Legacy Tour: A Little Overdue

So last Tuesday was when the Legacy Tour arrived on the scene in Montreal and me and the boys humped it, 5 dudes cramped in a tiny Toyota, for what was to be quite the interesting evening.

Prior to this trip, I'd never seen a show down at La Tulipe. The venue itself isn't bad, average size, average acoustics - hell, pretty plain average, but decent. The one problem is with their advertisement of upcoming shows and a bit of a SNAFU on the part of the tour organizers.

The Legacy Tour was comprised of Darkest Hour celebrating their 15th anniversary as a band, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation. This lineup in itself justified the quick drive down to get our faces melted and heads Djented off.

Remember I mentioned advertising? There's a reason. Apparently the Legacy Tour was, for one day only (I'm assuming) merging with another tour passing through the city and instead became Extensive Fest. This fact brought in some pleasant surprises and some disappointments.

The other tour which merged with the Legacy tour ended up featuring The Acacia Strain, Terror, The Red Chord, Gaza and The Contortionist. Altogether a pretty diverse and strong lineup, with some good performances from all of the headliners and co-headliners.

The problem is when you put this many bands together, you get short sets - and when transitions sometimes don't go as planned, even shorter sets.

This was probably my biggest gripe, as my friends and myself included came down to see four bands and not nine. While that might not sound like a let down (dude, you get MOAR!), the fact remained that the majority of my friends were primarily focused on getting in some quality performances from those four groups.

Prime focus however, were some sick Djentings from Periphery. While we did get some, their set was cut to an abysmally short 20 to 25 minutes, which was probably the low point of the night. Periphery ended up getting yanked from the stage before they could really get a great groove on - and before they could let loose the new version of Frak The Gods which should be appearing on their forthcoming EP.

The trade-off however was that we got to hang out and talk with Misha Mansoor and the other band members in between sets and outside the venue. And got to confirm his lineage and place of origin - grats to me and Luc on totally calling that.

Second gripe? Hardcore Dancers. People can argue it's part of the experience, but only to an extent. When 8-12 guys are occupying 75% of the show floor so they can grab for falling coins and flail around like someone with epilepsy on speed, there's a problem.

I've got no problem with getting a little banged up when you mosh or do a circle pit, that's part of the experience. Getting kicked in the shins, elbowed in the ribs and kidney punched by douchebags who need to take the stickers off of their NY Yankee caps, that's not what I call collateral damage - it's what I would call a death wish if I see you lolly-gagging during some gnarly pit movements.

Worst moment goes to Wannabe Dallas Green who dove from above the show floor, into the back of the crowd - yeah, from behind - and knocked over a few people and kicked me in the back of the head. I hope you trip and fall into a vat of piranhas.

Douchebags aside, the rest show was pretty decent, and the rest of the bands we intended to see did not disappoint.

Revocation played a short set early into the evening and despite my prior lack of knowledge of most of their material, still managed to provide a good tone for the rest of the evening.

Once again, Veil of Maya brought on the hurt with their brutal breakdowns and powerful presence. I've said it before that these guys are an easy show stealer on almost any tour, but I would easily place them near the top of my list as being one of the best bands to see live.

Show-stealers or not, the night belonged to Darkest Hour.

It was somewhat sad that nearly half of the venue cleared out when they hit the stage - 90% of the hardcore dancers and scene kids left, leaving a somewhat vacant show floor. But it was all for the better, as you didn't have to constantly keep your eye out for any potential bullshit and focus on enjoying the show.

Darkest Hour played through songs from their entire catalog in celebration of their 15 years as a band and it provided a fair bit of nostalgia, as they're a band I've been pretty familiar with for the past decade.

The highest point of their set was when they pulled out and setup the two acoustic guitars for Veritas Aequitas and played a magnificent extended version of their instrumental classic. They also played my personal favorite track, Demon(s) near the end of their set, which definitely made the prior disappointments of the evening just disappear.

