Excursion

Seattle's Showbox near Pike Place was the scene of my first great show of 2013 on January 5th. A smoking quadruple bill topped off by the most influential metal band of the past quarter century. Since we were on the road for this one, I've recounted the details of the trip there and back, because that's always half the fun.

After a snafu involving stubhub charging me more than double the ticket prices, (it was recitfied in the end, and I paid normal price. I gladly would have paid 70 bucks for a show of this calibur if the tickets actually cost that much, but not if other people were buying them for 35.) my friend and I departed for the 3 hour drive to Seattle in the mid afternoon. To the strains of Neurosis's excellent 2007 album Given To The Rising, we hit the border as darkness was falling, and spent 45 minutes dealing with the needlessly rude and utterly humorless American border guards. Our own scruffy appearances notwithstanding, the useless secondary inspection turned up nothing of note, so we were free to go. Good thing we're coming into your country to spend money and inflate your sagging economy boys.

A Taco Time stop along the way was soundtracked by the new Converge record. Did you know they have spaced-aged pop dispensers with like 60 flavors and digital touchscreens in the states now? I thought that was freaking awesome.

We stopped at the liquor store outside a casino along I-5 so my passenger could mix a JD and coke for the road (as driver, I stuck to cherry coke. In the States, booze is so much cheaper I'd probably be drunk all the time if I lved here.) and enjoyed Featherwolf's Live at the Vogue and No Horses' self titled record as we crested the final hill into Seattle. It's quite a beautiful city as you drive up to it, a jewel nestled next to the water and plenty of green hills surrounding it. An hour to kill before showtime was hardly a problem even in the rain -- we parked the car in Seattle's entertainment district, grabbed a couple of huge American beer cans and headed for shelter from the downpour. Underneath a bridge on the ass end of town, my buddy and I discussed with growing anticipation what awaited us down the street.

Stoneburner was already playing when we entered. I had passed up a chance to see them open for Sleep at Neumo's during the summer, and I'm glad I caught part of their set this time. The showbox is much larger than I expected it to be, but with good sightlines. We watched the almost completely full show from various vanatge points, and got a good view and fine sound from everywhere. Aside from one of the security guards hassling me in the washroom for taking too long in a stall (those things can be used for things besides snorting coke, guy! What the fuck do you think I was doing?) I'd say the venue was fantastic. Stoneburner's heavy sludge reminded me of the Melvins more than anyone else, their slow trudges, deliberate riffs and massive drum fills impressing me more than I had expected. A solid opening act that the next bands built upon.

We watched Black Breath's set from the beer garden. I was a little disappointed with their rendition of "Feast Of The Damned," their set opener and my favourite song from the new album. Whether it was nerves or simply a case of finding the range, by 2 songs in they had the Showbox MOVING, their sludgy yet speedy hardcore resembling nothing if not prime Slayer circa 1985. The old timer at the bar in front of us seemed to agree, sagely nodding his head in amusement. The difference is that ultra thick buzzsaw guitar sound that Swedish death metal bands like Entombed, At the Gates, Edge of Sanity and Grave popularized during the '90s. That monstrously thick tone was on glorious display on this night, although live it was not quite as suffocatingly dense as on record. Bashing out a set of tunes which was comprised heavily of stuff from their excellent new album Scentenced To Death, the 5-piece harnessed barely-controlled dual leads, shatteringly fast thrash beats, dub-tuned ultra distorted bass and gut wrenching growls into a relentless tornado of sound. Closing with their album Heavy Breathing's first track, "Spit On The Cross," they capped their set in suitably vicious (and decidedly anti-Christian!) style.

We headed down to the floor for Tragedy's set. My friend and I had only recently discovered the d-beat happy crew, who had released a modern hardcore classic in 2003 with Vengeance, and just returned from a 6 year hiatus last year with Darker Days Ahead, a slower, heavier record than any of their previous work. The set was a mix of new and old, althought probably heavier on the slow stuff than I would have liked. Understandable given who they were opening for. The quartet showed their stuff admirably though, getting a rumbling circle pit going, and showing off their crusty gang vocals with plenty of heroic monitor stands and epic claw of the gods posing from the frontline. They were tight and heavy, though perhaps less energetic than Black Breath had been.

And then Neurosis hit the stage. Ahhhhh yes... Neurosis. What to even say? Their longtime visual accompaniest departed the band last year, meaning it fell to the 5 musicians onstage to hold the audience's attention. This was not a problem as the whethered crew morphed back and forth between apocalyptic doom, full tilt thrashing, misanthropic sludge, pensive, folky breakdowns, throat shredding primal howls and electronic soundscapes. It was music in constant, inexorable motion, relentlessly laying waste like some slow moving but unstoppable tropical storm front. The band played for over 2 hours, drawing material from throughout it's career, and weaving them all together amid a tapestry of wandering electronics that served as respites from the ultra heavy guitars and exqually powerful growls from Scott Kelley and Steve Von Till. A particular highlight was At The "Well" the best track from their new album, Honor Found In Decay. The deep, manly bellows of the 4 vocalists in the band made the song's brutal climax and spine-tingling experience.

It was nearly 2am by the time my friend and I stumbled onto the street, myself with a brand new vinyl copy of Enemy Of The Sun clutched in my hands. We managed to avoid the bar stars that congregated around the district we were in and made our way out of town exhausted and numbed by the overwhealming force of what we had just witnessed. Emeralds's soothing synth drones on their massive Allegory of Allergies double record provided the necessary cleansing of our distorted decibal detectors as we hit Jack in the Box to fuel up for the ride home. Our encounter with Canadian customs took all of 15 seconds, and we arrived home shortly before 5am. A fantastic night, and one that I won't soon forget.