Anoxide / Wretched Soul / Black Skies Burn / Overthrow / Annunciation

Live @ The Garage (Upstairs), London, UK

August 27, 2014

 

 

Annunciation.  Old school death metal.  Quite possibly the best band in England.  First gig with secondary guitarist Sonny (Secreum).

Overthrow, playing on the third anniversary of their first gig.  Tight, deathy thrash, tastefully melodic.  A professional performance with reserved precision.

My second time seeing Black Skies Burn.  Deathy grind from some "chavvy shithole" north of London.  Twenty second songs about Chris Benoit and what have you.  Pretty much stole the show for the entire evening.  Stoic stage presence with facial expressions drawn from the sort of statues that adorn Aztec sacrificial altars.  There's something very wrong about an Englishman wearing a cowboy hat.  Bargain of the night with a hard copy CD for £5 (listen here).

Wretched Soul.  An example of an all-to-rare heavy metal subtype - heavily anti-Christian with clean vocals.  And lots of unclean vocals too.  Tonight was a well put together show, as far as showcasing the varieties of death metal.  Old school to slam to thrash to grind to good ol' heavy fucking metal.  Mercyful Fate 5.0, or whatever generation we're on now.  Wretched Soul look and sound like something out of the mid to late 80's, and they do what they do well.

Anoxide are slamming brutal death, bordering on deathcore at moments.  Definitely who the fans came to see tonight, this was their house.  Some video here.   Retained most of the crowd to the end for some onstage moshing, and the dancing didn't stop in the pit.

Obscene Extreme 2014: Day 5

Live @ Battlefield, Trutnov, Czech Republic

July 20, 2014

Part five of a planned five-part photo-essay, covering five days at OEF Europe 2014.  Events were recorded in the moment (gonzo-lite).  Transcribed directly from my notes, with after-the-fact (mainly day 5) recollections in italics.  Some days were more comprehensive and professionally journalistic than others...

They don't really encourage you to stay for the last day.  Toilets remain untouched since Saturday morning, no TP and mountains of shit.  The standing 4-way urinals are worse for my money - located more often in direct sunlight, rocking back and forth on uneven ground, you can see the rolling waves of piss beneath you, smell the ocean of the combined piss of thousands of drunk men.  Shit seems to mellow, the vast combinations of smells cancelling each other out (to an extent, it still stinks) but piss accumulates, it boils in the sun, fermenting, resulting in toxic islands best avoided for a quick step into the treeline.

The beer is still flowing, but down to a trickle.  I wonder whether they've tapped the last keg, or whether service will rebound to meet the demands of tonight's after party.  One food stand still open, hard liquor still available.  The cleaners are at work in the auditorium, combing through grass and gravel for every scrap of evidence.  Cell phone charging still available, thankfully, and quite reasonably.  Stranding foreigners without a phone charge would be an inhospitable challenge this far away from Prague.  Not that the way back is so difficult.

It's nine something in the AM Sunday, and I need another beer.  Gotta use up these drink tickets as they're no good next year.  The cup on the other hand...

Down to the dark beer.  It's a bad scene in the beer tent, this could be my last.  Stragglers still drinking, singing, smoking, falling off chairs (benches) around me.

 
95% of the crowd is gone Sunday morning.  Cell phone charging disappeared shortly after I recorded my final notes.  Back to Prague without witnessing the after show.  Next year?  I can only hope to return.  If not, the road doesn't end here.  It splits off in a hundred directions to a hundred different shows, a continent and a planet of extreme to explore.  The summit disbands, and the attendees wander off to the four corners of the globe.  May the Obscene reign for another thousand years.

 Goodbye, Trutnov