At least until the next morning when I woke up pretty sore, to go into a 12 hour day of class after only four hours of sleep. But as always, no rest for the wicked.

And now for a public service announcement:

Remember, if you see a Hardcore Dancer, show him proper venue and moshing etiquette. If he doesn't listen, kick him into a circle pit - he'll learn eventually.

- J

Tour de Force: The Legacy Tour

November has been a pretty sub-par month so far - in fact I've started referring to it as Suckvember, because it's been pretty much one sucktastic event of suckitude after another for the past two weeks.

I forecasted about 3 good days throughout the entire month. So far there's been about one day and a half, cumulative in the first half of the month. But I do know when the next full day - and probably the only full day of awesome will be and that's next Tuesday.

Luckily for me Suckvember will take a break from sucking ass on November 16th when me and the boys head down to Montreal for what I'm already declaring the show of the year. That show being The Legacy Tour featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation.

I've never seen Darkest Hour live, but I've been a longtime fan of their music. DH is headlinging the Legacy Tour as it is celebrating their 15th anniversary as a band, and they've chosen a great set of traveling minstrels to accompany them on this late Fall tour.

I discovered Veil of Maya nearly two years ago and have been a huge fan of hem ever since. The Legacy Tour will be the second time I see them in the past year, as the same group I'll be traveling with on Tuesday caught them at the the Summer Slaughter Tour, which I shortly chronicled this past August. They definitely stole the show for me on that occasion and I expect nothing less than an awesome performance from them, especially considering the great company they'll be sharing the stage with.

Periphery is one of the first bands to launch me and other friends of mine into what I'll simply refer to as: the Djent-plosion.

I was actually lucky enough to catch them when they were in Ottawa last Spring, at a show that a friends local band (Rising City States) was opening at, along with another of my local favorite groups, Structures. Needless to say I'm excited at the fact that I'll get to see them again, but twice within such a short span is doubly awesome. This time I'll definitely prepared for Misha Mansoor's antics and the djentings that will ensue.

Revocation is the one group of the mix that I'm the least familiar with, but from what I've heard they should be a solid opener for an evening full of destructive breakdowns, djentings of doom and uber-melodic riffage.

You can check out all of the aforementioned bands on their MySpace pages, which you'll find linkage for below: 

Darkest Hour - http://www.myspace.com/darkesthour
Veil of Maya - http://www.myspace.com/veilofmaya
Periphery - http://www.myspace.com/periphery
Revocation - http://www.myspace.com/revocation

So bust out your party hats Ladies and Djentlemen, the Legacy Tour officially kicks off tonight in Worcester, Massachusetts and will be in Montreal in just 4 (hopefully) short days.

Suckvember, prepare to be annihilated - at least temporarily, which is fucking good enough for me, cause you're seriously cramping my style.

- J

Blast From the Past: Gojira

In between discovering new music and listening to my most recent favorites, I often find myself going back in time and pulling out an album or an entire discography of a band and re-immersing myself in the sounds of my past - so to speak. Think of it like hearing a song on the radio from about 10 years ago and just getting hit with a bit of nostalgia, same principle.

Well two weeks ago I was flipping through my iPod at the time and laughing about how lately I've found myself falling on bands between the letters A to D or H and beyond. One of the primary reasons is the ID tags on some of my mp3's, in particular my Dropkick Murphy's albums are just plain awful and have spawned about 12 different versions in the library, so I have the tendency to skip ahead most times.

That was until I was rolling through and a band name caught my eye: Gojira. Time pretty much stopped right then as I rolled back up the list to make sure my eyes hadn't deceived me and surely enough they didn't.

While the word Gojira is the literal name for the iconic Japanese monster better known as Godzilla, the Gojira I'm referring to is most definitely the metal outfit from Bayonne, France.

Gojira is a band I used to listen to a fucking lot back in the day, between high school and my first year at university. I'd often listen to them, with a mix of many other groups during certain specific instances, of ridiculously shameful time wasting that I will not bother mentioning.

