Here i go again

Today was a great day and i hope that i won't fall asleep while writing this, so i'm going to keep this one relatively short.

 Around 18.00 i headed for this club, and no it wasn't your normal club night, Cardle of Filth (And a few other bands) were playing in there tonight! And that was obviously something i didn't want to skip! The venue inside the club was really small, and even tho the whole place was filled, there weren't more than 70 people in there, but the atmosphere was amazing. Anyways

Let's start with the first bands:

Band #1

Darkend

Dark end is an Italian symphonic black metal act, with three albums out so far, called: "Damned woman and a carcass". "Assassine" and the latest one "Grand Guignol, book 1"

They were a band that i had never heard of, but as an avid Symphonic black metal fan, i found no reason not  to add this band into my collection. 

Dark end but out a really good show, the music sounded great, with no problems in hearing the guitar, vocals etc, the only real problem was that they're set list was probably like 30 minutes long :/

Cheers up there! also, give me that ESP LTD :<

Like i said, i didn't know the music at all, but i still enjoyed it! All and all, nice opening act for bands to come, 

and not a bad band at all.

Dark picture is dark.

Even had a nice talk with Luca, the vocalist of Dark end, as we both found ourself's in the crowd.  such a nice fellow.

Here's a song by "Dark end" or "Darkend" i'm not sure which style to write it to pick, since both are used somewhere :)

Obviously, as i basically discovered the band a couple of hours ago, i'm not sure if this is thy're to notch stuff, but here's a nice song for you:

Band # 2

Rotting Christ!

Next up was Rotting Christ, the Greece black metal titans, i'm a big fan of those guys, and this was obviously something i was looking forwards to. RC played songs like: "Thy Mighty Conract" "Non serviam" "A Dead poem and "Aealo". And damn, they sounded superbly good!

Here's a video from the gig, not filmed by me. (Thx to whomever filmed it!)

RC was really good, which is nothing that surprised me :)

I had my talk with Sakis (GTR/VOX) too, after spotting him near the bar! Really humble guy:)

Band # 3

God Seed

Ah, God seed, the joyfull looking bunch of traditional Black metallers. Formed by the one and the only Ghaal   

and King ov hell.

 I'm not the biggest Gorgoroth fan out there (God seed played some Gorgoroth stuff too) but i still enjoy some stuff by them. 

Oo

I wasn't familiar with the works of "God seed", but i knew some of the Gorgoroth stuff, my favorite one that they played had to be "Carving a giant"

Band # 4

Cradle of filth, a band that will not need introductions. They played for about 130 minutes, set list including songs like "Cthulhu Dawn" "For your vulgar delecation", "Nymphetamine" "Born in a burial gown" "Funeral in Carpathia" and so forth. 

Oi! Paul!

I'v been a Cradle fan since.... Well, i can't remember a time when i wasn't a fan of them, all tough i must admit that i haven't listened to them that much lately.

I own 6 CoF album's, so i'm still a "few" short. My overall favorite albums of them ever are: "Cruelty and the beast" and "Dusk and her embrace" but i don't hate any of CoF's work.

The man himself!

That was a nice 5 hours of banging my head and yelling at the top of my lungs, and some drinking too, all trough i always stick with the beer if i'm in a live show, anything harder then beer will just cause me to miss the whole show :)

So i phoned my friend to pick me up and had around 40 minutes to spend in the venue. I bought a couple of beers and just waltzed around, talking to people, listening to the music that was played there and all that, and those 40 minutes i spend in that place were one of the most metal things i have ever done!

I drank a beer with Gaahl, hah. I have to say that he's actually extremely polite, he knows a lot about things and overall doesn't appear to take himself all that seriously. He was an interesting person to talk to!

Well, my whole body hurts, my arms are in a coma, but at least i can say without any doubt that i had shitloads of fun...........And i can say that i drank with Gaahl :p

Like i said in my last post, i'll go through Krisiun's whole discography and do some writing on the subject, without further ado, here we go: 

I discovered Krisiun somewhere during 2010 i think, and i can say without any doubt in my mind that Krisiun is one of those bands that just keep on getting better and better over the years, the drumming has always been extremely good, brutal and fast, and the guitar work should be right up there in the top names of death metal. And along with that they have maintained the exact lineup (With the exception of  a guitarist, who worked with them before they're first full length) infect, Krisiun's line up contains three brothers, yup, Krisiun is a band formed by three brothers, so it probably would take a little bit more then an average fight to break up this band. 

