Cirith Ungol's Triumphant Return to New York (Show Review + Jarvis Leatherby Interview)
Cirith Ungol returned to NYC on Sunday August 20th, their first time since playing the Defenders of the Old Festival in 2017, as well as their first appearance since releasing the powerful Forever Black in 2020. The album, whose supreme power was snuffed out by the Pandemic, stands as one of the best comeback metal albums and one of Cirith Ungol’s best as well. Joining the band at the excellent Le Poisson Rouge were Brooklyn natives Sanhedrin and fellow Ventura vigilantes, Night Demon, with whom they share bassist/manager Jarvis Leatherby; one of the most instrumental figures to their reformation. After the show review below, we've got an interview with Jarvis talking about all things Night Demon and Cirith Ungol, including his unique path to managing a band he didn’t even like initially.
…
…
Sanhedrin opened the night as the temperatures inside the humble venue were rising faster than the east coast humidity of August in metro NYC. Playing cuts from their three excellent albums, the most recent being 2022’s Lights On, frontwoman Erica Stoltz crushed the crowd with powerful and gruff vocals while plucking her bass along to some of the band’s best tracks: opener “Wind on the Storm” and “Correction” were some of the standouts. These guys play NYC often enough and they should never be missed if you see their name on a bill.
…
…
Next up were Night Demon, fronted by vocalist/bassist, Jarvis Leatherby and fresh off of their 2023 album Outsider. That was their first attempt at a concept album and certainly one of the best traditional metal albums so far this year. This trio –and maybe a foursome if you count the later appearance of the masked Night Demon on “The Chalice”--made for a ferociously tight set, one that included a little bit from each of their three albums to date and their self-titled EP from all the way back in 2012. Blasting through “Full Speed Ahead” , “Beyond The Grave,” and “Welcome To the Night”, Night Demon pulled no punches and aside from technical difficulties early, they crushed their set with aplomb.
…
…
Cirith Ungol closed things out, of course. Their cult following allowed them to put out their first album in 31 years back in 2020, fully reformed to continue the mission they started back in the early 1970s. Most of the band’s lineup from their last studio album (and Paradise Lost) is back save for the addition of Leatherby on bass. This is a now well-oiled machine after shaking off their initial rust upon reformation, and no stone was left unturned. The inimitable Tim Baker's screams remain unique to this day, Greg Lindstrom and Jim Barraza ripped through furious riffing sections, and an eye patch-adorned Robert Garven manned the battery. Classic after classic was played: “Black Machine”, “Blood & Iron”, “King of the Dead”, “Atom Smasher” and even cuts from their first album Frost and Fire in “I’m Alive” and the title track. Everything culminated in an encore rendition of “Join The Legion” which had the crowd in an uproar and for good reason; the band is back!
Below, find an interview with Jarvis Leatherby.
…
Sadly, I haven’t seen Night Demon before and I missed a crazy show you did a while back with Crowbar, Ghoul and Carcass.
Jarvis Leatherby: I love doing mixed bills like that. The bands are entertaining and we had a great time.
You are a pretty busy guy in terms of your own band, Night Demon and a legacy band like Cirith Ungol. What’s it like working with 2 bands even when playing with both bands? How do you balance that?
JL: There are worse problems to have, and I guess I am still young enough to handle it. I manage Cirith Ungol and playing bass with them is a secondary job. I often refer to the band as “them” and not “us”. I didn’t like the band for the longest time, they were a local band to me. I wanted everything to sound like The Black Album when I was young. My ears hadn’t matured to their sound for a long time. Night Demon is very much my personality along with the other guys in the band. I wear a lot of hats in both bands, but fronting Night Demon is very different than what I do in Cirith Ungol. I have done these double header bills, many different times. It can be tiring but it would be worse if the band had played in a different order. I expend a ton of energy with Night Demon singing and all. Cirith Ungol is much easier on me.
I am still their manager while on stage and they have been around for over 50 years. I have a lot more live experience than they do. Night Demon is about to play our 700th show and I was in 35 bands before that. Cirith Ungol including their reformation has done just over 100 shows. They never toured in their first 20 years. I can be more of a facilitator on stage, kind of like a point guard. I don’t need to slam dunk the ball, I kind of direct traffic. It would suck if I was a manager on the side of the stage in a suit yelling “Guys! Guys!” every time something went wrong.
I half imagined that you had a trucker hat on like Judah Friedlander that had “Manager” emblazoned across it.
JL: [Laughs] yeah the whole thing is really interesting.
How long has it been that the band officially reformed? How did it come to be that you were managing them?
