NOTE: Yeah, I know I didn’t write part one yet. I’m starting with Pt. 2. If you don’t like it, get your own damn website and number posts however you see fit. Now then…

It was under an appropriately darkening and threatening dusk that I — having slept until 1:30pm and spent most of the day wandering around semi-conscious and reeling from the night before — drearily made my way into Manhattan to catch the North America is Doomed Tour with SerpentCult, The Gates of Slumber and Atlanta mavens Zoroaster headlining. I left the house at about 8pm hit little to no traffic and pulled into a parking spot directly across the street from Webster Hall at 9:05. From outside, I could hear The Gates of Slumber riffing the start of their set. No one stopped me when I went and pulled on the wrong door of the venue.

The show was downstairs in a space they called The Studio. I’d never been in it before, but it was basically a smaller club apart from the larger ballroom. I love rooms like that. Like the Tap Bar at the old Knitting Factory. Every time I go to one I immediately start booking a multi-stage festival in my head. Upstairs I’d get High on Fire and Pentagram to headline while in The Studio I’d bring over Dozer and put them on with someone more local like Unearthly Trance or maybe Solace. Awesome. Just don’t ask me how I’d pay for it.

By the time I was inside, The Gates of Slumber were nearly done with what I hope was the first song they played. I checked the merch area for copies of their older albums, 2004’s The Awakening and 2006’s Suffer No Guilt, to no avail. Though 2008’s Conqueror didn’t do much for me in terms of repeat listens, my understanding was such that the two that came before were the way to go. Has yet to be seen (or heard, I suppose). In either case, the trio surprised the hell out of me by kicking all sorts of unholy trad doom ass on material both new and old, highlighting Conqueror cuts like “Trapped in the Web” while simultaneously promoting their forthcoming Rise Above debut, Hyms of Blood and Thunder (split your lungs therein). Skulleted guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon pulled emotive solo notes to new song “Descent into Madness” shortly after saying how glad he was people had come down to the show because he didn’t think anyone would show up, and if I wasn’t a fan before, I certainly was one by the time they were done with “The Ice Worm’s Lair.”

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There’s something about Zoroaster‘s music that, as a schmuck who sits on his ass all day and writes about metal, makes me want to talk about monsters — giant aliens attacking from the sky, buildings collapsing like smashed Legos and huge tsunamis flushing away civilization. I think that’s how you know it’s good.

On Voice of Saturn, the Atlanta trio’s second full-length released through their own Terminal Doom Records, despite choosing to work once again with engineer Ed Rawls — who produced 2007’s Dog Magic as well –?Zoroaster show some obvious points of growth throughout the seven tracks present; the piano that makes its way into “Spirit Molecule” being the most glaring but by no means the only instance. Noises and drones fill out an extended cut like “Undying,” the vocals of guitarist Will Fiore and bassist Brent Anderson throughout are more present than either on the last album or the 2005 self-titled demo (re-released in 2006 by Battle Kommand/Southern Lord), and Voice of Saturn culminates in a drum circle hidden track led by drummer Dan Scanlan. Progress is all around, but nowhere is heaviness sacrificed.

Fiore called in yesterday (Wednesday, March 18) from Dallas, Texas to talk about Voice of Saturn, his experience at Scion Rock Fest, the band’s decision to stay independent and what life on the road is like these days. Interview is after the jump.

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