gloomchen

Hooray, my seventh time seeing Dream Theater live! And my second time seeing Opeth live! It was GRAND. It didn’t hurt that we got into line fairly early and claimed a spot dead-center on the balcony, either. The opening band was Three. As with most opening bands, we presumed they would suck and went into [...]

Let me just state it bluntly: I hate critiquing shows where I know people in the bands. It’s extremely difficult for me to remain objective as I don’t like drama and I know that even the lightest constructive criticism can be a bit of an ego bruise. That said, Shawn performed last night as The [...]

I’d like to say, “I’m going to try and keep this short,” but that’s not possible. We headed over to the Target Center, getting patted down (yay no pockets for me, I had my ID and cash in my bra), and finding our seats. We paid for mid-tier seating, and that’s what we got — [...]

Wow. Last night’s concert was WONDERFUL and worth far more than the $12.50/each that I paid for tickets. Local bands opened — Enshrined was pretty decent but Seared was only good when their vocalist shut the fuck up. Great musicians all around. Swallow the Sun: I don’t know why these guys haven’t caught my ear [...]

Imagine, if you will, Korn salsa. Terrible pun, but as the opening strains of the MTV Unplugged version of “Blind” fill the air, one can only giggle at the poor choice in style given the band’s nomenclature. If the premise itself sounds bad, the execution isn’t much better. It seems Korn believed all of their [...]

Day two of Beyond the Threshold’s look at the artist known as Combichrist exists to enlighten and educate those in the dark. Who is Combichrist? Fantastic! But what about the music? Joy of Gunz Release date: September 1, 2003 Label: Out of Line Tracklisting: 01. Intruder Alert 02. Joy To The World 03. You Will [...]

Holland’s God Dethroned has been around the block a few times, blending in among the European death metal scene as a band with substance. However, previous releases never set off a fireworks display, although their competency was never in question. And so, expectations for The Toxic Touch remained somewhere in the range of adequacy. Surprisingly, [...]

I have been reading Straight Whisky this past week. It’s an odd little book, kind of a history of the Whisky a Go-Go and kind of… well. Each chapter starts out with a fantasy-like recount of some evening or event that happened, with the back half of the chapter being more fact/history-oriented. You know something? [...]

Remember when Kittie was a gimmicky collection of Canadian gothy-looking metal teenaged girls? They were so novel, playing their own instruments and featuring the contrast of pretty-girl vocals and growls? “Brackish” took MTV by storm and they gained a bit of an audience before falling off of the mainstream radar. Since then, it’s only the [...]

If you pick up a copy of Kissology Vol. 1, I sincerely hope you love Kiss. When I say “love”, I mean it — you’re about to experience nearly six hours of (primarily) concert footage of varying quality. Rather than making some sort of hokey documentary, Kiss has opted to instead release what appears to [...]