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Live Review: Orange Goblin, Holy Grail, Lazer/Wulf and Polygamyst in Brooklyn, 11.02.13

Posted in Reviews on November 4th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Odd matchups seemed to be the running theme of the night, whether it was UK doomers Orange Goblin doing a six-week tour with the thrash outfit Holy Grail and Atlanta tech metallers Lazer/Wulf or the show also serving as St. Vitus bar’s Halloween party and more than a handful of patrons arriving in costume throughout the night. For what it’s worth, I didn’t dress up — I mean, at least not any more than the public identities we create for ourselves counts as “dressing up,” anyway. Existentially speaking, we’re all in costume, man. So dig that for your pagan ceremony.

I can only imagine those who did dress up were hot as hell for having made the effort. The show was sold out and more or less packed by the time Polygamyst went on as openers and local support for three touring acts. I had seen them over the summer with Mirror Queen and The Atomic Bitchwax at a boat show, so I knew their wares were metal, but apparently the ensuing months had vocalist George Souleidis, guitarist Phi Moon (also Mirror Queen) and drummer Chadius Broccolius of their second guitarist and bassist, the latter of whom was replaced by James Corallo, also of Mirror Queen. Hammering out a lineup is inevitable as a band continues to get settled, but Polygamyst were nothing if not in the spirit of the show. Broccolius played most of the set with a mask on, his beard poking through the bottom, Moon had a wig, war paint and bandanna — Uli Jon Roth? — and Souleidis seemed to be a sultan of some sort or other, robes and all.

Their set was no less ready to party, running through classic metal wails enough to justify closing out with a cover of Judas Priest‘s “Breaking the Law,” which got some early moshing going as a sign of things to come. Corallo fit well with Moon‘s amorphous lead style, and though he shed the wig as time wore on, Souleidis seemed even more confident as a frontman than he had just five months prior. That could be an effect of having more shows under his belt, or it could be the fact that St. Vitus wasn’t being tossed around the East River while Polygamyst were playing. Either way. When jazzy quirk-prog trio Lazer/Wulf took the stage, a tone was set for sonic diversity that would only continue as the night wore on.

Guitarist Bryan Aiken had a mic set up mostly to thank the crowd and let out various maniacal laughs, “let’s go!” exclamations and periodic melodic vocal lines, but the crux of Lazer/Wulf‘s approach was instrumental. As one might expect five weeks into a six-week tour, Aiken, bassist Sean Peiffer and drummer Brad Rice were ridiculously tight, and it’s a good thing, since their kind of technical, progressive metal completely falls flat when the situation is otherwise. Theirs didn’t. They were well received by a Vitus crowd that seemed to know little about them, myself included, and they had stretches of thrash-style groove that went along well with what I’m told the kids call “djent” but a decade ago just used to be a Meshuggah influence. Not really my thing, but they won over the room and their enjoyment of what they were doing was infectious, even if it was as different from Polygamyst as Holy Grail would be from them when they took the stage.

Studded armbands, uniform black stage garb, a record each out on Prosthetic and Nuclear Blast, plus Kirk Hammett bangs on vocalist James-Paul Luna, Holy Grail had their thrash credentials well in order. I’ve never been huge on revivalist thrash, and though the band traces their roots back to White Wizzard and Bonded by Blood, they weren’t really going for the hightops and Alcoholica thing. “Call of Valhalla” showed some metalcore influence — a surefire generational tell — and one could hear shades of Shadows Fall in the dual-guitar harmonies, but whatever they were doing, they were obviously doing it right. Fists were pumped, moshing was had, axes were shredded, blahs were blah blahed. Holy Grail didn’t have to win the room; the room was already with them. The title-track from their 2013 outing, Ride the Void, went over particularly well, and one of the other dudes up front sang along so hard to “My Last Attack” that I thought his face was going to explode. Fair enough.

So there you go. Sold out night, three bands deep. Temperature up. Things had been moving at a decent clip up to Holy Grail, who played a long set, and Orange Goblin didn’t wind up going on until after 11:30PM. Didn’t really matter. After driving four hours south from Massachusetts a couple days before, that trip was far enough out of mind for the next day that I wasn’t stressing about it like I had been at Truckfighters last time I was at the Vitus bar; the late night was no threat. All the better for stargazing en route back to the humble river valley I used to call home and where I’d be staying for the evening. In any case, when Orange Goblin stormed their way into “Scorpionica” to open their set, it was well worth being awake to see. They came out to AC/DC‘s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll),” and a more fitting theme for the band — now coming up on their 20th year if you count from their getting together as Our Haunted Kingdom in 1994 — would be hard to find.

