{"id":921,"date":"2012-10-14T19:21:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T03:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/gig_reviews\/?p=921"},"modified":"2012-11-11T07:08:35","modified_gmt":"2012-11-11T15:08:35","slug":"ghoul-bring-bloody-halloween-celebration-to-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/gig_reviews\/2012\/10\/14\/ghoul-bring-bloody-halloween-celebration-to-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghoul Brings Bloody Halloween Celebration To Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elena Whidden<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"\"<\/a>October 12th 2012, The Key Club, Hollywood CA: <\/strong>The Key Club was decked out in Halloween decorations the night Ghoul stormed through on a headlining date, an appropriate backdrop for a night of that band\u2019s gleefully brutal blend of thrash, death metal, and grindcore\u2014the title of their song \u201cSplatterthrash\u201d describes it pretty well.\u00a0 An excellent and varied group of openers came through with Ghoul, bringing out their own crowds and making for a really great show on Sunset.<\/p>\n

The first of these openers was local blackened thrash band Witchaven<\/strong>.\u00a0 Although I have lived in L.A. for three years now, I had never seen this band live before, and what I saw of their excellent performance made me feel like I\u2019ve really been missing out.\u00a0 They flew through a couple songs off Terrorstorm,<\/em> their self-released album from 2010, and also hit audiences with \u201cFaces of Death\u201d and \u201cBlasphemous Cunt\u201d from an earlier EP.\u00a0 They played tight and kept the energy level high, with tireless frontman Henry Montoya using the occasional pause in the music to growl something at the audience.\u00a0 It was clear that being the first band up didn\u2019t bother Witchaven one bit, and they really got the crowd going early.\u00a0 Also part of Witchaven\u2019s set was a dance, as the band played, by tattooed and mohawked go-go dancer Malice 666.\u00a0 She was pretty entertaining, scantily clad as she was in black lingerie like some kind of vampire punk out of The Lost Boys<\/em>.\u00a0 Her enthusiastic shaking seemed a little out of place during a thrash set though.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I only caught the second half of Witchaven\u2019s set\u2014the Key Club managed to \u201cmisplace\u201d Ghoul\u2019s guest list, and so I was late getting into the venue. I look forward to seeing this band again though, and to hearing their upcoming album.<\/p>\n

Witchaven Set List:<\/strong>
\n1. Terrorstorm
\n2. Empty Chasm
\n3. Black Thrash Assault
\n4. A.D.D.
\n5. Faces of Death
\n6. Blasphemous Cunt
\n7. Unholy Copulation<\/p>\n

Following Witchaven was the punk band The Mentors<\/strong>.\u00a0 They are best known for their songs about women.\u00a0 Specifically, about the gnarly things they claim they would like to do to women.\u00a0 They have been delivering this kind of shock rock\u2014or \u201crape rock,\u201d as it has been called\u2014from behind their executioner-style hoods since the late 70s.\u00a0 I would really like to note at this point that although this band is really entertaining, the stuff they sing about is not meant to be taken seriously; if anyone, male or female, does take them or their lyrics to heart, than he or<\/em> she has some real problems.\u00a0 At any rate, the three-piece delivered an old-school punk sound that was also pretty heavy.\u00a0 They definitely took the tempo down from the fast pace of Witchaven\u2019s thrash, but I thought it was cool to see them next, since the origins of thrash lie partially in punk rock.\u00a0 The shredding solos of guitarist Tee Sick\u2014which he got around to playing after mooning the audience\u2014were great, and really stood out over the driving beat of the music.\u00a0 Drummer Marc \u201cMad Dog\u201d Deleon provided vocals for the band, a duty which used to belong to vocalist Eldon Hoke, aka El Duce, now deceased.\u00a0 Deleon did a great job singing as he played, and also introduced every song with a lewd, funny anecdote.\u00a0 He merrily expounded on the meanings of song titles like \u201cGolden Showers\u201d and \u201cWoman From Sodom\u201d over the mic, so we in the audience would know exactly what the band was singing about, whether we wanted to or not.<\/p>\n

The Mentors Set List:<\/strong>
\n1. Sandwich of Love
\n2. Donkey Dick
\n3. Woman From Sodom
\n4. Free Fix
\n5. When You\u2019re Horny, You\u2019re Horny
\n6. Golden Showers
\n7. Get Up and Die
\n8. Going Through Your Purse
\n9. Rock \u2018Em Sock \u2018Em
\n10. Four F Club<\/p>\n

The punk\/hardcore theme continued as Beow\u00fclf<\/strong> took the stage, a band that came out of Venice around the same time as groups like Suicidal Tendencies and Neighborhood Watch (guitarist Mike Jensen of the latter band helped start Beow\u00fclf, but is no longer a member).\u00a0 Beow\u00fclf began their set with some newer songs off of their 2011 studio album Jesus Freak.<\/em>\u00a0 These new songs had a hard rock feel, and musically were pretty cool.\u00a0 The very funky bass playing of Christian Olde Wolbers, formerly of Fear Factory, was a real highlight.\u00a0 Something about Dale Henderson\u2019s vocals\u2014clean, a little whiney\u2014just seemed a bit off to me though, as did his taking a moment to do some kind of spoken word rap between two songs. But Henderson, the original vocalist of the band, was able to redeem himself when Beow\u00fclf closed their set with a couple of great old-school hardcore\/crossover thrash songs from their self-titled debut album.\u00a0 Among these was \u201cDrink, Fight, Fuck,\u201d which got an absolutely brutal mosh pit going.<\/p>\n

These last songs of Beow\u00fclf\u2019s were a great segue into Dr. Know<\/strong>\u2019s set.\u00a0 By the time they took the stage, a huge and varied crowd had packed the Key Club: girls and guys, young punks, old punks, death metalers, crust punks, people in Halloween costumes, people in white shirts ready for Ghoul, even some hipster-looking kids and a few Ladies of the Eighties all assembled.\u00a0 The guys of Dr. Know didn\u2019t say anything before starting their set and they didn\u2019t need to: they just announced their presence by starting up playing, which I thought was really great.\u00a0 This current line-up of the band is led by founding member Kyle Toucher, who sang and played guitar through the 80s on the band\u2019s crossover thrash albums.\u00a0 He remained all business for the whole set, leaving the brutal music to say anything that needed to be said.\u00a0 The fact that he didn\u2019t stop between songs very often also showcased how well the songs flowed in their chosen order.\u00a0 Among my favorites of the night were \u201cMr. Freeze\u201d (Slayer liked this song too), and the very heavy \u201cMastermind,\u201d which started out slow and gradually built up to a manic, thrashy pace\u2014a testament, as my friend Avinash pointed out, to the skill of drummer Mike Vega, who handled the tempo changes which pervaded the set marvelously.\u00a0 All of the members of this line up, in fact, are really great musicians, and I was glad the Key Club sound team was on its game, so that they all could be heard.\u00a0 I hope this line up, which has been reunited since 2010, continues to tour, because I would gladly catch them again.<\/p>\n

After Dr. Know finished, the crowd thinned out a little bit\u2014their loss.\u00a0 Masked headliners Ghoul<\/strong>, \u201cfrom Creepsylvania\u201d, played some great music, and had a really fun stage show to go with it, replete with dressed up characters and a good amount of \u201cgore\u201d to be thrown at or sprayed on the audience.\u00a0 One of the things I liked best about this band, though, was the fact that the songs were so good that the stage show didn\u2019t overshadow them.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t even call it the primary reason to go see this band live. They opened with the first two tracks off their newest record Transmission Zero,<\/em> before going into \u201cSplatterthrash,\u201d from the album of the same name.\u00a0 Most songs of the set came from these two records.\u00a0 At some point during these songs, a character dressed as an evil incarnation of the Pope was dispensed with in a gory manner, and an extremely animated Voodoo revenant entered for \u201cThe Mark of Voodoo,\u201d spraying even far away audience members with blood which spurted from a skull-topped scepter (I was near the back of the pit and I got hit!).\u00a0 \u201cDeath in the Swamp\u201d was accompanied by a Swamp Hag character, and I think my favorite of all was the giant Killbot, who came on stage for \u201cRise, Killbot, Rise!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

In between songs, bassist Cremator (Ross Sewage) and vocalist\/guitarist Digestor (Sean McGrath) would banter back and forth in thick Creepsylvanian accents, discussing everything from the audience to \u201cGangnam Style,\u201d and they were hysterical.\u00a0 The awesome chemistry the two have clearly translated to the really cool way they shared vocal duties, McGrath\u2019s higher death metal singing alternating with Sewage\u2019s deep growl.\u00a0 Some songs contained hardcore-style choruses that everyone in the band would yell, and these were really catchy and fun.\u00a0 In fact, the interesting way that Ghoul mixed and messed with genres even within songs to create something all their own in a way that really made sense was one of my favorite things about their music.\u00a0 The beat of \u201cDeath in the Swamp\u201d brought the Misfits to my mind, and \u201cGraveyard Mosh \/ Ghoul,\u201d off We Came for the Dead<\/em>, sounded like a Discharge song, but with a sick thrash beat and death-metal vocals.\u00a0 They really showed how closely related all these types of music are, and succeeded in giving fans of all of them something they enjoy\u2014a really impressive feat.<\/p>\n

In fact, Ghoul kept the fans so excited that the mosh pit that started during \u201cThe Lunatic Hour\u201d did not relent until \u201cGutbucket Blues,\u201d the last song before the encore, during which one of the band\u2019s characters added a bucket of fake entrails to the churning mass of people.\u00a0 Kids were jumping off the stage, and bouncing on top the crowd like popcorn, across the whole floor of the Key Club.\u00a0 A security guard even fell down into the crowd as he tried to grab on to a stage diver.\u00a0 Although I can\u2019t say I was in the middle of the pit, I definitely had as much fun as anyone at the show.\u00a0 Well, maybe not as much fun as the guys of Ghoul themselves.<\/p>\n

Ghoul Set List:<\/strong>
\n1. The Lunatic Hour
\n2. Off With Their Heads
\n3. Splatterthrash
\n4. The Mark of Voodoo
\n5. Brain Jerk
\n6. Bury the Hatchet
\n7. Blood Feast
\n8. Death in the Swamp
\n9. Graveyard Mosh\/Ghoul
\n10. Rise Killbot Rise!!!
\n11. Destructor
\n12. Gutbucket Blues
\nEncore
\n13. As Your Casket Closes<\/p>\n

Overall Gig Rating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Related: Dr. Know interview<\/a> | Mentors interview<\/a> | Witchaven interview<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elena Whidden October 12th 2012, The Key Club, Hollywood CA: The Key Club was decked out in Halloween decorations the night Ghoul stormed through on a headlining date, an appropriate backdrop for a night of that band\u2019s gleefully brutal blend of thrash, death metal, and grindcore\u2014the title of their song \u201cSplatterthrash\u201d describes it pretty … <\/p>\n

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