That being said I plunged back into their albums and remembered why they were one of my favorite metal bands of old. So it was really funny when one of my friends claimed I had ESP and showed me the following link: http://www.metalinjection.net/upcoming-releases/gojira-record-ep-week.

Needless to say the news piqued my interested and got me excited for yet another future release. Gojira's last release was the album The Way of All Flesh in 2008, so the prospect of new material is awesome.

Gojira uses Progressive and more or less uncommon song structures, and with them blends a range of styles together, including Thrash, Death Metal and Groove Metal, culminating in some truly original and awesome pieces of music.

Their entire collection provides great examples of the range of styles that make up their musical repertoire, so fans of any of the above genres who have never listened to Gojira should definitely give them a listen.

Gojira has toured most recently with Lamb of God, in support of Metallica on their North American tour last Fall.

You can check out Gojira by visiting their offical website at http://www.gojira-music.com/ or their myspace at http://www.myspace.com/gojira.

And per usual here's a bit of a parting gift, with some classic Gojira with the tracks 04 and Blow Me Away You(niverse) from their debut album Terra Incognita, released in 2001.

Movember: It's A Shame to Waste A Good Beard

About two weeks ago I made a post about Movember coming up and how I would be participating, and convincing other bro's to don the Moustache.

Well today is Halloween, which means that tomorrow a new month is beginning, a month which according to this weekend will be greeted with cold weather, snow and beardless bro's.

For the first time I five years I am now 100% beardless. And for you fine folks I've taken the liberty of taking some photos of my mug with my previous gen crap-phone, however I expect some people I know might try to take actual decent looking pics of me, since according to someone this is a milestone moment. But I'll leave that up to them, after all I'm not very photogenic, with only a handful of pictures of me in the past 5 years, literally.

Damn you Mother Nature.

It also has to be some kind of bad mojo, that or Mother Nature has a grudge against me, for it to fucking snow on the weekend I get rid of my beard, because now I have no facial protection from bursts of wintery goodness.

In the past two weeks I've also managed to convince a handful of my friends to join in on the cause and support the face of Men's Health by shaving down (if necessary) and preparing to rock the moustache for the month of Movember.

So here's to the next 30 days. Fear not friends, the beard will be back, with a vengeance.

And of course, as I've previously mentioned, you can learn more about Movember by visiting the official Movember Canada website at http://ca.movember.com/.

P.S. A Movember bro without a Mo is not a true bro.

- J

Dimmu Borgir: Review

And finally Review number 3/3 of Review Round-up Edition One.

Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra

Grade: 4.0 - Putting the emphasis on Symphonic
Label: Nuclear Blast
Genre: Symphonic Black Metal
Release Date: October 12, 2010
Site(s): http://site.dimmu-borgir.com/ | http://www.myspace.com/dimmuborgir

High Points: High budget, high quality orchestrations.
Low Point: Beyond ridiculous wardrobe choices and no Simen (Vortex) backing vocals.

Shagrath and Silenoz, the two mainstay and remaining original members of Dimmu Borgir have returned, once again with Galder (Old Man's Child) in tow for they're first album release in three years. Abrahadabra is also the first album released by the band since the departure of former bassist and clean vocalist Simen Hestnæs (ICS Vortex).

To give a bit of historical perspective, Dimmu Borgir has been recording albums since the early 90's and Abrahadabra is in fact their ninth studio album. Despite always being a Symphonic Black Metal band, this album also represents the greatest leap forward that the band has made in years, if you take the symphonic aspect into focus. Shagrath has indicated that the choice of using a single word title for the album, rather than their previous standard of three word titles, was a decision used to emphasize the changes they have gone through and a step towards the future.

I used to listen to Dimmu Borgir in high school and was familiar enough with their last three releases, however many have been quick to judge that those three albums showed little growth within the band, in between each as a whole, despite being overall solid pieces of work.

