“Doin’ It Live ‘Til We’re Dead” appears to be the motto of The Dillinger Escape Plan for 2010. They passed through Seattle and stopped for a show at El Corazon on the night of April 10, with support from Darkest Hour, Animals As Leaders, and local favorites 7 Horns 7 Eyes. Two of your three NCS Co-Authors were on hand for the fun, and we file this report. In a word, the show was just amazing from start to finish. And for a change, we got some decent photos. You can see a lot more of them at the end of the write-up.

7HORNS 7 EYES

We last saw this local quintet (featuring two pairs of brothers) on January 26 as support for the Metal As Art tour. We hadn’t seen or heard them before that show, but they made a huge impression. We wrote then: “‘Epic” is an overused word in our community, but it truly suits the music that 7H7E delivers. The music is atmospheric but technical . . . It’s some mesmerizing shit!”

And it was more of the same last night: Complex, mid-tempo rhythms, sweeping melodies, a mix of growly and high-pitched vocals, tight instrumental interludes — and their own light show, with the fog machine pumping out the smoke. This is some mighty tasty progressive/death-metal fusion. And based on some mid-set comments from the stage, it appears we will finally have a debut album in the next couple of months. An awesome way to start the night!

(lots more after the jump . . .)

Just saw some bittersweet news. First, the good part. The line-up, dates, and places have just been released for the Atticus Metal Tour II — with NCS favorite UNEARTH as the headline act. And it gets better. Check out the line-up of other bands on the bill:  Stick To Your Guns, Veil of Maya, The Ghost Inside, and Carnifex — with Darkest Hour, Stray From The Path, and, Your Demise joining the party on select dates.  (Those dates and other details will be released here as they become available.)

Now for the bittersweet news (selfishly speaking): the closest the tour gets to the Pacific Northwest is Utah. Life ain’t fucking fair!  What else is new. Anyway, check out the full list of dates and places after the jump.

My co-Author IntoTheDarkness turned me on to Texas in July this past summer not long after they released their full-length CD I Am. I liked it immediately and have found myself going back to it periodically since then (and I’ll eventually explain why). When I first started listening to I Am, I knew nothing about the band and there wasn’t a lot to learn on the netz, though I did discover that despite their band name the guys were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (As a native Texan, I was a little disappointed by that discovery, but managed to get over it.)

Recently, after one of my periodic returns to I Am, I decided to hunt the web again for more info and found a lot more than when I looked the first time 6 months ago. For one thing, the band’s MySpace page now shows more than 1 million song plays, which is a shit-load. And I found that the band had released an EP called Salt of the Earth in October 2008 (both releases are now available on iTunes).  I also found all sorts of on-the-surface reasons why the odds would be against me liking this band.

First, they’re really young (ages 16-18, and two of them still in high school) and I’m really not.  I’ve found very few metal bands that young who have enough song-writing sophistication and playing chops to be worth more than a brisk once-over. Second, look at that photo above: kind of screams “Emo!” doesn’t it? Third, their label (CI Records) bills them  as a Christian metalcore band. Now don’t get me wrong — they’re some bands stuck in that same genre pigeon-hole that I really like (e.g., August Burns Red) — but it’s not a long list. My tastes these days tend to run toward the more brutal end of the extreme metal spectrum.

But against all these odds, I’m still addicted to Texas in July. Call it a guilty pleasure. And the source of the appeal, as it should be, is the music. To explain . . .

A couple days ago, we reported on Decibel magazine’s (premature) publication of its “Top 40 Extreme Albums of 2009” and gave you the list of 40.  Many more “Best of 2009” metal lists will soon be appearing on the netz and the newsstands.  Why do people create these kinds of lists and why do we read them?  Music is a matter of personal taste.  These lists represent the personal tastes of particular critics and fans, no more or less valid than my favorites or yours.  So what’s the fucking point?  I’m not sure there is a fucking point, but I’ll make a stab at it.