Krisiun was formed in 1990 in Brazil, by Alex Camargo (Vox/Bass), Moyses Kolesne (GTR) and Max Kolesne (Drums). Alex uses his mothers maiden surname for some reason.

And here are the boys!

Let's get this show on the road:

Black force domain

(Released: 1995)

The most unholy debut creation of Krisiun, "Black force domain", solely engineered withing the parameters of 90's death metal, it has it all, the endless blast beat, the pure death metal riffing, the satanic visuals and lyrics and i shall say that it's an evil piece of work. The influence of legendary "Altars of madness" can be heard in the guitar sound, riff styles and the phasing of vocals, and to no ones surprise, Krisiun has listed Morbid angel as one of they're main influences, among bands like Slayer, Sodom and Kreator. The guitar work is paving the way for the guitarist that Moyses is about to become, and when he's not delivering your solid death metal riffing, he's showing off his ability to sweep and tremolo pick.


The album even has actually good instrumental song called "Infamous glory", that features some really dark sounding bells, insanely fast and high tremolo picking, and a backing melody that's really evil sounding too, and closer to the end there's extremely evil sounding organ part too. The downside of this one would be the fact that the drumming can become a bit too monotonous at some points but overall, it's really solid death metal release.

Here's the instrumental track in all it's glory:

Favorite tracks: "Black force domain", "Blind possession" and "Infamous glory"

Apocalyptic Revelation

(1998)

The second coming of Krisiun is just as brutal and fast as the first one, all trough they don't quite have that "raw" Morbid angel sound, but it's still really steady record. The drum sound has been upgraded since "Black force domain", and now sound way, and that is highlighted during moments like the intro of "Rites of defamation" , the double bass and the snare sounds just as good as they should. The guitar work is somewhat more technical than in the first one, but not too technical for pure dm, and they maintain a perfect balance between technicality and brutality. Lyrically, the album is more "mature" so to speak, it's not so bluntishly direct as Black force domain was, but this one still has it's "satan" moments, still, the main "concept" seems to be the utter destruction of all mankind.

As it's predecessor, this one too feature's an instrumental track, called "March of the Black horde", it's different from the instrumental track of the first album, still has the epickness in it, but it's not quite as "Evil" sounding as "Infamous glory" but it's really catchy, and must be hell to play on drums :)

Not my favorite piece by Krisiun, good stuff non the less.

Favorite tracks:  "Apocalyptic victory", "March of the black horde" and "Rites of Defamation"

Conquerors of Armageddon

(2000)

Here's a great one, still improving the all ready good style of they're music, this time with some melodies, effects, even more brutality, and a bit different guitar tone, even small melodic moment's and even more memorable riff's. It's brutality the whole way through, it gives no mercy or takes no prisoners, it holds a lot of force to it, and is one of the corner stones of Krisiun's career. The cover art is the best one of the three albums, still showing hints about the blasphemy that Krisiun delivers with massive-fucking-force.

Favorite tracks:  "Abyssal gates", "Cursed scrolls" and "Hatred inherit"

Ageless venomous

(2001)

Also the first Krisiun album i bought.

What? A Krisiun album that actually has calm intro, can't say that it's a bad one either, fits well if you ask me.
 the main problem with the album is the drum sound, the double bass doesn't sound nearly as "heavy" as in they're earlier works of carnage, and the overall drum sound is quite "mechanical" so to speak, but that makes the album lot less "messy". Still, "Ageless Venomous" has it's moments of glory, for example, the riffing and the drumming in the beginning of "Dawn of Flagellation" is really great, and the slides are even greater after them. The bass is way more audio able in this album too, which sounds great, and the album features probably one of my favorite instrumental tracks by Krisiun, and just listen to it, that's the sound of walking the fine line between not breaking your acoustic and beautifully and skillfully playing it:



Overall, not a bad album at all, just a little bit different from the rest...