Dimmu Borgir's former keyboardist, Mustis, left the group a year ago alongside Vortex. He claims his main reason for leaving the group was because he did not receive the credit he deserved, since he claimed to have written all the music in the group. Whether you actually believe that claim or not is one thing, but if you compare their last three releases (Puritannical Euprhoric Misanthropia, Death Cult Armageddon and In Sorte Diaboli) versus Abrahadabra, you can definitely see many differences. But these are all for the better.

Why? Despite former orchestrations sounding pretty well done, Dimmu Borgir has hired a professional orchestra and choir to record the orchestral sections of their album, a member tally nearing 100 members in total. This fact, which may seem like a moot point to some - they are after all Symphonic metal - is really what makes or breaks this album. And I can tell you, it definitely makes it.

The orchestrations and vocals throughout the album are for lack of a better word, stellar. Songs like Gateways, Dimmu Borgir, and Endings and Continuations truly shine in that regard. Galder's riffage is also kicking ass and taking names, per usual, as he does often with Old Man's Child.

So what's not so great? People used to the old school style of Dimmu Borgir will be, a bit surprised with the changes, especially if your favorite Dimmu happens to be very early in their career. Vocally the album sounds like the Dimmu of old, with Shagrath at the helm, however any real fan can tell you it's missing the clean vocals of Vortex, which would truly put it one notch higher. No criticism to the clean vocals on the album however, the female clean vocals on Gateway in particular are extremely well done.

Dimmu Borgir will be beginning their North American tour on November 5th with Enslaved, Blood Red Throne and Dawn of Ashes. For the locals, the tour will be passing through Toronto and Montreal on December 12th and 13th respectively.

- J

Bring Me the Horizon: Review

Bring Me the Horizon - There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It, There Is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret

Grade: 3.5 - Putting the emphasis on Symphonic
Label: Nuclear Blast
Genre: Symphonic Black Metal
Release Date: October 4, 2010
Site(s): http://www.myspace.com/bmth

High Points: Big musical improvement, LIGHTS providing guest clean vocals.
Low Point: Oliver Sykes is still really annoying.

Bring Me the Horizon recently released their third album and once again, their sound has changed, quite a bit.

Their first album, Count Your Blessings, was by all accounts a bread and butter Deathcore album and nothing to special. Their sophomore album, Suicide Season, saw a change to a more straight Metalcore sound and approach, with a larger and improved focus on meaty riffs and chunky breakdowns.

Their newest release, which I'll just refer to as Heaven and Hell, follows suit with their change of pace but kicks it up a notch musically. This album has a weird personality, to put it plainly. Songs which make you want to get up and break something often find themselves being followed by ones which are very melodic and at times 'mellow', in a partial sense. The easiest example I can give is the difference in between the tracks Fuck and Don't Go, the latter featuring guest vocals by LIGHTS, which honestly surprised the crap out of me - in a good way, she has a stellar voice, plus she's Canadian.

Bring Me the Horizon chose the song It Never Ends to be their first single, releasing a video for the song as well, a couple weeks prior to the album's release. Listen to a couple tracks from Suicide Season and then listen to this song and you'll see what I'm talking about when I mention musical progression. But don't take this negatively, the musical progression of the band is huge and I actually enjoy the majority of the album quite a bit.

So if you actually really kinda like this album, why the 3.5 and not a 4.0? Well, this is where I'll be blunt and honest, although I pointed it out at the beginning of the review: Oliver Sykes annoys the crap out of me, 85% of the time. I've heard vocals from a wide range of vocalists and in every genre known in the Milky Way, but there's just something about Oliver that, well, nails on chalk board - not all the time, but it's a deal breaker at times.

If you've never listened to BMTH before, I would suggest you check out a few of their older tracks, such as Chelsea Smile and The Comedown and then venture into this record.

Or you can throw that suggestion aside and listen to this record first, since it definitely is their best.

