Jun 172013
 

Poland’s magnificent Vader spent the first part of 2013 laying waste to Europe in a tour called Back To the Black. Over the weekend, news surfaced that Vader will now be bringing Back To the Black to the U.S. For support, they will be backed by U.S. death metal veterans Vital Remains, California death/thrashers Sacrificial Slaughter, a Colorado death/black band named Execration, and a bunch of brutal death Floridians named Extremely Rotten.

I’m not familiar with all of these bands, but based on the ones I know, this should be a thoroughly maiming, blood-spattered experience. And of course, any chance to see Vader is a chance that should be seized.

Only an initial slate of 11 dates has surfaced so far, and more will be coming. Check out the first installment after the jump. Continue reading »

Aug 242010
 

This is the second part of a two-part post about the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour’s performances in Seattle and Portland on August 20 and 21. In Part 1, we gave our impressions about the music and posted photos of about half the bands performing in Seattle.

Today, we have a random assortment of observations about our two days of metal in the Pacific Northwest, plus photos of all the bands at the show in Portland.

None of us here at NCS know what the fuck we’re doing with a camera. We like to justify our ineptitude by telling ourselves it’s just like the DIY ethic of underground metal. We also like to make excuses that divert attention from our complete lack of training, such as the constantly changing or almost non-existent light, the non-stop motion on stage, the distance from which we’re taking the photos, and — most important — the fact that we go to shows to listen to the fucking music, not to take photos, so there’s a limit to how much time we’re going to spend snapping away like a fucking tourist.

But, despite our manifold shortcomings as photojournalists, we think these pics are just barely good enough to share, so we’re sharing them — a lot of them, since 11 bands played in Portland and we didn’t miss out on any of them.  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Aug 232010
 

This year’s edition of THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour was a celebration of death metal in some of its more brutal and technical flavors — and one out-of-place wild card that stole the show. In this case, “stealing the show” is a relative term, because the line-up of bands was so strong.

In fact, with allowances for the extremity of our musical tastes here at NCS, this was as consistently solid a line-up, from start to finish, as any tour in recent memory: Vital Remains, Animals As Leaders, Carnifex, Decrepit Birth, Cephalic Carnage, Veil of Maya, The Red Chord, All Shall Perish, The Faceless, and Decapitated.

In fact, we were so stoked about this tour that we decided to see it both in Seattle last Friday and again in Portland the next day. The tour’s last show is in San Francisco tonight, so we were catching the bands near the end of a long summer haul that no doubt wore them out. But you couldn’t tell that from the way they played. If we didn’t have day jobs and were closer to SF, we’d be tempted to take in a third performance — it was that good.

As usual, we took a crapload of photos at both performances. And in fact, most of them are crap. But we’ve been painstakingly sorting through them to find the least crappy ones that we wouldn’t be too embarrassed to share.

So, today, we’ve got some high-level reactions to what we heard from all the bands, plus photos from the Seattle tour stop. Tomorrow (now at this location), we’ll have some random observations about the scene and the crowds and a few other thoughts that aren’t really in the nature of a review, plus the best photos from the Portland show (which are a bit better than the ones we’re posting today).  (continue after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Apr 162010
 

The official line-up for the Summer Slaughter Tour 2010 has now been confirmed (by Metal Sucks).  Here it is:

DECAPITATED
THE FACELESS
ALL SHALL PERISH
THE RED CHORD
VEIL OF MAYA
CEPHALIC CARNAGE
DECREPIT BIRTH
CARNIFEX
ANIMALS AS LEADERS
VITAL REMAINS

That is one mouth-watering band list of extreme metal awesomeness, isn’t it?

But as you scan your greedy eyes over that list, which band doesn’t exactly fit with the rest? If you’re like us, your eyes probably came to a halt at Animals As Leaders. Wonder how they came to be included. Mind you, we’re not complaining at all. We saw Tobin Abasi and his mates play in Seattle last week (and wrote about it here, with photos), and they are gobsmackingly good. But it’s an interesting choice.

Tour dates and places aren’t available yet. You can be abso-fucking-lutely sure that if this tour comes anywhere near Seattle, we will be there.