JL: It will be 7 years this year. I was instrumental in reforming the band and I had been bugging them to do it. When they finally decided to do it, I started playing with them to get their chops back up because they hadn’t played in 25 years. I don’t mean they hadn’t played as a band; I mean they hadn’t played at all. It isn’t like riding a bike. They basically told me that I had to manage them, and I had already been managing another band at the time, but somebody needed to take the reins. I even tried to get the original bass player back and it wasn’t happening.
Shifting gears to Night Demon, Outsider is one of my favorite records of the year and your best yet. What was it like to get back in the studio to put together a full length for the first time in 6 years?
JL: We did 2 world tours for Darkness Remains and did a live album for that as well. We did five 7” singles in 2020 and toured off of those in 2022. We had a forced break due to the Pandemic and with the lack of distractions we got to do a concept record which we had always wanted to do. We made the best out of that bad situation. Even if you say you are taking time off or only doing one-offs it can really throw off the creative flow.
How many shows have you played with Cirith Ungol to this point?
JL: Around 35 or so. Next year we are going to pick it up a lot. We are headlining festivals and being a bit more selective with our shows. As their manager I want to keep the value of the band high.
I remember a few years ago there was that Defenders of the Old festival that I couldn’t make it out to. Now you are playing a stellar spot in Le Poisson Rouge in lower Manhattan. How did you go about curating which venues would be best for you?
JL: Like you said we hadn’t been back to NYC since Defenders and I thought it was time for the band to return. People kept reaching out to us to try and make it happen. They are playing their first show in Los Angeles since 1988 and it’s only an hour away from Ventura.
Beyond the live dates, what’s the plan for the rest of 2023 and 2024?
JL: There is a new album coming out and it will be announced really soon.
Really looking forward to the follow-up to Forever Black because that was my album of the year when it initially dropped in 2020.
JL: I don’t get involved in their songwriting and then I executive produce it. I try to look at it objectively as a Cirith Ungol fan and can let them know what works and what doesn’t. We work well together overall.
To somebody who doesn’t know the band very well, what makes Cirith Ungol unique?
JL: First of all let’s look at Tim’s vocals. I have never heard anything like it. Whether you love it or hate it it’s unique. I think with the prevalence of extreme metal these days there might be more people out there who can enjoy this. Tim was one of the first guys to really scream like that back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Rob also has a unique drumming style. Even the late Jerry Fogle had a unique soloing style. That would really sum it up for me. The unique individuals make for a similar sum.
Pulling stuff from The Orange Album for Half Past Human was an interesting move. How did you go and draw from that well?
JL: Pretty cool. Those are songs that nobody had ever heard. When a band hasn’t made music in so long, it can be tough to live up to expectations. There have been a couple of great comeback records in recent years like from Angel Witch and Van Halen when they did that last album with David Lee Roth, both had something in common. They both feature songs that were written and not previously released from back in the earliest days of those bands. New “old” stock if you will.
We wanted a way to do something during the Pandemic and with the album having come out it had stifled the band. The only reason we did “Brutish Manchild” for Decibel was because they wanted something for their Flexi Discs. All 4 of the songs were demos from the ‘70s.
In terms of the artwork going forward, are there any Elric of Melniboné covers left?
JL: Yeah the album covers used by the band are from the Elric of Melniboné series from Moorcock and Michael Whelan did the artwork. With the new album we are completing the series, we have them all.
Is there anything else on your mind?
JL: If anybody is interested in seeing the band, the time is now. We reunited them when they were all turning 60 and that was 7 years ago. The horizon is in sight, there is no definitive plan to end this thing, but we don’t want to run it into the ground either. This may be the last time we ever come to NYC.
I think about a similar unsung band in the same way, Manilla Road. Mark “The Shark” Shelton was finally getting to do what he always wanted.
JL: I was with him the day he died and was a dear friend of mine. One good thing that they did in their last 5 or 6 years was that they toured. Everybody finally got to see them. We never know when our day is going to come. Shark went out there and left it all on the table.
I remember seeing the band the day after and they were crushed.
JL: They were devastated. It was a rough time for them. They were stuck in Germany and had seen Night Demon 6 days afterwards and had to get his body home.
Even Ozzy Osbourne is getting to the point where he had to be honest with himself and say that he can’t do it like this anymore.
JL: The band do not want to be a parody of themselves. It is their decision to do everything they can before it gets to that point. In the next 18 months you are going to be getting a lot of live performances, more so than ever.
…
Night Demon released Outsider on March 17 via Century Media.