Returned guitarist Joe Hoare, who’d sat out a not insignificant amount of road time in Europe on account of an injury to his Achilles tendon, looked to be in good spirits despite what had already been a long slog back on the road alongside bassist Martyn Millard, drummer Chris Turner and vocalist Ben Ward, still supporting the 2012 studio release, A Eulogy for the Damned (review here), and subsequent live album, A Eulogy for the Fans (review here), and Ward — his fists raised in what seems to be a permanent conquest — was as engaging as I’ve seen him. He is a mountainous walking advertisement for whiskey, and among underground metal’s best frontmen, but his performance is also about more than the show. “Acid Trial” from A Eulogy for the Damned and “Rage of Angels” from 2002’s Coup de Grace followed “Scorpionica” in succession and showed how little the foursome’s potency has diminished in the last decade, even though one could argue they’re just getting their due recognition now in the States thanks to tours like this one and their earlier-2013 run with Clutch.

I don’t think they were through “Rage of Angels” before I realized I had brown liquor running down my back. Who threw or spilled what remains a mystery, but yeah. That happened. Hazards of the trade. It was fairly rowdy up front for the duration — I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to seeing people moshing to doom — but I stuck it out for a while before dropping back to the other side of the pit around the time “Shine” from 1998’s sophomore outing, Time Travelling Blues, made its appearance. They’d later include the title cut from that album as well, which was a welcome addition, though I’d hoped for “Blue Snow” as well. Some you win, some you lose.

Speaking of, that song was aired, with Hoare and Millard stepping in for backing vocals in the call and response, and after “Cities of Frost,” Exodus and Generation Kill frontman Rob Dukes joined the band onstage for a raging take on “Your World will Hate This” from Coup de Grace. By then, Orange Goblin could’ve done little to derail their own momentum — following it with “Time Travelling Blues” was a risk, but it paid off — and the guest spot was met with due excitement, as was the Black Sabbath cover “Into the Void,” the rolling groove of which was expertly handled like the precious artifact it is. It should probably say something about Orange Goblin‘s recent surge that more recent songs like “They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls)” from 2007’s Healing through Fire and the Eulogy single “Red Tide Rising” would appear so late in the set along with the cover and “Quincy the Pigboy,” which like “Scorpionica” comes off 2000’s The Big Black, but the songs stood up, and “Red Tide Rising” made for a riotous closer.

There was karaoke slated for afterwards and the vibe seemed like it was going to stay lively for some time. That’s not my scene, but I can see the appeal. My car, which has a bent rim, 185,000 miles that I’ve put on over the last eight years, and shakes like a massage chair, was around the corner and I drove empty roads back through Jersey to crash out and hit the highway in the morning.

Extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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Live Review: The Atomic Bitchwax, Mirror Queen and Polygamyst, on a Boat, NYC, 06.27.13

Posted in Reviews on June 28th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

The forecast called for stormy seas, and for a little bit, the East River set to humbling those of us aboard the Half Moon for a Rocks off Concert Cruise with The Atomic Bitchwax, Mirror Queen and Polygamyst, but for the vast majority of the night, it was smooth waters, cool vibes, and heavy rock. I’d never been to a boat show before — not out of any disdain for the idea, it just never happened — so it was something new to me entirely. I still kind of feel the water moving.

It had been a punishingly hot week, and humid in that cruel way the East Coast gets in the summertime, but even with the haze and forecasted thunderstorms, a good crowd filed onto the dock. There were three boats lined up — Keller Williams was playing on another, which, upon Googling it, The Patient Mrs. decided was a real estate presentation — and the Half Moon was the smallest of the bunch. Standing in line to get on, it was pretty easy to see who was headed where. Easy to imagine that of the evening’s vessels, ours was the drunkest.

