Amon Amarth has posted a new video. I can’t wait to get their new album next week. Come October, I see them live again. They put on a great-ass show. Vikings!

[Link to video]

Here’s a set of photos I took last night of 3 Inches Of Blood and The Black Dahlia Murder, playing live at BB Kings in Manhattan. Another band Hate Eternal was supposed to perform as well, but didn’t show until I was practically out the door, my stamina and good will at being patient for them to set up at an end. Still I had a pretty good time. I was really impressed with 3 Inches. They don’t sound like much from their recordings and I’ve never been one for the high pitched, Judas Priest-like screeching, but damn, they are one awesome band live.

Overall it was one of the more rowdy of concerts I’ve been to at what is normally a pretty locked down club with really intense security guards. I saw one teenage kid get thrown over the barrier, smacking face-first against the edge of the stage, hard enough to bounce his head and fuck him up, which pretty much served him well for being a crowd-surfing idiot. Another guy who was standing next to me caught an elbow to the face and ended up breaking two of his lower teeth. Understandably, he was pretty pissed, but it was an accident and I don’t think anyone even knew who had hit him in the first place.

I got into a one-sided shoving match with some long-hair, biker jacket-wearing wannabe, which in retrospect was stupid of me, but he did shove me out of the way first and I had some beers talking in me which sparked the uber-aggressive politeness nazi in me. I really hate it when people can’t traverse a crowd politely, thinking that being physically rude is an acceptable pseudo-alpha posture, just because they have their friends with them and their pumped from the Metal. Of course, with about five beers in me, I have all the invisible friends I think I need. Someday, I’ll probably get a good ass-beating, considering the way I get up in people’s business sometimes. But hey, I did make him apologize, so it’s a win.

Here’s a link to plenty of photos I took of Death Metal bands, Vader and Malevolent Creation at the Death By Decibels tour at The Blender Theater, here in New York. Malevolent Creation were good, but not anything I’d bother seeing again. They put on a good show, but they didn’t really raise my blood pressure. Vader is a damn tight-sounding band live. I was really impressed at how solid and together their sound and all-around performance was. I’d definitely check them out again, but daaaaaamn…do they ever need fashion tips. They were all wearing retarded, Hot Topic, gothic club-baby pants, complete with too many zippers and the dangly string thingies. Think these pants having babies with these ones. Frightening. Guys, you’re a European Death Metal band…black leather pants! In a pinch, camouflage or olive-drab cargos. WTF?

I still think the Blender Theater is a complete and total shithole, comparable to spelunking in an old lady’s colon. The only thing they have going for them is that so far, to my knowledge, no one’s sued the shit out of the place after getting hurt. Their security sucks. I saw two fights, granted they were minor, but security was nowhere. There were a few assholes, getting off on dive-bombing random people, knocking a girl next to me to the floor without so much as an apology or a lift upright. As far as I’m concerned, if the person you hit is not participating in being a psuedo-macho hormonal douchebag with you, than that’s assault and that’s a fucking liability for the club. Accidents happen, but that place lets some rude, bitter, professional dishwashers and reprobates get away with way too much shit. Blender fucking blows.

Here’s about fifty photos I took of Swedish Melodic Viking Death Metal band, Amon Amarth as they played Irving Plaza last night. I can only recall one or two other concerts in my life where the crowd was as frenzied and pumped as last evening. The band seemed pretty amused and appreciative of the sheer amount of enthusiasm jammed into the club and they certainly know how to work a crowd. They are fucking hilarious, kick-ass metal dudes and their sound is just killer. They even drank booze from animal horns. I’m psyched to see them again someday.

[Link to video]

Awesome, at some point in their careers, someone’s head going to pop off from all that neck-grinding.

Blood Red Throne is an awesome band.

While I was in San Francisco last week, post Hawaii, I went out to a club in the mission district to see the Japanese Punk/Comic/Costume band Peelander-Z one evening. After a couple lame-ass and tired bands finished their sets and the main act went on stage in their costumes, I took a mess of photos of what was a decidedly rowdy concert. Peelander-Z are hilarious and judging from the exuberant and violent actions of the crowd at the club, everyone loves them.

After I got back to New York, I hit BB Kings to see the Death Metal band, Daath and Swedish Black Metal bands, Naglfar and Dark Funeral. I noticed that there was more than a healthy population of South American guys under five feet in height and wearing corpsepaint in the crowd. I liked Daath a lot. I have a few Naglfar albums, which I think are pretty good, but for their first American show, they were fairly underwhelming. Adequate, would be a good descriptor. Dark Funeral was interesting to see live. They’re pretty old and fat for corpsepaint and all the leather bondage shit they wear. They’re a good band, but they look fucking stupid. I don’t really consider them real Black Metal, more like a hybrid with Death Metal. I like them, but they’re not exactly high on my list of top bands. The whole grim and cold Black Metal act falls flat on their beer guts and their lead singer seems like a bit of a douchebag as far as stage presence goes. Still, they were good. Embarrassing looking, but good. Photos of the concert can be found here.

This last Wednesday, I went to see Stoner Metal band, Alabama Thunderpussy and the Death Metal act, Obituary at B.B. King here in New York. Early in the evening, I managed to get myself fairly liquidated at an after-work Happy Hour, where I downed something like eight beers and somehow severely bruised the top of my right foot (which at this moment is all swollen and weeping for Jesus).

Once I got to the concert, I laid off the juice and managed to have a pretty good time. I was kind of underwhelmed by Alabama Thunderpussy, but I could see them being a lot better in a smaller venue. Obituary was balls-out fucking awesome. I don’t really get into too many Death Metal bands. There’s a few I like, but generally I prefer other metal genres. Still, Obituary was great, being one of the better Death Metal shows I’ve been to.

I brought my super-cool new camera with me, but I haven’t quite figured out the extremely low-light shooting techniques, so of the 200-ish shots, a little less than a hundred came out worth saving. I’ve uploaded them to a flickr set, feel free to check them out.

A couple nights ago I dragged my still semi-sick ass out to BB King’s on 42nd Street to see a few bands. The main headliner was Nile, who I didn’t know too much about. Mainly I was there to see ChthoniC, the Melodic Black Metal band from Taiwan. Since it was primarily a Death Metal show, graphic band tees were in full effect, there was a hell of a lot of hair, as well as an extremely large representation in the crowd from the South American continent. Rock hard, my Spanish amigos. Eighty-percent of the metal acts on this planet would tank if it wasn’t for your die-hard loyalty to head-banging.

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I’m not really sure what’s brought this drastic change in my musical listening habits, but over the past six months, I’ve become obsesssed with metal. Not that sissy-ass shit like Metallica, Iron Maiden or Megadeth—I’m talking Death Metal and best of all, Black Metal. From the corpsepaint and mutilated animal parts to the cookie monster vocals, it’s the shit. I’m all about it. It’s my new thing. Hail Satan. Where’s my Axe of Doom?

Bands like Gorgoroth, Cannnibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Kataklysm and Darkthrone have taken over my playlists and my mp3 player. I feel compelled to wear tight leather pants, glue carpenter’s nails to my clothing, have sex with severed goat heads and carry around disproportionately huge battle axes. I find myself getting odd stares as I hit up the local ghetto Brooklyn bodega for a forty wearing corpsepaint and looking like Kiss on a negative death trip.

I kid…I kid. Although it’d be kind of cool to be the only white dude in a Brooklyn ghetto keeping it real, Satan-style. I wonder if I’d get an award?

If you need a good laugh, there’s an awesome Black Metal gallery at photographer Peter Beste’s website.