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Witnessed

At the Gates, Darkest Hour, Municipal Waste, Toxic Holocaust, 2008-07-21

04/08/08  ||  Global Domination

This review was written by ex-staffer/cocksmoker Seker.

Where: Denver, Colorado.
When: Twenty-first of July, ‘08.
Venue: Cervantes.
Why: At the Gates reunited or something. I think they were kinda important at some point.
Country: Take a wild fucking guess.

Intro: So, uh, At the Gates. Yeah. Good band, I guess. Apparently a lot of other people thought so as well, because Cervantes was pretty packed, and I think the show sold out. Didn’t bother me none, seeing as I pre-ordered my ticket back in March through the POWER of the INTERNET as invented by Al Gore.

We had a barbeque before the show with lots of meat and watermelon and Citrus Drop (Are you poppin’ the drop?) and AIDS, which was pretty cool, even though it was really hot outside, so I guess it wasn’t that cool. Anyway, it was like At the Steaks or something. Get it? ‘cause, steaks rhymes with gates, and you eat steaks at a barbecue, and we were going to go see At the Gates… see, look what Municipal Waste does to you. One run-through of “Abusement Park” and you spend the rest of the week making bad puns.

Toxic Holocaust: I think we spent at least an hour sitting outside of the venue, and then another hour standing around inside. Fucking Cervantes. They played really shitty music over the speakers as well; I don’t know what it was, but it sucked. Eventually, the guitarist, front man, and mastermind of Toxic Holocaust wandered on stage and tuned up his guitar right then and there. There was no mistaking this guy; he looks like something out of the 80s, and I mean that in a good way. Pretty much everyone in the band was wearing a Venom shirt from what I can remember, which went along well with their music. Have you heard Sodom? Have you heard Venom? Have you heard Nuclear Assault? It sounded like all of that mixed together, but with a bit of a second-wave black metal thing going on as well. Pretty cool stuff, even if it’s not terribly original. The songs weren’t particularly varied, and they all sounded pretty much the same during the fast parts (read: most of the time), but the various thrash breaks managed to distinguish themselves nicely and were the best part of the show. There was also a pretty cool melodic section in one of the songs, and all of “Wild Dogs” was pretty spectacular. Overall, it was a high-energy performance, and I’d have to say Toxic Holocaust is one of the few neo-retro-thrash bands I respect. Also, the drums were really fucking loud, and they drowned out the guitars a bit. Oh wait, every concert ever is like that, never mind. 6/10

Municipal Waste: Holy goddamn shit, Municipal Waste is awesome! I had written these guys off as another retro-fetish deal like Skeletonwitch, and I have to admit I was completely wrong. I’m sorry if I confused anyone. Far from being a band content to repeat the past and pose in denim vests, Municipal Waste are helping to bring thrash into the new millennium. By thrash, I mean THRAAASH, not speed metal or thrash metal or whatever the fuck you want to call it (though they do have a bit of a speed metal thing going on at times). Thrash is two-minute long songs that stalk the wilderness between really extreme hardcore and 80s metal. D.R.I.? Thrash. Metallica? No, that’s thrash metal , not thrash. Slayer? Well, that’s toeing the line a bit, seeing as “South of Heaven” was pretty much classic heavy metal and “Reign in Blood” was practically a hardcore album. Whatever, Cryptic Slaughter is thrash, Wehrmacht is thrash, Nuclear Assault is thrash, and Municipal Waste is 100% bona fide alcohol-soaked THrash with a capital TH.

So, how exactly are the Waste bringing thrash into the Age of Horus? Well, I’d compare them to Absu in that they play some decidedly retro-flavored material that is still cognizant of fairly recent developments in metal (second-wave black metal in Absu’s case, death metal and melodic death metal in the Waste’s) and manages to be pretty original through unique riffing styles and intelligent songwriting. I can hear as much of “Terminal Spirit Disease” as I can of “Morbid Tales” and “Killers” in your average Municipal Waste riff, and they pull off what should be a rather unsteady fusion beautifully. They keep things thrashy without discrediting any of the other styles that run through their angular riff-based bludgeoning, and for that, I think they deserve the label of “timeless”. It takes a very special band to exist in three decades at once.

Also, Municipal Waste completely stole the show from At the Gates. Sounds utterly blasphemous, but it’s completely true: I don’t think I’ve ever been to a more high-energy concert. Tony is an engaging, active, and absolutely hilarious front man, introducing songs with gems like “This is a song about a fuckin’ shark” and “This cover is dedicated to all the posers out there who don’t know what it is” and inciting circle pits like a thrash version of George Patton. Also, he appears to have some sort of vendetta against jocks and pit ninjas, which makes him an all-around okay guy in my book. “How are we supposed to fight ninjas? They’re too fast!” Fucking brilliant.

Ryan Waste and Land Phil did their share of the vocals very nicely as well, with their more gruff approach playing off of Tony’s Kurt Brecht impression perfectly. Also, gang shouts, motherfucker. The guitar and the bass were both equally audible and vicious sounding, which was a very good thing (one of the more distinctive features of thrash is the dynamic interplay between bass and guitar). Dave Witte absolutely murdered his kit, as would be expected (dude’s in Discordance Axis, for fuck’s sake). Like I said, best show I’ve ever seen, and if you don’t like Municipal Waste, you’re fucken dumb. 9.5/10

Darkest Hour: Well, after the Waste’s set, I went and bought all of their albums, as well as a shirt, which was surprisingly inexpensive. At the Gates was selling shirts for like twenty-five dollars, Municipal Waste was doing it for twelve. Haha, what the fuck? That’s some serious bullshit (I still bought an At the Gates shirt, though).

