Click here to view the embedded video.

-Sam

Click here to view the embedded video.

-Sam

In any case, Black Masses is a throwback to early heavy metal, particularly of the stoner/doom variety.  I mean, one look at the album artwork should have made this abundantly clear to everyone.  Is there any way a band that calls itself Electric Wizard (might as well be an amalgamation of “The Wizard” and “Electric Funeral”) and uses that stereotypical 1970s smoky, wavy font could sound like anything but retro-Sabbath?  The answer is no, my friends.

This is a dense, hour long block of droning, fuzzy doom.  These eight tracks don’t feature a wide array of riffs or guitar freakouts.  Instead, each riff is taken, elongated, slathered in reverb, and pounded into dust through hypnotizing repetition – a hallmark of the stoner genre.  Electric Wizard isn’t so much concerned with crafting great songs here; this album is about the atmospherics.  There’s not a whole lot of variation throughout, and that’s made more noticeable through the old-school fuzzy analog production qualities.  Every track in the mix sounds mashed together into one, and that includes the vocals which tend to stay subdued and sandwiched in between layers of guitars and drums.  Of course, this focus on mood rather than instantly distinct songs makes the album’s length much more digestible because you are invited to passively let it wash over you rather than anxiously wait on every note.  All told, the album hews much closer to “Black Sabbath” than, say, “Iron Man.”

That’s true too in terms of the lyrical content which is almost entirely based around Satanic and occult imagery.  There’s plenty of talk of torture and witchcraft.  However, despite the prevailing themes of violence and vengeance set against the bloodshot and baked riffs, the music is less concerned with frightening the listener than it is about recreating that feeling of being a teenager down in your friend’s basement, using your tricked-out black deck of Magic cards to beat down on your friends wimpy blue deck while cranking heavy metal tunes about war and dragons (please allow me this moment to stroll down glorious memory lane).  And isn’t that what the heart and soul of metal has always been about?  Black Masses is fishing to reclaim some of those earliest essences, and while it’s certainly a far cry from the classics it seeks to imitate, it’s a decent bridge to the past.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Click here to view the embedded video.

-Sam

And after the jump, check out a short segment she did with Carson Daly:

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-Sam

-Sam

Strangely enough, I was actually much more intrigued to see the opening band, Ghost, play than Opeth.  Ghost is a band that’s received a lot of attention and hype in the metal community lately, and I wanted to see what the commotion was about.  I knew heading in that a large part of the buzz this band had generated was a result of its over-the-top image (it’s a bunch of dudes in black hooded shawls and one guy in a Satanic priest getup).  It sounds sort of stupid when I write it out like that, but it’s actually pretty interesting, though in a purely visual sense.  Obviously, what these guys are wearing has nothing to do with what their music sounds like, and that was hammered home once they slow-marched onstage and began playing.  Maybe it’s just me, but when I think of a band dressed like a Satanic cult, I imagine them playing brutal music – something more akin to Portal than say, Blue Oyster Cult.

But Ghost’s image completely belies its sound.  They play a brand of rather generic hard rock with very little in the way of creativity, and for a singer whose stage presence almost demands you watch him rather than his identical hooded minions, the so-called Papa Emeritus was was a bland vocalist, with no hint of menace or evil at all.  I know your lyrics say otherwise, but that’s conflicting messages, man!  Ghost wasn’t terrible or even bad, but after seeing them live, I’m more confident now that the hype is predominantly image – rather than music – driven.  I will say though, their set-closer “Ritual” was pretty badass.  Give it a listen, and then tell me if that voice is the one you’d have imagined singing the line “This chapel of ritual / smells of dead human sacrifices.”

But let us now get to the band everyone was there to see.  Having now seen Mastodon three times, I can tell they don’t change a whole lot of things from year to year, performance to performance.  They’re still all-business (they didn’t address the audience until they were tossing drum sticks into the crowd and saying goodbye), and they’re still all about bringing the metal.  The only thing that really changes is the set list.  Which is why I was happy to hear them play a 17 song set that featured 12 of the 13 tracks off their latest album, The Hunter.  The new songs are a little easier to digest, more melodic and not quite so furiously thrashing.  That serves Mastodon well in a live setting because, as I’ve mentioned before when writing about their live show, they have some obvious issues with their sound mixing; vocal parts frequently sound muddy and lost amongst the metallic fury, and when things get really cranked up, what I know to be top-notch musicianship crumbles into that blown-out-amp muffled garbage.  Thankfully, the new material allows plenty of chances to ease up ever so slightly on the accelerator and let some clarity shine through.

The highlights of the show had to be “Dry Bone Valley”, which followed up a quick early two song detour back to the Blood Mountain days, a slow cooking lusty version of “Thickening,” and a jaunty romp through what has to be the band’s biggest, most accessible hit to date, “Curl of the Burl.”  Seeing Brent Hinds up there with his huge fiery, curly mop of hair and beard sing the opening lines, “I killed a man ’cause he killed my goat / I put my hands around his throat,” was basically perfect.  And of course, the crowd went nuts when the ‘Don ripped into the opening riff of “Blood and Thunder” – one of the other few classic cuts they wedged in.

