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Will's Austrailan Gig Reviews


Will

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Figured I'd do this thingy again, but thought that it should probably be it's own thread rather than me clogging up "What's on your mind?" with a bunch of long posts (although it is technically on my mind (if I follow that though pretty much everything belongs in "What's on your mind?" (and then what you have is a group chat, not a forum))).

Yet again, the venue was the Barwon Club, a lot of the stuff I go to is there as it's the closest thing that I have to a local metal venue. Attendance seemed (weirdly, given the comparative popularities of the bands) to be in higher magnitude than that of the Hadal Maw gig, with enough people showing up to warrant  the opening of the bar, but still likely being under 150 people at the apex of the night. These numbers being bolstered a couple of hours in by a tonne of people arriving after Geelong having won down the road, around ten of which came into the band area.

Below are a few thoughts on each band's performance, presented according to the order in which they performed.

 

Nemesium:

Exactly as solid a performance as last time, no need to repeat myself. Sadly for them it seems that these were playing too early to a dead crowd, few having had their first beer at this time in the night. A criticism that I do have, however is that their setlist contained almost entirely unreleased material (a new album, coming soon) with "Annihilation Prophecy" being the sole song that they played off their EP. I cant help but think that I'd have enjoyed it more if I was more acquainted with the songs that they were playing.

A weird bonus was that as I was purchasing one of their shirts, the guy I was buying the from (I believe their vocalist) gave me one of their EP CDs for free (again). As I explained that I already had it (not wanting him to waste it on me), he simply restated that it was a free bonus and gave it to me anyway.

Direblaze:

A good performance overall, this band is retro death/thrash done right, playing was tight yet aggressive with the attitude of the vocals being clearly evident. Strong Slayer influences were clearly viable as they offered the audience a choice of 3 Slayer songs (The Antichrist, Raining Blood and (I think) Metal Storm/Face the Slayer) as a cover, with The Antichrist being chosen. The solos were a little hard to hear for me possibly as the main lead guitarist was also a rhythm guitarist making mixing difficult (one of the few advantages of long pedal chains/splitters or modeling amps) or possibly due to where I was standing. These guys are well suited to their opening for Kreator and Vader early next month.

Blackhelm:

If I had to recommend one of these bands, it would probably be these guys. The atmosphere of their blackened riffing was perfect coupled with the slow, melodic solos clearly cutting through mix was an awesome experience. It's possible that I'm biased though as I was in the front row at the centre for their performance and likely was at the perfect angle for everything.

King:

These guys were generally good in terms of playing, tone and mix (although, I think vocals were a tad quiet at some points), but I have a couple of minor things that annoyed me somewhat. First off, I think they overused backing tracks, in addition to some atmospheric sounds, a couple of acoustic interludes were played by backing tracks which seemed kinda lame to me. Surely, between them they have a friend or something that can play those bits on a clean, reverbed electric guitar if setting up an acoustic is too great a pain in the arse. Also, this may be a thing that only I find weird but when they first stated the show,they had their back to the audience and turned around as the song started (which I thought "sure, cool") but as the song finished, they proceeded to turn around and re-reveal for the next song (repeating this for pretty much every song). I guess both of these things have to do with taste and aesthetics, but I thought they were worth mentioning.

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This is a cool idea. 

Actually, I remember playing a show at the Barwon Club one time and our bass player drove there and back (with me and others in the car). He got a speeding ticket each way from a hidden speed camera. It would have been so annoying, but I was and remain secretly amused about this fact. Am I bad person? 

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57 minutes ago, Requiem said:

This is a cool idea. 

Actually, I remember playing a show at the Barwon Club one time and our bass player drove there and back (with me and others in the car). He got a speeding ticket each way from a hidden speed camera. It would have been so annoying, but I was and remain secretly amused about this fact. Am I bad person? 

Oh cool, someone else in the thread.  All work and no play was beginning to make Will a dull boy.

I think you may have mentioned this story before, but didn't mention that you were in a band. What did/do you play?

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  • 1 month later...

Would have posted this yesterday, but had internet problems halfway through writing.

The day before yesterday I attended the album release of the Album "Almagest" by Melbourne black-metal force  Hybrid Nightmares, hosted at the Eastern Pub in Ballarat, a venue clearly designed with music in mind. Enough people arrived to fill the hall during the performance of the later three bands, ensuring enough energy and atmosphere to make for a very enjoyable night. 

As the idea behind this thread was mainly to promote local bands, I guess I'll begin linking bandcamps and things to these posts.

Haunted Steel: 

An Energetic and clearly capable performance from Ballarat's own classic metal force, their single release "Hordes of Death" sounded exactly as recorded. Mixing was competent, although some lead licks got a little drowned out at times. These guys are clearly really into the music, playing first and staying throughout the rest of the night, with at least one of their members viable amounts the mosh pit or in the crowd for the remainder of the event.

https://hauntedsteel.bandcamp.com/releases

 

Agonhymn:

The determined doom duo took stage second, performing their set consisting of a singular 20 minute song with an impressive sense of control and conviction. At the first entrance of the screamed vocals (I suspect using a quiet technique such as inhale screaming or vocal fry) no the front man was clearly performing vox of some sort but nothing of the sort was audible, this problem reoccurring with the screams but not with the clean vocals. I don't know if this was due to the fault of the mixer (although, as there was no vocals for a good early chunk of the song, I wouldn't really blame him for assuming the song was instrumental and silencing the mics to prevent noise or something) or due to ineffective mic technique. 

Still, overall a pretty interesting display.

https://agonhymn.bandcamp.com/

 

Trigger:

This band had a good amount of energy and stage presence while keeping the performance to a high quality standard, some vocal parts and solos became a little hard to hear at times, but this may well have been due to my placement in the hall. These guys started to bring up the energy levels of the crowd after the droning assault of their predecessors, unfortunately, this band's setlist was cut short due to time restrictions.

https://triggerau.bandcamp.com/

 

Hybrid Nightmares:

One of the best performance and one of my favourite bands of those I've seen over the last few months. These guys are the whole package, with a strong stage presence, effective audience interaction, a tight performance and great songs; the energy of the hall hit it's broad peak during their performance, with the crowd breaking into fits of moshing on multiple occasions throughout their setlist.

As well as providing an engaging visage and an impressive musical vista, the band members were genuinely likeable, taking their time to make sure they thanked all of the opening bands and doing their best to ensure that the audience would stay for Requiems performance (even jumping on the stage to sing a verse and starting slam-dancing sessions to maintain energy levels). 

Their new album is definitely worth a listen. 

https://hybridnightmares.bandcamp.com/

 

Requiem:

Hailing from Ararat, these guys delivered a pretty ferocious closing performance with some solid yet scathing thrash riffing being delivered, interspersed with awesome duel solo work, showing clear improvements from their previous releases, I'm eagerly awaiting the new album.

https://requiemthrash.bandcamp.com/

 

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