May 312010
 

On the night of May 28, Dark Tranquillity‘s 2010 WE ARE THE VOID TOUR made its scheduled stop at Studio Seven in Seattle, and two of your NCS collaborators were present to take in all the awesomeness this show had to offer.

This was a must-see event for us, because Dark Tranquillity was one of the bands that first hooked us on extreme metal. And apart from the significance of that, we catch their live act whenever possible because they dependably deliver outstanding performances. Of course, they weren’t alone — Threat Signal, Mutiny Within, and local band Blood and Thunder were also on the bill.

So, here’s our report on the concert, plus we’ve got an unusually large batch of performance photos to show you after the all the verbiage.  (And if you think these photos are amateurish, you should see the hundreds we took that didn’t make the cut!)

BLOOD AND THUNDER

We’re not gonna say too much about this band’s performance here  — because we devoted a whole post to them yesterday. In a nutshell, they kicked massive amounts of ass: A great stage presence; technically excellent playing; and one catchy, headbangable song after another. This band churns out modern melodic death metal that deserves a wider audience.  (We do have some photos of the band’s performance that we didn’t put in yesterday’s post — so we’re putting those up at the end of this one.)

(stay with us after the jump for the rest of this review, plus all those photos we promised . . .) Continue reading »

Feb 082010
 

Arch Enemy comes to town and your NCS Authors turn into moths drawn to a candle flame.

On February 6, 2010, the TYRANTS OF EVIL tour stopped at The Showbox in Seattle and two of us plus our entourage were there to take in the tyranny of evility. We file this report (along with a big batch of our regrettably amateurish photo images at the end of the post).

MUTINY WITHIN

This band first drew our attention through a YouTube video of their transplant-from-England vocalist Chris Clancy singing an operatic aria called “Nessum Dorma.” So, okay, the dude’s got some pipes. But does he belong in a metal band, and is the band itself worth a damn? Someone thinks so, because they’re signed to Roadrunner Records, they’ve got a debut album coming out on February 23, they’re touring with Arch Enemy, and they clearly had a bunch of appreciative fans in the Showbox audience.

But this is power metal, with mostly clean singing, and you know that’s not our thing (see the name of this site). Anything we might say would come off as a put-down, but that wouldn’t be our intent. We’re just not into this kind of metal. So, we’ll pass on the review and move to the next band . . . . (after the jump) Continue reading »