By Jason Williams
July 8th 2014, House Of Blues Sunset Strip, West Hollywood CA: Sometimes when attending a show, you wish one of your favorite bands was headlining instead of in the main support slot. A 30-minute difference in set time could potentially be 5 songs or more. Lately in the metal scene, tour packages have had co-headlining tours; the main two bands play the same amount of time, no matter who goes first or last. That was the case last Tuesday July 8th, with long time atmospheric death metallers Septicflesh and Italy’s own classical brutal death metal virtuosos Fleshgod Apocalypse. Reforming in 2007 after a 4-year hiatus, Septicflesh bring their newest record Titan to tour for while Fleshgod Apocalypse are still in the very early stages of promoting their newest release, Labyrinth. Joining the two are death metal legends from Canada, Necronomicon, and the US’s own Black Crown Initiate, replacing Hour of Penance who dropped out due to visa problems. Being this on a Tuesday evening, I was hopeful to see a strong showing for this grand occasion.
Doors opened at 6 PM to a very small crowd entering the venue. I wasn’t worried too much as it was still the very beginning of the week and that Necroomicon were to play at 7 PM. I was expecting a larger turnout in line for tonight, as Fleshgod Apocalypse has certainly been on large tours for the past few years and Septicflesh bring in the old school fans as well.
Necronomicon took the stage right at 7 PM to the now slightly larger but still light crowd. Many don’t know that Necronomicon started back in 1988. I saw a decent number of Necronomicon shirts within the crowd as well. “Through the Door of Time” started the evening as the 3-piece blasted away in their style of black/death metal. Right away I noticed how much they sound like the polish death metal band Hate, blasting heavily with mid-paced riffs filling the air. Guitarist/vocalist Rob “The Witch” Tremblay’s vocals also reminded me of Hate as well, deep growls but not on the gutteral side. While making these comparisons though, I don’t mean them in a negative sense. Their sound was solid and very powerful, considering they’re opening up the tour. “The Witch” constantly amped up the crowd with catchy riffing and intense windmill headbanging from the stage, even to go so far as to announce, “Enough with the bullshit talk, the time to play is now!” By the time they played “The Time is Now”, the crowd was warmed up and mosh pits were very present. The pit floor was close to full by this time, and it was nice to see the crowd give praise and energy back to the band. Even with said comparisions of Hate, Necronomicon were enjoyable live and look forward to their future tour plans.
Necronomicon links:
facebook.com/NecronomiconMetal
Set List:
01. Through the Door of Time
02. Into the Fire
03. The Time Is Now
04. Rise of the Elder Ones
05. From Beyond
06. The End of Times
Black Crown Initiate went on only 12 minutes or so after Necronomicon. Compliments to the fast efficiency for getting one band on and another one on immediately after. Black Crown Initiate played on the Behemoth tour that rolled around in April. I was (much too late) unable to get a ticket in time, sadly. I heard decent things about them and as with Necronomicon, I’ve never heard Black Crown Initiate either. All 5 members come out and within a minute or so, I absolutely love what I heard. Beautiful progressive death metal with some outstanding vocals on all ends. Lead vocalist James Dorton has a menacing growl, and yet clear at the same time. Guitarist and clean vocalist Andy Thomas absolutely floored my senses with some high level guitar playing and beautiful vocals that would raise an eyebrow from ICS Vortex himself. All of the musicianship was precise and intense to watch. One minute would have blasting and blurs of riffs and lead guitars, the next, natural sounding clean guitars, giving the music much time to breathe and explore. By the middle of the set, the venue was much more packed than previous. Their instant change in sound, music and passages reminded me of Between the Buried in Me, who I had the pleasure of recently seeing with Meshuggah a few weeks ago. The crowd definitely appreciated the band and I’m sure they made a large impression on the Behemoth show. “Stench of the Iron Age” was my highlight of their set. Black Crown Initiate absolutely blew me away with their short but still energizing 30 minute set and I highly encourage all of y’all to give them a listen and see them onstage.
