By Andrew Bansal
June 3rd 2013, The Joint, Los Angeles CA: Hailing from Tokyo, Japan, blackened thrash metal stalwarts Abigail have been around for more than 20 years now, spreading their filthy, evil brand of fast heavy music across the planet, even reaching out to places like India where they played a very successful gig in early 2012. I missed out on that show even though I was there at the time, but heard some great things about Abigail from my Indian friends. The band hadn’t visited the Los Angeles area for a number of years, but they finally quenched the LA Abigail fans’ thirst. Following killer performances at Maryland Deathfest and Chaos In Tejas on their current US mini-tour, they took over the Joint in West Los Angeles last night and promised to bring some good ol’ black-thrash to the masses gathered here.
I got to the venue rather early and was able to see the entire show, including all four local opening acts. Amongst these, the first to take the stage was Taking Over, followed by Cobra Venom. Even though they were a bit too repetitive in what they attempted to do with their music and there wasn’t enough in the name of guitar melodies or solos, I thought these two bands were decent enough to be worthy of playing this show. Taking Over’s guitars kept cutting out and the vocals for both bands were cracking whenever the loud, harsh parts of the vocals kicked in. It was funny to note that Cobra Venom’s second guitarist (standing on stage left) looked more like a member of Deafheaven with his appearance rather than that of an old-school black-thrash band, but he did a good job on the guitar itself. At this point, I was thinking to myself, ‘This is going to be a long night but it’s not bad so far!’ Alas, I was wrong as the next band that hit the stage completely killed the momentum built up by the first two bands, and drove a majority of the crowd outdoors.
Iron Fist is the band I’m talking about. First of all, their vocalist/guitarist appeared on stage wearing a cowboy hat which in no way matched the rest of his metalhead outfit. He looked completely drunk, and demanded more beers on stage before he would proceed to set up his gear to perform the set. As soon as they started playing, I was left in shock and horror because of just how badly out of tune his guitar was. Completely unaware of the fact, he danced and gyrated around on stage showing off his flashy moves on that horrible-sounding guitar. Deep into the set, he finally heard someone asking him to tune the guitar but much to my disgust, this is what he replied with: ‘I will tune it if you get me another beer!’ I mean, I get that drinking beer is part of the whole thrash metal thing, but can’t people in bands wait till they’re done with their 30-minute set before totally intoxicating themselves to the point of stupidity? Tuning your guitar before playing is ‘musicianship 101’. It was embarrassing to witness this guy on stage. He let down everyone, not least the promoters who had put the band on the lineup. Anyhow, this disgrace of a band was thankfully over and done with, and we could all move on.
The last support act was Diabolos, who at least put more thought into the visual aspect of their performance, with corpse paint and legit stage clothes. The majority of their music consisted of the generic fast black-thrash style, but I enjoyed it when they slowed it down and brought out some of the straight-up black metal guitar melodies. The intro pieces of most of their songs were slow, epic and melodic, and sounded promising but then the meat of each of these songs would take a predictable path. Considering their on-stage appearance, I would definitely like them to infuse more of the black metal element into it and get rid of at least some of the thrash. Regardless, this wasn’t a bad set by any means.
And after going through all of that, Abigail hit the stage at around 11.45 amidst a now packed Joint. They hit the groove straightaway with the very first note they played, and madness ensued amongst this crowd which had become restless by now. Circle pits broke out for each and every song, some folks started stage-diving, and this is when the Joint’s security personnel became dead serious. The pit was a nasty place with beer spilled all over the floor leading to some hilarious falls, and the stage divers were getting kicked out one by one. After a few songs, the on-stage security was also beefed up as they tried to control the flow of the divers. This largely intoxicated audience was having a blast moshing and rolling to Abigail’s music, and nothing much could be done to put a stop to it before the band was actually done playing. Always fun to witness a beer-fueled thrash audience such as this going at it full tilt!
The song ‘Satanik Metal Fucking Hell’ was one of the highlights of the set for me. It had all of Abigail’s traits and the chorus singalong was enjoyable for everyone. But the band’s entire set on the whole showed how exactly blackened thrash should be done. The faster bits were sounding absolutely ferocious, but had a fair share of melody in them owing to the guitarist’s smooth lead parts. It’s one thing to try to sound raw and heavy but it’s more important for any band to get the guitarist(s) to utilize that instrument properly. Abigail certainly do that. This guy’s guitar was sounding great, and he was able to do that even as he was wary of the stage divers coming up and threatening to ruin it for him by damaging his gear. In fact, during one song a big-sized stage diver rolled straight into the drum kit, and completely helpless as he was in the middle of the song, the poor drummer kept playing with half his kit out of position. This is where the stage-diving was getting a bit excessive, specially on a tiny stage like that, as the divers didn’t seem to care about the fact that they might be ruining the band’s gear and as a result their sound.
But overall, Abigail certainly made up for their long absence from Los Angeles with this venomous performance. They have hit the right balance between raw aggression and solid traditional metal musicianship, as could be seen and heard in this set. This juggernaut of a band should be better known in the States than it is, and hopefully they will return soon. Hails to the Motörhead of the East! \m/