Anyway, Darkest Hour sucks and I don’t know why anyone likes them. They must have slipped the lighting guy a twenty, because they had all kinds of fog and strobe effects. I think they were trying to cover up how much they suck. Does anyone actually like metalcore anymore? I like how the bassist would run up in front and pull faces while the shredding guitarist stayed in the shadows and soloed. What in the FUCK? Everyone always had their mouths open in the stereotypical “metal” face, probably because they’re fucking mouth-breathing metalcore idiots. I hate hate HATE Darkest Hour, but at least they managed to give me a break after Municipal Waste nearly gave me a… bangover. 3/10

Also, every fat chick in the venue decided to take a shit at this point, and we were nearly ran over in the stampede. We weren’t even that close to the shitter. Here’s a brilliant idea: try taking a shit BEFORE the show. I give that lovely experience a 0/10

At der Gates:

Darkest Hour’s interminable set eventually ended, thank fucking metal Jesus. Also, the Earth’s entire population decided to stop running back and forth between the bathroom for whatever reason, which was kind of nice. Did I mention the whole At the Gates thing yet? Yeah, this was the reason we were all here (apart from that giant fucking dude in the D.R.I. shirt, of course).

At the Gates didn’t really disappoint, though the sound system bizarrely reverted back to shitty mode as song as they came on. Anders’ guitar was about twice as loud as Martin’s, the bass was all WOOB-WOOB-JUGJUG (if you’ve ever seen Nile live, you know what I mean), and the drums… well, the drums sounded okay. Tompa sounded as good as ever (he’s never been out of practice), though sometimes it was hard to hear him over the various idiots screaming the lyrics over him. Man, no one in the entire venue could scream for shit! It reminded me of that time I saw Opeth and this one short-haired douche tried to growl “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr… ghost of perditioooonnn” and failed so completely that I unhinged my jaw like a snake and swallowed him whole, or at least I would have if I cared about Opeth at all (I was just there to see Dark Tranquillity, thank you very much). The moral of the story is: save that shit for the Blind Guardian and Rhapsody concerts or I will revert to a cannibalistic state, and no one wants to see that.

Song selection was what you’d expect: all of “Slaughter”, pretty much all of the original songs on “Terminal Spirit Disease” a few selections from the first two albums, and “All Life Ends” (they always played that back in the day, you dig. Man, “All Life Ends” sounds fucking evil in concert; I think I saw a few of the Christian straight-edgers disintegrate half-way through it. It was rather humorous to see all these bone-headed hardcore kids try to figure out when “Kingdom Gone” was gonna end; I guess anything with more than three riffs confuses them beyond the point of no return. Yeah, I’m a metal snob, fuck off. This wasn’t a Throwdown show, you cocks.

For some inconceivably esoteric reason, everybody decided to take another shit halfway through At the Gates set. God, I hate people. It was sorta funny to see some bloated gas bags get knocked down by a circle pit, though it smelled like feces all over. Maybe some took a shit on the floor, or maybe it’s just that there’s no smoke smell to cover up to odor of sweaty men and shit-laden pants anymore. Good going, you moonbat sissies. Fuck that audacity of hope, fuck “change”, and fuck your mother. I hope you all die.

At the Gates was great though, despite all of these set backs. They opened up with “Slaughter of the Soul”, made all of the idiots in the venue cry when they left without playing “Blinded by Fear”, came back for an encore of “Blinded by Fear”, “Suicide Nation”, and “Kingdom Fucking Gone”. Gee, I didn’t see that one coming! At the Gates’ sheer musicianship is undeniable, enough to overpower that idiot in the Scream mask who was jumping around with a lighter in the moshpit. Wait, that guy was awesome, never mind. Tomas is one helluva front man, as one would expect. The dude screams his lungs out, moves all over the stage, and isn’t entirely averse to drunken idiots stage-diving or running up and singing with him. The Björler’s look so alike that the only way you can tell them apart is by looking at the tuning pegs on their axes, and they both know how to shred without looking like a bunch of Yngwie-impersonating douches. Martin stalked the opposite side of the stage with non-divine fury, delivering riff cascades onto a crowd that just didn’t quite get it. And Adrian? Dude is a fucking drumbeast, everyone knows that. Like I said before, the drums actually sounded okay, and Mr. Erlandsson used that sorta-okay sound to the fullest, unleashing a barrage of thrash and fills, as well as nailing the more delicate parts inherent to At the Gates multi-faceted sound perfectly. If the overall sound hadn’t been sound fucked, I’d give these guys a 9, but as it stands, the poorly-done guitar mixing drops them to an 8. Still, it was At the fucking Gates, and if that isn’t awesome, I don’t know what is… oh wait, yeah I do! Municipal Waste, duh. Martin was even sporting a Municipal Waste shirt. A passing of the torch, perhaps.

All in all, it was a pretty decent show, though I’d to give every citizen of Denver and Colorado in general a 0 for not being able to hold it until the show was over. Seriously, back when my family went on road trips, you got to go to the bathroom twice: when we left and when we got there. Not only are we raising a nation of wimps, we’re raising a nation of wimps with wimpy bladders.

Witnessed