, heavy and fast is on the menu for most of the record with only a couple songs slowing down.

“Temptation” delivers the speed metal the band adopted in later years (post Abaddon and Mantas) and the chorus is so catchy you might find yourself dancing around the kitchen to it. “Long Haired Punks” features fist pumping, crowd chanting lyrics that’ll make their fans thrash around, arms raised to the sky. Moving on, “Evil Law” evokes the delivery of the infamous line “Evil, In League with Satan” from Venom’s second full-length, 1982’s Black Metal, as Cronos growls “Evil” with his characteristically snarky smirk and high pitched tone. All told,From the Very Depths delivers what one wants from Venom: it’s dirty, wild, and rude.

By Serena Navarro

Listen to From the Very Depths on YouTube: Grinding Teeth

My favourite and slowest song on the album, Smoke

Thanks to Beatroute for providing the album to review.

Want bizarre, jarring, grind/death psychotic tales?! Cretin – Stranger

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Relapse Records

Cretin’s sophomore album is eight long years in the making. It has been well worth the wait.Stranger has numerous musical changes and pummels the soul with crushing buzz-saw guitars, double kick spurts and punkish rhythms. This is grind that worships Repulsion, which comes as no surprise given guitarist Marissa Martinez’s stint in the band and musical history.

Lyrically, Stranger has some strange lyrics. “Mary is Coming” is a guttural screamed tale about a lady who wants to give birth to a Mary (of the Judeo-Christian Bible variety) who actually inserts a doll in her vagina “but it got stuck in there.” The lady ends up in jail.

On “How to Wreck Your Life in Three Days,” Martinez howls a psychotic tale about a boy who “fixes” a crazy three days of mayhem by setting fires to everything, up to and including himself. Ending with an eerie guitar solo that resembles an ambulance siren while blast beats leave the listener gut wrenched, it sums up this bizarre, jarring grind/death album astutely.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for providing the album to review.

Deafheaven, Sumac, Balance at Rickshaw Theatre – December 4th 2014

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VANCOUVER — Thursday night started off with beers at Buick 6, a bar down the street from the Rickshaw Theatre. My friends and I were waiting with excitement to hear Sumac and Deafheaven take over the Rickshaw Theatre. Balance, a band from Vancouver, took the stage a little after 9 p.m. and got the crowd going with a hardcore sound.

Sumac is a supergroup with Aaron Turner (Old Man Gloom & Isis), Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) and Brian Cook (Russian Circles). Sumac was a treat to watch and Aaron moves and shakes with excitement with every scream and guitar riff. Sumac officially played their first-ever live show and graced our ears with gradual progressive riffs that lead into sludgy crevices but kept the listener afloat with high pitch guitars. It was lovely.

Deafheaven (George Clarke and Kerry McCoy) came up on stage and started setting up their guitars and mics themselves. They then left the stage for a more ambient entrance with dimmed lights. They played songs from Roads to Judah (2011) and their most recent full length, Sunbather(2013).

Heavy metal music is a staple in my diet and Deafheaven walks that metal line well. Their live show was entertaining mostly because frontman Clarke convulses with the passion and love of his music. There is no doubt in my mind that music is his life. McCoy played the guitar with little movement or excitement in his face, a major contrast to George.

The crowd busted over with excitement when George announced they were to play their single, “From the Kettle Onto the Coil.” This fast black metal-laced song with crushing drums, vocals and beautiful guitars ended the night on a high note.

Photo and review by Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for the opportunity to review this show.

Want grit, heavy, opaque, twisting melodies with some beauty?! Usnea – Random Cosmic Violence

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Relapse Records

Usnea, a Portland Oregon metal band, suggests on their Bandcamp that their second full length,Random Cosmic Violence is “one of those rare records that elevates itself above the boundaries that its genre typically self-imposes.” This is evident on Random Cosmic Violence as it takes a journey through funeral doom, black metal, sludge, death and doom genres. The album clocks in at just under an hour with only four songs. Justin Cory and Orion Landau crafted the album’s artwork, which is simple yet grand.