As regards Brooklyn-based openers Polygamyst, I was flying blind. I knew the band had opened for Pentagram and for Weedeater, both at the St. Vitus bar, but nothing else. I recognized singer George Souleidis from that venue as well, and though from the fact that they were on those bills and this one, I expected something heavy, I was pleased to find that heaviness tinged with elements of classic metal, in both the vocals and the guitar. It was dark on that boat and only getting darker as the sun went down around 9PM, but Polygamyst offered metallic riffing with little to none of the posturing that so often accompanies a modern take on early, NWOBHM or even thrash metals.

They’re a relatively recent advent and they seemed it, but their songs were dynamic and a blend of Orange and Marshall tones gave their duel-guitar attack a sensibility fitting its rock and metal balance. I suppose that balance made Polygamyst the odd men out on the bill, whereas Mirror Queen and The Atomic Bitchwax — shortly to embark on a European tour together supporting Earthless — are more rock-minded, but they didn’t made for an odd fit, and the mood was so good on the boat anyway that the crowd was ready to get down with whatever was coming. At least that’s how I felt. It had been a cool couple of days despite the heat and spirits were high.

Fortunately, they stayed that way for the duration. Early into Mirror Queen‘s set, the rain started and was soon coming down pretty hard. There had been little jerks this way and that — swaying mostly but a couple bumps here and there — during Polygamyst, but for Mirror Queen, nature upped the proverbial ante and at one point, literally toppled the band. As the boat dipped heavily toward the starboard side, drummer Jeremy O’Brien‘s kit came about half apart, his tom and crash cymbal falling to the floor even as guitarists Phi Moon and Kenny Sehgal and bassist James Corallo took a tumble. Audience members scrambled to help get O’Brien‘s drums aright — some jerks just kept trying to take pictures; whoops — and to Mirror Queen‘s credit, they hardly missed a beat.

There were a few more tosses as lightning struck outside on and around the East River and the rain came down, now in drops, now in buckets,  now not at all, but Mirror Queen continued, undeterred, to deliver an engaging set of classic NY-style heavy rock. They have some subtle touches of psychedelia, but the core of the band is Phi Moon and Sehgal‘s guitar work (last I saw the band, it was Thomas Bellier of Blaak Heat Shujaa accompanying Sehgal), and the two went well together, Phi Moon, who also played in Polygamyst and is in Zoned Out, having some flash to his solos that stood out amid Cream-style jangle and laid back feel of the riffs and Sehgal‘s vocals.

By the time they were done closing out with a Captain Beyond cover, it was calm seas. We passed by Liberty Island and I got as close to the Statue of Liberty as I’ve ever been, and The Atomic Bitchwax loaded onto the stage area quickly. Time was a factor since the boat was set to dock at 11PM — a three-hour tour! (I’m sure I’m the first person ever to say that) — but the Bitchwax still had plenty of time to work out their riffs. “Hope You Die” sounded particularly vicious, with bassist/vocalist/founder Chris Kosnik clearly reveling in the bluesy, shouted lines he was trading off with guitarist/vocalist Finn Ryan. Drummer Bob Pantella even got in on the action, though he wasn’t mic’ed, tilting back his head to join each time the NJ trio hit on the line, “I hope you’re asking why/You gotta die.” Kind of a grim theme, but a fun song and a highlight of the set for sure.

The Bitchwax pull a lot of faces that at this point are pretty familiar to each other, and especially on the boat, there was even more of a party atmosphere than there may have been in a standard venue. “So Come On” I can’t hear without picturing the desert-y video they made for it, but the song worked just as well on the river, and their cover of Pink Floyd‘s “Pigs” was a slower-grooving changeup from their usual head-spinning turns. They’ve never been huge, and they’ve never locked in their step with what’s trendy at any given point, and seriously, what a killer band. I don’t know if they’re destined for permanent underappreciation, but they look like they’re having so much fun playing their songs, and whatever era the material is from, it feels like it’s just made to be delivered just like that. The Half Moon wound up being the perfect setting.

Our boat bumped the Keller Williams boat as we pulled into the dock, but I’m pretty sure no hippies were dumped overboard as a result. At least I didn’t hear a splash. We were shuffled onto the dock quickly and sent off to dry land unceremoniously, and though I know it probably wasn’t the first boat show for a lot of people there — Clutch and Eyehategod have had them in the last few years, neither of which I was able to make — it was for me, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more than I got.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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