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The Melvins/Isis/Totimoshi at Webster Hall
I’ve been looking forward to seeing the Melvins and Isis in New York for months, especially once I found out Isis was breaking up and it would almost definitely be my last and only chance to see them ever, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing the Melvins perform for years. Last night, shit finally went down.
If you’re not familiar with these groups, just know that they’re two of the most legitimate heavy groups ever. As soon as I walked in, I started seeing heavy metal shirts, and I wondered how many I would have to recognize before I passed the limit of cool and went into nerd territory. I don’t know what that threshold is, but I definitely passed it after the tenth Baroness shirt I noticed from about twenty feet away. If you follow me on Twitter, you will have noticed several tweets from this show, which you’ll find updated versions of here. Sorry about the self-advertisements, but since the total number of times I’ll have made this joke now is about to skyrocket, I figured I needed to disclose everything in order to be honest with you and myself.
Normally, I’d feel like a hack about making fun of metal fans for loving Cheetos, funyons, and Dungeons and Dragons, but when the headlining guitarist looks like an anime character and the bassist dresses like fucking Aragorn, not to mention the Legion of Doom behind the dual drum sets, there’s not really that much of a choice, is there?
Anyway, here’s how the show went down. First, the opener, Totimoshi performed. They were a solid stoner metal group but … nothing really interesting happened. In general, I’d say they were a tight act, but then again, some parts of the performance were a bit muddy, so I’m not really sure what to think. Did I hear an accurate representation of the group, or not? It’s hard to say. Definitely some riffs and potential for heavy power, but I don’t know. Something seemed … missing.
After Totimoshi, the Melvins hit the stage! I was expecting Isis to be next, as they were always billed as the support act, and, honestly, the Melvins are just more important. But, I’m guessing the groups are alternating for the stint they’re doing together, which I guess makes sense, especially since, as mentioned before, Isis is breaking up. For an hour and ten minutes, the Melvins fucking jammed. They hit my favorite cuts from their two most recent records, and sampled from all over their back catalog. In general, I think having two drummers doing more or less the same thing is a dumb idea, but the Melvins knocked that idea right out of my head. Even after the immediate cool-factor of them performing these complex pieces in mirror image of each other, one being a lefty and one being a righty, they both add their own unique punch to the ensemble. Both sonically and visually, it’s a nasty combination, and I feel everyone in the room is a better person for having witnessed the performance. I could go on and on about how amazing the Melvins played last night, but why do that when I can complain?
Once the Melvins finished up their set, Isis took the stage. I was looking forward to some heavy sludge, and I was … really disappointed. I don’t blame the group for this whatsoever; the past two weeks I’ve spent listening to their discography in preparation for this gig have reminded me that these dudes know how to play. The issue, really, was the mixing. Whoever was running sound last night really seemed concerned only with one thing: the bass drum. Now, I feel I would be one of the last people to complain about drums being too loud, having spent the last seven or eight months playing drums and being told to quiet down, but goddamn, I thought my skull was going to cave in every time the kick drum sounded. And, if you know anything about Isis, you know that’s a frequent sound. Maybe I was a bit too rocked out from the Melvins, but I honestly think that this was horrible sound engineering, and, I’m sad to report that I left after ten or fifteen minutes of unfortunate sound. What the hell, Webster Hall?
In all, I’m still more than glad I saw the show; the Melvins rocked the fucking universe. Too bad Isis, on what may have been their second to last performance in New York, wasn’t given the same opportunity.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Shining - 21st Century Schizoid Man
Blackjazz (Indie Recordings)
Imagine a collaboration between early King Crimson, Graveland, and Peter Brotzmann. Sounds fucking amazing, right? Well, listen to Shining’s Blackjazz and be amazed.
The guitars move from droning chords to wailing tremolo leads, the drums are thudding and tremendous, the vocals are screaming and intense in the industrial-metal style, with none of the hilarious heavy-metal growlings a la Deth-klok that you find so much in metal. And the saxophone… yeah, there’s sax. And it’s fucking great, in full free-jazz style, reminiscent of Mats Gustafsson or Ian McDonald.
Right from track one, “The Madness and the Damage Done,” Blackjazz is overflowing with power and energy. Their cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” is the only one I’ve ever heard which rivals the original in aggression, intensity, and musicianship. And I can easily imagine zombies rising from the grave and slowly consuming the town before ripping me to pieces to the song “Omen.” Those tracks, along with the sax face-melter “Healter Skelter,” stand out, but I think the whole album is fantastic.
The record drops on January 25th, and that’s when you should get it.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Eyal Maoz’s Edom - Somewhere
Hope and Destruction (Tzadik)
Edom is made up of Eyal Maoz on guitar, John Medeski on organs (you know, that Medeski), Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on bass, and Ben Perowsky on drums. They’ve got another album from 2005, but I’m not yet hip to it; this one’s intrigued me enough such that that won’t be the case for long. Hope and Destruction is a blending of psychedelic rock, prog metal, and ethnic music, and it works really well. The album as a whole is pretty excellent, but I should say there are a few less than stellar tracks. Perhaps it’s just my sensibility, but as things move along, there are a couple of tracks that are just, well… dull. But the star tracks are much more numerous, and they more than make up for some that, while not bad, just don’t really do it for me. The first track, “Somewhere,” is definitely an excellent entry-point, reminiscent of maybe Melvins or Racebannon-type sludge metal. Another cut, “Tsi,” is a heavy, acid-fuzz monster, and is a particular high point on the record, I think. “Messenger” has some cool techno/house music things going on, which is something I would normally be hesitant to even admit exists. Throughout the record, you can hear heavy influences of different ethnic music as well, including some klezmer-clarinet somewhere deep in there.
Like I said, there are low points. ”Slight Sun” just makes me feel like I should be watching some sort of monster mash, or maybe a creature jamboree. It has a sort of novelty-Halloween-song feel to it that I can’t really see myself ever getting into. But they’re few and far between.