The rhythm and lyrics of the entire album are tribal in nature with twisting transfixed melodies and a rhyme similar to a beat poet. There are several highlights elevated by vocals drenched with grit, such as the opening of “Healing Through Death.” The title track does exactly what the title suggests. The lyrics are opaque and the sound is piercing and heavy. Usnea even adds acoustic guitar to the mix to calm the spirits before hurling down the cosmic highway with rolling drums. Usnea want to “explore the universe for the origin of how this all happened” and if you yearn for that journey, you should listen along.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for providing the album to review.

Want some chaotic death/doom?! Swallowed – Lunarterial EP

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Dark Descent Records

Lunarterial is a filth-encrusted, ethereal, and chaotic death/doom album from Finnish duo Swallowed. It has been four long years since Swallowed released their self-titled EP, and the reason why is obvious within the dense song construction. Lunarterial features rolling, deep, double-kick drums, keeping this album on pace while the guitars, numerous crash cymbals and guttural vocals paint a turbulent picture. The songs sway back and forth, swaying between a chaotic balance of slow rhythm and a pummeling erratic tempo.

It works, it’s weird and it’s a strangely beautiful and morose piece of art. Album highlight “Reverence Through Darkness” crafts another dimension of horror and disorientating sounds that swallow (pun intended) your soul and eardrums. Truly, the album inspires one to drift away into a soundscape filled with complex, melodic structures and blast beats. Meanwhile, your heart pumps madly. The second half of Lunarterial is a murky doom swamp ending with the lengthy “Libations.” Clocking in at 25 minutes, it’s a journey of calculated chaos that aptly concludes an excellent album.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for providing the album to review.

First published article: Auroch’s Taman Shud stands alone.

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VANCOUVER — Music can be twisted and warped; what once was in pure form is now cut a million times over. Yet Auroch continue to strive towards an uncooked perfection with their new album, Taman Shud. “We don’t believe in cheating,” Auroch’s guitarist and songwriter Sebastian Montesi says against cut and paste methods of modern recording. “We want it to be authentic and genuine…and really struggle to get it done.”

After releasing their first record, From Forgotten Worlds, in October 2012 on Hellthrasher Records, Auroch were readied for change. Profound Lore Records, a Canadian label and home of Dead Congregation, Agalloch, Leviathan, and Mitochondrion, was a first choice for the band. Together they released Taman Shud, Auroch’s second full-length album, on June 24th.

Montesi and bassist Shawn Hache were joined by drummer Zack Chandler in 2010 inspiring a major change in the band. “We started to be more focused and cohesive as a unit,” Montesi recalls. “And our sound shifted towards death metal…we started to write material that wasn’t just throw away demo material.”

“I don’t have any problems with having a label or classification,” Montesi tells me about Auroch’s genre or sound, “but I will leave that to other people to figure out.”

Taman Shud is a fast-paced, no-fat kind of record, understandable since Auroch wrote it in six months and recorded it in 10 days. “The element of struggle or suffering is stripped from it if you take the time to do it over and over again…there should be the raw passion in it,” Montesi explains of the recording process.

Art and music can be about discovering that creation on your own terms, defining your own experiences and finding them in the music. “There are themes and stories, allegories and mysteries in [Taman Shud] that are there to be solved,” Montesi explains. “We don’t want people to solve them. Whether someone solves it is up to them, but it’s not really something that we’re going to go and spend all this time masking, all this time making sure that everything is meticulously done, and all the lyrics are exactly as they should, all the formulas precise, and then reveal it in an interview.”

Exploring Taman Shud might lead you into calculated chaos of dark and violent technical metal. If you like searching out the horrific then this album is for you.

Auroch kick off a European tour/album release party at the Biltmore Cabaret on August 22nd.

By Serena Navarro

Thanks to Beatroute for publishing my first article.