Some days.....not as bad....

So,

Tonight, I did a very cathartic thing. I went to a crust/metal house show. Sadly, due to the "holiday" and the weather, it was not nearly as well attended as it should have been. It was the send off show for John's band Aghast, before they go on a west coast tour, and as usual, they had it set up right. I, sadly, don't remember the name of the first band, but they were heavy, retro hxc. They were young, and did a good job, but there was almost no one there at that time. Next Aghast played, and their new lineup (they lost their singer, and just decided to go with it) is really, really tight. Shravan does a great job taking on the responsibilities of vocals and guitar, and with one less band member to deal with, they just killed it. I always think they put on a great show, but this was the best one yet. They are going to destroy this tour. Anywho, when I came down for the next band, I thought maybe I was going to get a portal tribute show, as three guys donned with hoods prepared to let fly. As it turns out, this was Midnight, a band I literally knew nothing about (though Nuclear War Now put out their album, so it must be good). As it turned out this was some killer souther rock infused thrash hate metal, and damn was it good. Before I knew it, my hat was off and my hair was bangin'. Lucifer, did I need to let loose some.....Midnight played for a while, but it was consistently an amazing set. Finally, Atakke, who I must admit, I have heard a lot about, but never actually listened to or seen, took the stage (or basement floor I suppose). I knew it was going to be good when one of the guys had a Possessed shirt on. And fuck christ it was. It was a relentless onslaught of D-beat-ish, blazing, pissed as hell metal. They were very tight, and had great chops all around (and apparently their real drummer had to deal with a family emergency so one of their guitar players took up that duty for this show). At this point I was loosing so much hate and frustration that when they hit the cover of Police Bastard I accidentally found myself punching holes in their low setting ceiling (I stopped doing that as soon as I realized, by the way....). I don't know about the guys from Deathammer (who just showed up), but I will be sporting a bang over tomorrow). I must have looked like someone being electrocuted while having a seizure. And, of course, afterward I hung out with drunk punx so wasted you couldn't pay for that kind of funny....It was a great effing night all-in-all, and I absolutely needed it (as I write this in fact, I am listening to the Portal Outra album, and the Drowned LP re-release........hail fucking metal)


Midnight:

(Literally the only photo I could find online....)