While Mastodon played a full-length set, they didn’t take an encore, which is why I think they weren’t able to squeeze in  “Creature Lives” – the only track from The Hunter that was omitted, and one that I really wanted to see.  With no encore, there was only one chance for a set-closing song and The Hunter offers two tracks – “Creature Lives” and “The Sparrow” – that really can only work in their set as the closing song.  So they had to choose, and they went with the latter.  They’re both great songs, but just listen to how awesome “Creature Lives” comes across in a live setting.  But that minor disappointment aside, Mastodon still put on an excellent show as per the usual.  If you haven’t yet seen them play their new material live, go see this tour; You’ll likely never get a chance to see this many Hunter tracks played in the same show again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

-Sam

I loved how the trailers for the film used Arcade Fire’s track “Wake Up” as its driving force.  That song is so powerful and speaks to the challenge we all face when trying to hold on to some of our youthful innocence and indiscretions as we grow older and inevitably become more calloused.  It’s the perfect song to listen to as you take a couple of minutes to remember Mr. Sendak.

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-Sam

But aside from the grand storylines of political machinations on every scale, you’re missing out on some seriously kickass theme music.  The main title score for Game of Thrones, composed by Ramin Djawadi, is easily some of the best theme music I’ve heard, TV or otherwise.  Even before any throats are slit or fair maidens made less fair, I’m already pumped for what lies ahead by the time those final notes fade out.  And other web denizens are taking notice as well, and several of the more musically inclined among them have begun posting cover versions of the title song online.  I’d have to say the metal version is one of my favorites (though there are a few more after the jump.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And this is what I imagine I probably sound like each week as I try to hum-sing along:

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And of course, the original:

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-Sam

Here’s the excuse he later provided, courtesy of Blabbermouth:

He then turned to a female producer off camera and added, “Or I’ll fuck you. How’s that sound?”

According to Glor, Nugent‘s wife told the rocker after the interview to apologize to the female producer, which Ted did. Later Nugent called Glor to say he was rushed to the emergency room after their interview to have a kidney stone removed, which, Glor says, may have contributed to Ted‘s anxiety.

-Sam

And as if that little bit of happenstance weren’t enough, my first Death Cab show was made even more special since the band is on tour with the Magik*Magik Orchestra providing support.  That is the same orchestra that arranged, conducted and performed some of the string work on Death Cab’s latest album, Codes and Keys.  Oh yeah, and the whole shebang took place in the beautiful Strathmore Music Center, an intimate, modern concert hall on the outskirts of D.C. (Death Cab lead singer Ben Gibbard begged the audience to let his home state have the name “Washington” back from those of us in the Capital.)

Going in, I was slightly worried that the band might go overboard with the possibilities of having their own personal orchestra backing them up throughout an entire tour, but I needn’t have fret.  The relatively small Magik*Magik Orchestra (I think there were about 8 or 9 members) opened the show alone on stage, their pristine work filling the room that was expertly designed with such musicians in mind.  Soon enough, Gibbard strut onstage to his orchestral accompaniment, took his seat at the piano (he would spend his night alternating between tickling the ivories and strumming his guitar) and began the gentle notes of “Passenger Seat,” a personal favorite of mine.  The rest of the band was not far behind, and once settled in, they rocked their way through a beefy set full of new cuts, hits, and older gems alike.

Perhaps what surprised me the most was just how rocking a Death Cab concert could be.  It certainly wasn’t speaker-rattinglingly loud the whole time, or even most of the time, but they certainly showed they could bring the noise on tracks like “Different Names for the Same Thing” and “Bend To Squares.”  For these cuts, the orchestra was just another piece that added to the great rises and swells, but they really shined on the softer, quieter songs where they could fill in a lot of the empty spaces of the recorded versions.  The greatest accomplishment of all was the pristine clarity with which each instrument – acoustic, electric, percussion, or orchestral – could be heard individually amongst all the others.  A lot of credit must be given to the venue, which even Gibbard had to remark was unusually “quiet” (the acoustic clarity, not the crowd members themselves).

Speaking of Gibbard, his voice was in tip-top shape.  I had seen a few taped performances where he succumbed to a bit of pitchiness or missed on several of his high notes, but that was never the case on this night.  Even the highest of high notes (and Death Cab songs call for plenty of those yearning, airy refrains) were nailed out of the park.  Really, very impressive.  The night concluded with a most impressive encore that began as a solo acoustic guitar set (sans orchestra) and finished with the heavyweight trio of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” “Tiny Vessels,” and “Transatlanticism,” the latter of which was so wonderfully triumphant that it made it seem as if the band were performing some kind of cleansing musical sermon.  As the band and the orchestra lined the stage to take their bows, I basked in the good fortune that allowed me to finally see them play live, and with such an unexpectedly resplendent secret weapon backing them up.

Click here to view the embedded video.

-Sam