Bring Me the Horizon is headlining this Fall's AP Tour alongside August Burns Red and will be in Toronto and Montreal on November 21st and 22nd respectively. I would definitely go to that show purely to see ABR, but with this amount of musical improvement, I'd now consider seeing BMTH as being a decent bonus.

- J

Conducting From the Grave: Review

Conducting From the Grave - Revenants

Grade: 4.0 - Another staple in Sumerian's superb stable of bands
Label: Sumerian Records

Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Metalcore
Release Date: October 26, 2010
Site(s): http://www.myspace.com/conductingfromthegrave

High Points: Excellent vocals and the final two-part track.
Low Point: Realizing they're not on tour in Canada.

I first came across Conducting From the Grave when they released their debut album (When Legends Become Dust) through Sumerian Records back in 2009 and needless to say they piqued my interest.

Conducting From the Grave weave elements of melodic death metal, thrash and hardcore together to create, not necessarily a unique metal experience, but rather and most importantly, an enjoyable one. The vocals of Mikey Powell in particular are excellent and flow seamlessly with both the hard charging nature of their tracks, but also with the excellent melodic sections.

The final tracks of the album, What Monsters We Have Become Part 1 & 2 do the greatest justice to this, blending both main elements of their style with a skill that befits them. The breakdown featured in Part 1 and the guitar solo in Part 2 are most definitely, fused together, the highest point of the album, providing a great send off to their sophomore album.

Sumerian is probably my favorite record label at this specific moment in time. Their list of signed bands counts some of the best bands of their respective genres, including names such as: Born of Osiris, Periphery, Veil of Maya, After the Burial and The Faceless. Conducting From the Grave, has now deservedly earned themselves a place amongst them, proving once again just how huge the depth of talent extends into Sumerian's roster.

Conducting From the Grave are on tour in the US, until December, in support of Arsis, alongside another excellent band in Powerglove.

If you're a fan of Sumerian's signed artists, you should do yourself a favor and check them out, post haste. And even if you aren't, you shan't be disappointed.

- J

Review Round-up Edition 1: Music for the Win

It's been a while since I talked about one of my favorite things: Music. Likewise, it's been a while since I've thrown up any info and/or reviews on recent albums that have dropped from the sky.

Well today is the day to remedy that, seeing as how I've had time to fly through some recent material - and some old favorites all at the same time. I'll have more details on my nostalgia moment later in the weekend, in the first installation of what I'll be entitling Blast From the Past.

In the meantime, while I actually write-up these reviews I've been mentioning, I should probably take the time to actually setup some fashion of a rating system. I've only literally reviewed one album previously on the Blaarg and I'm not sure using Brutalisks from Starcraft will serve as useful grading mechanism, except in certain cases.

So for future reference here's how my Reviews will go down, and I even made an example for you fine folks:

E.g.

4.5 Ishmael's

Mastodon - Leviathan

Grade: 4.5 - The quintessential prog metal adaptation of Moby Dick
Label: Relapse
Release Date: August 31, 2004
Site(s): http://www.mastodonrocks.com/ | http://www.myspace.com/mastodon
High Point: All 13m 40s of Hearts Alive.
Low Point: It actually ends.

[Insert Clearly Amazing Review text here]

And here's how the album grading system is going to work:

Jay's Official Album Review Grading System of Doom 

5.0 - Best thing since sliced bread (Perfect)

4.5 - Instant Classic (Excellent)
4.0 - Groovy! (Great)
3.5 - Well Played (Very Good)
3.0 - I Can Dig It (Good)
2.5 - Alright (Average)
2.0 - Meh (Disappointing)
1.5 - Uninspiring (Bad)
1.0 - Are They Even Trying? (Embarrassing)
0.5 - Flaming Heap (Generally Awful)
0.0 - Musical Abortion (Absolute Garbage)

I'll tag the grading system on the side of the blog for easy reference and when I get around to it add a Reviews page, which will catalog any reviews I make appear.

It's like, Magic. OK, time to write these reviews for real.

- J