Xephyr's Concert Thread
Took the opportunity to head to Philly to see Tomb Mold and Horrendous with opener Witching, the first two having some of my favorite albums of recent years with Idols and Ontological Mysterium for Horrendous, and Planetary Clairvoyance plus The Enduring Spirit for Tomb Mold. Witching was a decent opener but the venue production didn't do them any favors, although the vocalist kinda killed it since she had some serious range to go lower with the growl/different style of cleans. Cool band that seemingly played every extreme metal genre all at once.
Horrendous were the main reason I went, especially since they're Philly locals, and hearing one of my favorite albums from last year live was obviously very cool. Again, this wasn't the venue for nuanced Progressive/Technical Death Metal, but the earplugs I eventually put in honestly helped out the sound balance. They're all fantastic musicians but their bassist is especially insane. You could tell they loved playing their shit together, which is half the battle of live shows; being genuine. Got tossed around the most during this set and picked the wrong 'fight' with some older guy easily 50 pounds above me, went at him when he ducked his shoulder and I got flung backwards, ribs around my chest are still giving me some pain here and there.
Tomb Mold were the headliner and they also delivered a great set, not as bombastic of a stage presence as Horrendous but they came out and did their thing. Mostly new stuff off of The Enduring Spirit so there were some breaks of just listening to some progressive noodling, which was very nice amidst all the Death Metal. Biggest thing I learned is that apparently Tomb Mold's vocalist is their drummer, which is wild to me. Guy absolutely killed it on both fronts, what he's playing ain't easy and I can't imagine doing that while also barking out all those growls. I was out of my weight class in the admittedly small pit, last time I went to this venue it wasn't exactly slammed or aggressive despite all the Brutal Death Metal shirts. Very cool show, just wish that the venue had a bit better sound production but I don't know what else you do in that dungeon of a concert venue. Tickets were dirt cheap too, so I can't complain that much.
Got to see Blood Incantation recently, fantastic show with incredible sound compared to what I'm used to out of this venue. Either the band is very picky with their live setup, or they have a stellar sound guy who goes to bat against the venue sound guys. They legit walked onto the stage, played "The Stargate" in its entirety, got up on the mic and said "Alright here's the rest of the album", played "The Message" in its entirety, and said "Well guys that was our new album I hope you enjoyed it". Absolute legends.
I never realized how much the crowd needs those 30 second or a minute breaks in between songs though, this was the most tired pit I've ever been around. People were STRUGGLING, given they played three 20 minute songs in total I think?
This was easily one of the best, if not the best, technical Metal performances I've seen, the entire album was stellar and the Metal parts hit so much harder live than on the album that it made the conflicting 70's prog vs the tech death metal that much more enjoyable. It's definitely reinforced Absolute Elsewhere as a massive album for me personally, these guys know what they're doing.
