Unintelligent design (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} drtboi) wrote,@ 2006-02-06 12:37:00 |
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surprise fun
I accidentally attended a great (mostly) local show last night. The Golden Bull in downtown Oakland has early shows most sundays. Doors at 6, bands at 7 (more like 7/8 in reality). Booking seems to usually be Alcoholocaust or Pyrate Punx, and the bands playing reflect that. Lots of crusty or hardcorish punk, and the occasional mostly-metal show. Last night was one of those mostly metal lineups, and I went because I thought it'd be a fun bike ride, and because I'd never seen one of the metal bands (Embers of Euphoria). I was tired from a weekend taking advantage of this spring kittenish weather, riding as much as possible, so I almost skipped the show. Glad I didn't.
Embers of Euphoria is a very traditional metal band. Vocals are actually sung, a nearly dead art form (outside of boy-band oriented "metalcore" style bands, but those clean vocals are a whole different trip). EoE's vocalist seemed heavily influenced by Geoff Tate (Queensryche) and Bruce Dickinson (Samson and some other band whose name I forget). And probably Halford, since he is the blueprint for that vocal style. Aside from the traditional vocals, the band is very tight, without a single weak point. That kind of professionalism is pretty rare in nowadays, particularly among small bands without much hope or chance of "making it". Honestly, my favorite style involved pretty poor musicianship - gleefully so, even. But it's still good to see a band that aspires to rise to Metal God status.
The middle band was a punk band from Vancouver - A Textbook Tragedy. A bunch of kids with maybe an average age of 23/24. All of them were jazz-good musicians. They played a math rocky kind of punk/hardcore/metal hybrid. Mostly punk/hardcore, but occasional doomy, thrashy, or even deathy riffs. Lots of time signature changes, funny chords, and, during the last song, some kind of free jazz section thrown into the middle with some pretty spectacular jazz guitar noodling and great, seemingly improvised drumming.
The last up, 100 Suns, is another hybrid (it's hard to find metal/metal-like bands in the SF area that aren't strange hybrids). From what I've heard, they started out more punk/death with doomy bits, and have recently come under the influence of Darkthrone. I've only seen recent sets, so I don't know what the old material is like, but the new stuff is pretty great. They have three guitarists, which is normally not at all a good sign, but the recently added third is important. He ups the metal quotient, and adds some extra darkness to the sound. Though mostly, the three guitars just add up to even more smashingness in the doom and death parts. The three vocalists - one shouts, one screams, one growls - work together well. The shout/scream dichotomy is pretty common (from Carcass to Deicide and beyond), and I dig it.
On top of all that, it was a balmy night (for February), and Telegraph was mostly empty as we rode our bikes back home, allowing us to take a whole lane to ourselves. Or maybe we were pissing off everyone behind us. I don't know. It was a nice ride, though.
I accidentally attended a great (mostly) local show last night. The Golden Bull in downtown Oakland has early shows most sundays. Doors at 6, bands at 7 (more like 7/8 in reality). Booking seems to usually be Alcoholocaust or Pyrate Punx, and the bands playing reflect that. Lots of crusty or hardcorish punk, and the occasional mostly-metal show. Last night was one of those mostly metal lineups, and I went because I thought it'd be a fun bike ride, and because I'd never seen one of the metal bands (Embers of Euphoria). I was tired from a weekend taking advantage of this spring kittenish weather, riding as much as possible, so I almost skipped the show. Glad I didn't.
Embers of Euphoria is a very traditional metal band. Vocals are actually sung, a nearly dead art form (outside of boy-band oriented "metalcore" style bands, but those clean vocals are a whole different trip). EoE's vocalist seemed heavily influenced by Geoff Tate (Queensryche) and Bruce Dickinson (Samson and some other band whose name I forget). And probably Halford, since he is the blueprint for that vocal style. Aside from the traditional vocals, the band is very tight, without a single weak point. That kind of professionalism is pretty rare in nowadays, particularly among small bands without much hope or chance of "making it". Honestly, my favorite style involved pretty poor musicianship - gleefully so, even. But it's still good to see a band that aspires to rise to Metal God status.
The middle band was a punk band from Vancouver - A Textbook Tragedy. A bunch of kids with maybe an average age of 23/24. All of them were jazz-good musicians. They played a math rocky kind of punk/hardcore/metal hybrid. Mostly punk/hardcore, but occasional doomy, thrashy, or even deathy riffs. Lots of time signature changes, funny chords, and, during the last song, some kind of free jazz section thrown into the middle with some pretty spectacular jazz guitar noodling and great, seemingly improvised drumming.
The last up, 100 Suns, is another hybrid (it's hard to find metal/metal-like bands in the SF area that aren't strange hybrids). From what I've heard, they started out more punk/death with doomy bits, and have recently come under the influence of Darkthrone. I've only seen recent sets, so I don't know what the old material is like, but the new stuff is pretty great. They have three guitarists, which is normally not at all a good sign, but the recently added third is important. He ups the metal quotient, and adds some extra darkness to the sound. Though mostly, the three guitars just add up to even more smashingness in the doom and death parts. The three vocalists - one shouts, one screams, one growls - work together well. The shout/scream dichotomy is pretty common (from Carcass to Deicide and beyond), and I dig it.
On top of all that, it was a balmy night (for February), and Telegraph was mostly empty as we rode our bikes back home, allowing us to take a whole lane to ourselves. Or maybe we were pissing off everyone behind us. I don't know. It was a nice ride, though.