Favorite tracks: "Ageless venomous", "Dawn of Flagellation" and "Diableros"

Works of carnage

(2003)

Works of carnage! what can i say? The superb drum sound is back, while still keeping the "cleaner" overall production from "Ageless venomous", and during this album Krisiun started to pay close attention to song structures, and the increasing "groove" in Krisiun's music, while simultaneously not sacrificing the absolute brutality that Krisiun has formed to be. The cover art of "Works of carnage" is without a doubt my favorite Krisiun artwork ever, just look at it. awesome. The album also features a bunch of "Drop and go":s i.e in "Wolfen tyranny" which, if used the right way, just add to the brutality.

The weaker sides of this one are the "filler" tracks, called "War ritual" and "Shadows", "War rituals" has the potential to be a good instrumental track, but the feeling is gone soon after the beginning of it. And "Shadows" is just slightly above average solo. Another weak point is the outro, which just sounds damn weird and out of place. The album also features Venom cover called "In league with Satan", which is really damn groovy and gatchy, all through it doesn't fit the atmosphere of the album, or even of Krisiun at all, but it's a cover so that's in some way understandable, and "Sweet revenge" is just a really bad song in my opinion.

Favorite tracks: "Ethereal world", "Slaughtering void" and "wolfen tyranny"

AssassiNation

(2006)

In my opinion, this album is the weakest one that Krisiun has but out,  it's just slightly above your normal death metal cd, and get's pretty repetitive, but like i said, it's still above average.

The album starts up with amazingly catchy drum pattern, soon followed by the double bass and some cymbals. The next song "Natural Genocide" has this really fast and great sounding "mini-solo" so to speak. The third track has a similar thing, or close to it, really good sounding too. H.O.G has a really nice drum intro to it too, and it's my favorite track from "AssassiNation"

The instrumental tracks on "AssassiNation" fall to the same genre as the ones in "Works of carnage", they're just not catchy enough, and they lack the "meaning" of your usual Krisiun instrumental, they are both just minute long, or less, and again, feel like they mean nothing and are really out of place.

Favorite tracks: "Bloodcraft", "Natural Genocide" and "H.O.G"

Southern Storm

(2008)

Here's Krisiun, kicking they're music up a few notches, and they are clearly going to the better direction after "AssassiNation". The music on this one is overall way more groovier, and way more memorable, and have totally lost the "Mechanical" sound of "ageless venomous". The mixing is just perfection, the guitar sounds just as good as it should, and the bass drums are triggered to sound massive, and the drumming overall is outstanding. There are some extremely headbangish moments like "Sentenced morning", "Combustion inferno" or "Origin of terror" Just listen to the force of nature that is Krisiun:

Unlike the past two releases, whit they're awful minute long instrumentals, "Southern storm" actually contains really amazing piece of one minute long acoustic instrumental track.

Favorite tracks: "Sentenced morning", "Combustion inferno", "Bleeding offer", "Origin of terror" and "Whore of the unlight"

The great execution

(2011)

The great execution is probably my favorite release from Krisiun, and it's a pack of relentless onslaught, the drum work is at its absolute peak, as are every other instrument on this album. The whole thing fires up with "The will to potency" and it has a really great acoustic intro too. Upon listening to this album, i cant help but to think how much Krisiun's musical style has changed during these couple of albums, the album is in no way repetitive and it's filled with memorable moments in songs, epic sounding, yet brutal riffs and the astonishing drum work. And it wont really matter which song i will describe to you, they're all damn great.

Here's a sample:

Overall, Krisiun as a band is a force to be reckoned with, and i wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any fan of brutal death metal and death metal. Excellent stuff!

Favorite tracks: "The will to potency", "The great execution", "Descending abomination", "The extremist", "Sword of Orion", "Violentio Gladiatore" and "Extincao en Massa"

Favorite Krisiun releases in the following order:

1. The Great Execution (2011)
2. Southern storm (2008)
3. Conquerors of Armageddon (2000)
4. Ageless Venomous (2001)
5. Black Force Domain (1995)
6. Works of Carnage (2003)
7. Apocalyptic Revelation (1998)
8. AssassiNation (2006)


That's more than enough about Krisiun. Earlier today i picked up the mail, and this package was awaiting for me:

The Faceless: Autotheism & The Faceless: Planetary Duality.

The Faceless is a band that i'm extremely fond of, and they're album "Akaldama" is one of my favorite albums ever. Say what you say about The Faceless, but i fucking love them :)

Let's end this one with "Little metal things" number 1039:

Weekend

My weekend was really busy and fun. My weekend started on Thursday, and i drove into the city, bought new shoes from the local mall, that i could wear during the winter without having the pleasure to amputate my legs due to hypothermia. And then i drove to my favorite record shop, called "Levykauppa x" or Record shop x. 

The selection here is really good, anything from raw black metal to rock

I took my time, and bought two albums: 

The first one is Krisiun's newest album called "The great execution" and it's a great piece of Death metal, i'll do a through review of Krisiun in the future, for those not aware of them. The second one should need no introductions, "Iron maiden - Killers" Bought it because it was really cheap and i didn't have it in my collection... So far.

After that, and a cup of coffee, i headed for the same ol' venue, Devin Townsend project was playing that night, and i had tickets for it, so in i went.

Opening act for Devin was Fear Factory, they are an American industrial metal band, and a band that i don't really like at all,  i don't like they're drum sound on records (among other things) but thankfully they did not have that drum sound live. In most cases, even if i don't listen to the band at all, i still enjoy seeing them live, as the atmosphere is way different, and i'm not so damn picky that i would leave the venue just so i didn't have to listen to the music, plus, the trick to get awesome places at the venue i attend (Front row again) is to go there during or even before the opening act for the main band, then you can basically just walk to the front row, which is quite impossible during the main act. Watched through them and they were an okay band for the warm up act, not a band that i would go see alone but as an opening act they were sufficient.

Fear Factory.

The first thing i hear, and soon saw, was the fact that Dino (GTR) utilized seven and eight stringed guitars, it wasn't too hard to recognize the superbly low growling of your basic 7 string. He switched between two guitars, both Ibanez, the other one was a 7 stringer and the other was an 8.

Pittsburgh penguin fan are we? (Left leg)

Fear Factory played for about 50 minutes, and after that begun without a doubt, the most amusing soundcheck i have ever seen.

Behind Fear Factory's logo curtain, there was a huge white screen, that had all these hilarious images about Devin projected on it, there's a few of them:

And 5 minutes of the Badger gif, too, with full audio. Laughs were had.

Badger Badger Badger

As one should expect from a band as popular as DTP, the whole venue was filled, every last corner had someone standing in it, and i must say that it was one of the most energetic live shows i have seen, with the exception of Dimmu Borgir.  

That's about 1/4 of the whole crowd.

DTP played for about 1h40 mins, and all i can say is that Devin has an awesome sense of humor, he was constantly saying stuff like "Actually we are quite the romantics, with our pub bellies and small dicks" or "..And we fucking love this guy, we love his attitude and we love his incredibly unpronounceable last name... Ryan Van Poederooye"  and overall, proved to be an excellent showman.

D:

Devin Townsend project.

Yes, Devin, you.

After the show i even got to shake Devin's hand, and that concluded my day.

I had a couple of friends over for Friday - Sunday, we went trough this western trilogy, (El Mariachi, Desperado & Once upon a time in Mexico) The first one was really, really bad, and the two others were superb.

We ate tortillas, and drank Mexican beer, for that kind of became the theme of our weekend.

I have this "small" project to learn the vocals and the guitar parts of Wintersun's "Sadness and hate", i'v learned about 1/4 of the song on guitar, and it's a blast to play. Not my favorite song by Wintersun (as if they have a bad song) But this one doesn't contain any basic Jari Mäenpää sweep solos, which i obviously can't play....

The lyrics are damn amazing, and even sad:

Sad night, the weeper of starwind sky

Take me where the shimmering lights are fading out

Through the shadows of hate and through the fires of grace

I followed the voice in the night, beautiful as black sky,

But nothing I found

My thoughts are captured by the magical chants

Of the spirits, but I cannot see them with these dead eyes

Lost I am in these dismal dreams

Lost I am forever in my life

The snow is falling on the withering leaves, I am left in the cold

The shadows are crying in the moonlight

Is this night the last of my life

Have we arrived from our journey, I must ask you now

At last I can cry, 'cause these sad words are calling me tonight

My eyes bleed for you my star, my pride and the love of my heart

But why did you had to fly so far, I raged and it tore me apart

I promise to you with sadness and hate

Wherever I might go, you will know...

I give my life to the withering leaves

To the bleeding moonlight

To the crying shadows

I GIVE MY LIFE TO YOU

And there's the guitar parts i have gotten down so far....

If you are a melodeath fan and haven't for some reasons that are beyond me heard of Wintersun, i suggest that you get your hands on the closest Wintersun album by any means necessary. Any album will do, as Wintersun has never made a bad song in my opinnion. Anyways, here's "Sadness and Hate"

That's it for today...

Boys night out \o/

Today was quite the day, first of all i had to work ten hours straight so that kind of sucked, but at least i made some nice cash, after i was done with all the work i picked up my friend and did what every man should have done, head for the closest city, eat greasy, fat ass food and go to a metal show :)

Yeah, healthy and all that...

After the meal of most healthy proportions, we headed for the venue close by. The band of the day was Accept, the heavy metal veterans from Germany, i'm not the biggest Accept fan, i mean i don't have any reason not to like them, just that i really never did listen to them more than like a couple tracks per year, mostly consisting of the obvious classics like "Metal heart" or "Balls to the walls" and the two newest albums called "Stalingrad" and "The blood of the nations" both of them contain some really heavy riffing (for heavy metal) and a lot of choir vocals. I'll always try to attend any metal show close to me that has a band that i even slightly like playing, just for the sake of going to a live show's, supporting the music that i love, and well...because it's awesome.

Opening act for Accept was an Estonian folk metal band called "Metsatöll" which is a band i have given even less attention than Accept, but alas, their live show was really good we didn't manage to see more than like 15 mins of Metsatöll, cause we came in a bit late, they were way better than i expected, and they even have a damn bagpipe player :) 

...And now, dear passengers, on the right hand side you can see the most metal bagpipe player in  human history...

The venue was the same old venue i have attended many times, i really love those middle sized venues, it's way easier to get a good spot at the audience, and even if i somehow managed to stay at the last row, it would still be relatively good spot, but i'v always gotten a place from the first, second, third or fourth row. And if someone would do a poll, i would in 90% of cases prefer those middle sized venues over huge football fields, the 10% applies only to huge bands like Iron maiden or Rammstein, in those cases i would take the damn football field.

Accept played a huge set list, that lasted for two hours, which was more than i expected, but i can't complain, it was really fun, the songs that i did recognize were "Teutonic terror" "Hellfire" "Aiming high" "shadow soldiers" "Stalingrad" "no shelter" and the obvious encore's "Balls to the walls" and "Metal heart" so basically every song that i wanted to hear was played.

Obviously there were more songs, but i couldn't  name them, i just yelled the chorus as they did, and tried to mimic them and threw the horns and enjoy the music, i can't stand people who go to live shows just to stand absolutely still, not expressing any sings of actually being in a live show, and it must suck for a band that's playing too, even if i don't know the music throughout i will still aim to look like i actually am in a metal show.

During that two hours of sweat, clapping, yelling and furiously fisting the air, it became clear that these guys knew how to "play" the crowd, the singer made the crowd yell the choruses, going all "harder!" and that, the lead guitarist Wolf Hoffman (who looks like Bruce Willis) made all these facial expressions of his during his solos, which were many, kind of the same thing that Galder of Dimmu borgir has with his....Face? The bass player and the lead guitarist even had this nice "duel" in which the guitarist opened with a small riff, then muted his guitar and the bassist would play just a bit more complex riff, and then the guitarist would play his and so on for a long time, it was a blast to listen (: and there was quite long bass solo at some point too.

Just look how happy shredding that guitar makes him!

Overall, it was just as awesome and fun as i thought it to be, and i don't regret going at all :)