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| Photos and review by Cosmo Lee |
Stage right, House of Blues: that was the place to be in Hollywood last Tuesday. Either that, or the Ozzy Osbourne book signing down the street. For all the human effluent on its sidewalks, I am always surprised to find anything good on the Sunset Strip. Amid the rock star wannabes, the rock star burnouts, and their hides of borrowed time, I saw a young kid in a Black Sabbath shirt. All is not lost.
Come to think of it, stage right HOB trumped meet/greet OZZ. For starters, the performers at HOB actually wanted to be there. They also had bigger amps. I always go to shows expecting the worst in sound. Often I am right. But tonight the sound engineer killed it. For all the bands — Dreaming Dead, Krisiun, Immolation, and Nile (never mind the opening emo deathcore disaster called Rose Funeral) — stage right housed the shredders. The guitarists had great tones, the kind that cause babies to be made. Urrgh!
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Dreaming Dead recently acquired Laura Christine, of Warface and Meldrum. This shored up the second guitarist position in a big way. Two female shredders in one metal band is still quite a novelty. Christine and vocalist/guitarist Elizabeth Elliott must know this, because at one point they stood together and struck a righteous Tipton/Downing pose. Flash bulbs popped furiously. Fast became faster, solos became bullets, and jaws hung limp everywhere.
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Krisiun thanked the crowd as profusely as they crushed it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Krisiun are hell’s marching band. They’ve got the rat-a-tat-tat for your ass, and if it seems like they have one song — well, most bands don’t have any. Moyses Kolesne waves his axe around sometimes because it looks cool. But it looks even cooler when his fingers barely move, yet they spew lightning. Thank you, come again, those wounds should heal up soon.
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Immolation stood and delivered in a big way. Their opening salvo was “Passion Kill” — “God will punish you! / God will torture you! / God will silence you! / God will destroy you!” — ironic in a venue that hosts weekly gospel brunches. (Almighty dollar reigns supreme.) Bob Vigna did his trademark ripping-notes-out-of-his-axe thing — how the hell is he so accurate on upstrokes? Ross Dolan thundered like a demonic priest with Crystal Gayle-ic hair. His neck must be made of steel to support such hirsute heaviness.
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joins Nile on guest vocals during “Black Seeds of Vengeance” |
I did not expect Nile to be one of the heaviest bands I’ve ever seen. They are known for speed, and drummer George Kollias did a good impression of a gun battery. But they must know that the slower stuff goes down a treat. The set was filled with big, doomy riffs, the kind that make people adopt spread-leg stances and do large air guitar. This made the fast bits seem even faster.
But who cares about mechanics? I spent the set with my mouth agape, basking in the power. The chorus of “Kafir!” — an audacious whittling of the Islamic “There is no god but God” down to “There is no God” — flattened the venue. Somehow the band found a way to channel ancient Egypt in all its imagined violence and glory. Everything went perfectly — the sound, the songs, Karl Sanders’ many axe changes. (His custom KxK double-neck is a sight to behold). I hardly took pictures because I was too busy absorbing metal through every pore. By the end, I felt like I was made of adamantium.
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Here is a nice story on Ross Dolan’s impromptu stint as Nile’s bus driver.
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Nice review, Cosmo. It amazes me that you have the stamina to bust out these never-ending posts. Keep it up, please!
I caught this show in Chicago (though the city's infamous I-90 traffic caused me to miss Dreaming Dead) at the Metro a couple weeks ago and had a bunch of notes, which I'll whittle down (slightly) here:
The Kolesne brothers know their way around punishing death metal tunes and wasted no time delivering them in their 30 minute set. I saw them once before opening up for Morbid Angel and Behemoth a few years ago when I was still getting into extreme metal. At the time they were way too heavy for me, but a few years of mainlining death metal has allowed me to appreciate their songcraft in addition to their assaulting stage presence.
Immolation thankfully had much better sound this time than when I previously saw them with Suffocation at the Metro couple years ago. That experience may have possibly been the worst stage sound quality I've ever seen. Bob Vigna is one of the most entertaining guitarists I've ever seen, his picking hand dashing and darting all over the fretboard like an expert swashbuckler, pulling off pinch harmonics and eerie chord progressions with ease.
I've read on the interwebs that most people react to opposite poles when seeing Nile in the flesh – either it's the most revelatory display of hypnotic shredding imaginable or they are bored to tears by the relentless technicality. The truth lies somewhere in between, of course, but I came out leaning towards the former. Karl Sanders is 45 (!) years old, but the man plays with the exuberance of someone half his age. He was all smiles and fist pumps throughout the entire 65-minute set, constantly egging on the crowd and obviously having a good time. Dallas Toler-Wade, now looking even more like Devin Townsend since shaving his head, is usually overlooked when everyone gushes about the talent of Sanders, but the man has incredible chops. His insane shredding duels with Sanders during "Cast Down the Heretic" were particularly inspiring.
Speaking of Sanders, I stood pretty much right in front of him the whole set, and the most amazing thing I noticed about his style is that his picking technique is just effortless. He has big hands that cover a lot of ground, but he pivots his arm at the elbow so he can pick chords in a blazing fast blur. It's sort of like a strobe light effect where it looks like his right arm is barely even moving. Contrast that to Toler-Wade's severely-angled right hand strumming at the wrist, which gives me carpal tunnel just thinking about it.
Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention George Kollias. The man is just a complete beast. His kit was packed in too tightly, so I wasn't able to get a good look at whether he was double-footing his blasts like Immolation's Steve Shalaty (not like it matters – the kicks were heavily triggered, although still weighty), but regardless, his Olympic stamina befits his Greek heritage. His eyes were closed almost the entire set, and his movements were quick and compact. His whole body language made me think of an old musician cliche about how the instrument needs to be an extension of your own body. I cannot believe he can do this for an hour each night on tour.
Set list was a good mix of new and old, emphasizing the great new record and classic Annihilation of the Wicked. Of that fearsome lineup, highlights had to be the aforementioned "Heretic," "Kafir!," the doomy "4th Arra of Dagon," and catchy-as-hell "Lashed to the Slave Stick." Nicely executed.
Thanks for the kind words, Tom. My stamina is certainly at its limit! And your review was better than mine! I noticed the exact same things about the Nile guitarists' picking styles. One guy near me was yelling, "Fuck you! You make it look easy!"
I saw this tour when it came to Portland a couple weeks ago. They blew the place out of the water. What really impressed me is how much of a class act Karl Sanders is. The whole set you could tell he was having a blast up there. Then after wards he stayed on stage and signed pretty much anything that was handed to him (got my ticket stub signed). It was really nice to see someone in metal show so much gratitude to their fans.
can't. believe. i missed this. Nile are probably the greatest thing to ever bear the unholy name of DEATH METAL. add all those other fantastic bands and this was basically the best show ever, and I gotta say, i really like HOB on the sunset strip for metal shows. Saw Napalm Death, Exodus, and Hatebreed there a couple years back and the sound was fucking crushing.
Nile ROOLZ.
I'm unfortunately going to see this show at a venue with the worst sound ever – they're playing at a much better the night before, but that's a work night and its two hours away. Still looking forward to it, though, although I do not think it will match the elation I had seeing Cynic/Devin Townsend/Scale the Summit last week (didn't even really stick around for BTBAM)