Black Crown Initiate links:
facebook.com/BlackCrownInitiate
twitter.com/BCInitiate
instagram.com/BlackCrownInitiate
BlackCrownInitiate.bandcamp.com
Set List:
01. (New Song)
02. Stench of the Iron Age
03. Ghosts She Sends
04. The Mountain Top
05. Song of the Crippled Bull
8:40 PM rolled around to a monstrous roar of joy, anticipation and pure metal for Fleshgod Apocalypse. I was still surprised at the now decent but still disappointing turnout for this event. Fleshgod having been on tours with Suffocation, Summer Slaughter and just last year with Wintersun, I was expecting more in tonight. Perhaps the Tuesday after the 4th of July weekend had some still recovering from their drinking and firework mischief. Regardless, “The Hypocrisy” opened their set to a wide range of headbanging and already the largest and most vicious pit of the night. Fleshgod’s array of brutal classical symphonic death metal is truly something to behold in the live setting. The sound was much better in the overall mix than when I saw them last year at the same venue with Wintersun. Lead vocalist/guitarist Tommaso Riccardi’s guitar could have been highter in the mix, but nothing detrimental to the show. As with the show last year, new live member and soprano Veronica Bordacchini’s operatic singing intensifies the music greatly, almost imagining a twisted opera of your own. The guitars set an incredible mood with the constant changes and vibrancy. Clean vocals from bassist Paolo Rossi are simply breathtaking live. Passion, fire and magnitude engulfed the House of Blues when he took the mic. Pianist Francesco Ferrini set up a passionate and baroque mood with rapid speed piano keys and orchestrating. The highlight of the evening had to be hearing, “Requiem in SI Minore”, from their first album and my favorite of theirs, Oracles. They unfortunately do not play from Oracles too often these days, so hearing any song from there is more than good enough for me. 60 minutes went by quickly, as “The Forsaking” ended their set. The fans in attendance gave it their all in the last song, bringing a smile to the many members on stage. The best band of the night and showing how remarkable Fleshgod Apocalypse are to witness onstage.
Related: In-depth Interview With Tommaso Riccardi Of Fleshgod Apocalypse
Fleshgod Apocalypse links:
FleshgodApocalypse.com
facebook.com/FleshgodApocalypse
twitter.com/FApocalypse
Set List:
01. The Hypocrisy
02. Minotaur (The Wrath of Poseidon)
03. The Deceit
04. The Violation
05. Requiem In Si Minore
06. Pathfinder
07. Kingborn
08. The Egoism
09. Elegy
10. The Forsaking
With Fleshgod Apocalypse being the only band I was familiar with prior to this evening, my “metalosity” was intrigued by finally seeing the Greek legends Septicflesh. Right at 10:05, they bombarded the venue with “The Vampire from Nazareth”, to a large amount of Septicflesh fans. Despite how long they’ve been around, I wasn’t sure how the fans would react or just end up leaving after Fleshgod Apocalypse. Turns out none of the above were the case. Fans recognized all of the songs and the mosh pits were more frequent than any band tonight, although not quite as violent as Fleshgod. Christos Antoniou’s guitar playing had many constant start-stop riffs, alongside some tasteful lead guitar to accompany the keyboard effects. “Bassist” and vocalist Spiros Antoniou, brother of Christos, (the quotes shall be explained soon) impressed me as a frontman, constantly interacting with the crowd and demanding satisfaction. Their brand of atmospheric death metal proved to be quite powerful. While they used samples for their keyboard tracks, they sounded quite natural onstage. And while Fleshgod had more of a beautiful vibe to their keyboards, Septicflesh were downright vile and hypnotic. This, with the profound lead guitar at times and the heavy riffing made for a unique listening experience. As with Rotting Christ also hailing from Greece, it seemed to me the pattern of using very powerful music in quite a catchy way. “Anubis” happened to be the best song from their set, as the crowd also reacted quite heavily from it. Spiros also asked for a “Black Wall of Death”, which the crowd was happy to give into.
While I did hear rumblings beforehand about Spiros’s “bass playing”, I had to see it for myself in order to be sure. Turns out, it was accurate. Although an excellent frontman, Spiros would only play a small riff on his bass at a time, while almost for the rest of the set throughout, use the instrument as a ‘weapon’ to command the audience. It was flashy for sure, but one would wonder how he would do even better without a bass in his hand. Also to note, when he did play, the bass tone was quite decent, making for it to be somewhat disappointing to almost never hear it played. Despite that small quirk, Septicflesh’s 60-minute set was powerful and menancing to the core, definitely exceeding my expectations.
All in all, it was a compelling evening of death metal. This is quite a unique tour package. Don’t be like the 4th of July-ers who couldn’t ‘human up’ in attending this show. Wear your metal flags proud and catch all of the bands when they hit your city.
Septicflesh links:
Septicflesh.com
facebook.com/SepticfleshBand
twitter.com/SepticfleshBand
Set List:
01. The Vampire from Nazareth
02. Communion
03. A Great Mass of Death
04. Order of Dracul
05. Pyramid God
06. Prototype
07. Unbeliever
08. Burn
09. Lovecraft’s Death
10. Persepolis
11. Anubis
12. Five-Pointed Star
Remaining Tour Dates:
7/10 Phoenix, AZ – Joe’s Grotto
7/11 Albuquerque, NM – Blackwater Music
7/12 Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall