Live Review: Watain, In Solitude, Tribulation (Masquerade, ATL 11-01-13)

All in all, a fascinating lineup of artists for this tour. All three are Swedish metal acts from three different subgenres, and all three have just recently released albums that have marked stark departures from what they’ve done in the past. Tribulation’s 2009 album The Horror was a great slab of traditional Swedish death metal enhanced by thrash influences, but their follow-up The Formulas of Death incorporated new compositional complexity and moody, psychedelic influences into the mix, creating a challenging and rewarding new take on death metal. And if you’re a regular reader, you’ve already seen my takes on the new albums from In Solitude and Watain. So it was going to be at the very least an interesting night.

Tribulation opened up the show, and delivered a too-short set composed of pummeling versions of tracks from their two full-lengths, opening with the punishing “When the Sky Is Black With Devils” which set the stage for the rest of their set. Technically adept and emotionally furious, the band charged up a previously sluggish crowd with the ripping electricity of tracks like “The Vampyre,” “Beyond the Horror” and “Wanderer in the Outer Darkness.” A tremendously promising start to the night.

But nothing could have prepared me for In Solitude. Vocalist Pelle Åhman and the band entered, he placed his fox stole on the drum kit, and knelt, speaking either to it or to the guiding forces behind his performance. Then he took the mic and became a lithe, seemingly possessed shaman of a frontman, pushing the controlled performances he’d delivered on the band’s first two LPs to places far beyond their origin, and translating the wild energy of his Sister vocals to the stage. Brother and bassist Gottfrid Åhman was almost as magnetic a presence, glowering into the audience, wildly sweeping his bass, and delivering backup vocals with an almost unbridled fury. Guitarists Niklas Lindström and Henrik Palm worked together with an uncanny synergy, trading lead lines and rhythmic riffage off each other expertly, while drummer Uno Bruniusson held things together; his tight playing grounding everything else, lest it all go flying off into the stratosphere. With a setlist showcasing the highlights of their three albums, concluding with a powerful one-two shot of Sister‘s title track and “Witches’ Sabbath,” this was simply one of the best performances I’ve seen from a band this young in years (while they’ve been putting out albums for five years now, Pelle was a slight 16 when the first album was recorded and is now just barely in his twenties). If these guys aren’t the Next Big Thing, then the world doesn’t deserve ’em.

Then came Watain. I honestly did not know what to expect from the band this time around, as their new album has proven polarizing in its departure from previous forms. (For evidence, look no further than its ranking at Metal-Archives.com, where it gets a mere 56% approval rating for the sin of failing to make another version of Casus Luciferi again.) The stage was set, pigs’ heads placed on either side of the stage — the scent of death mixing with the incense that had been burning on stage all night — and an altar placed in the center. The band took the stage and…

…And this is where I fail as a reviewer. I’ve got a serious case of ADD and a tendency to hyper-focus, sometimes on the wrong things. My first major distraction was this hipster doofus in a Hatebreed tee with a hot girlfriend who both tried to push me out of my spot. I held firm, but it started me down the path of negativity. Then there was the jackoff who insisted on holding her camera (not even a phone, but a fucking camera) over her head (and right in my sight line) for the entirety of the goddamned show. Then, four songs in, the pit started. Now, I’ve been to my share of metal shows, and I know how to avoid the pit if I don’t want to be involved in it. No problem there. But this drunk asshole next to me decides that since now is the time when the pit starts, that now is the time for him to slam himself into me repeatedly, even though we’re nowhere near the pit. Just slamming into me. Nobody pushing him, nobody forcing him into me, just “hey, you look like you can take a beating, and I’m obviously drunk out of my fucking mind, so let me run into you over and over again and get a tiny little two-man pit started right here!” Then the guy decides that he needs to have a fucking conversation with me. In the middle of Watain’s set. Just a handful of feet away from where I’m fucking standing. DO NOT FUCKING SPEAK TO ME WHEN I’M FEET AWAY FROM WATAIN AND TRYING TO ENJOY THE FUCKING SHOW. YOU ARE NOT THE FUCKING CENTER OF ATTENTION. So I leave my spot because I’m tired as hell of having to endure fucking assholes, and move to the back of the room, by the sound board. At least there I can enjoy the band.

And I do for quite a while. For what it’s worth, the band (augmented on second guitar by In Solitude’s Gottfrid Åhman) is in top form, staying largely away from the more controversial portions of the new album. They opened up with the furious insanity of The Wild Hunt’s “Night Vision” and “De Profundis,” and sticking largely to their past three albums; only dipping into the past before Sworn to the Dark with Casus Luciferi’s “Devil’s Blood” and Rabid Death’s Curse’s “On Horns Impaled.” While “They Rode On” (perhaps wisely) made no appearance, they did manage to play two tracks from the “weird” second half of The Wild Hunt: “Outlaw” and the album’s title track. The band ripped viciously through the tracks with a single-minded intensity. Throughout, vocalist Erik Danielsson presided over the ritual like a diabolical high priest, exalting at his altar, painting sigils from a chalice onto the backdrop’s walls, and commanding from center stage with brutal savagery.

But then, the drunk asshole from the front came to the back and continued to try and converse with me. I was just getting back into the set and here he comes, lumbering back to me and trying to make some semi-conscious point about the pig’s heads, and how he’s not as young as he used to be, and how his shoulder goes out when he fucking goes out shooting his rifle and I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. What is it about shows that makes people think that they are the focal point of all existence? Is it because there’s something loud going on in front of them, and they feel that their security is threatened by people’s attention being shifted elsewhere, so they have to partake in big LOOK AT ME!!! efforts? More to the point, why am I constantly the fucking magnet for every goddamned insane person within 10 miles of me at any given moment? Honestly, it doesn’t matter if I’m at a movie, if I’m at a show, if I’m shopping for groceries, if I’m at the auto parts store, there’s going to be some person with boundary issues that thinks “hey, this huge, bald, antisocial tattooed freak of nature looks like just the person I want to strike up a conversation with right this second!” So he finally leaves through the fucking fire exit and I finish seeing Watain. I’m pissed off, and not as able to focus on the band as I’d like, but they’re still killing it.

And then it’s over, and because I have my own issues (as I’ve said, ADD with hyper-focus = problems letting shit go) I’m still angry about it. Not because it was a bad show. All the bands were amazing. But angry at this guy and angry at myself for not being able to roll with it and let it all slide off of me. But whatever, it was worth it. The bands were all on, it’s inspired me to listen to Tribulation a hell of a lot more than I already did, it’s firmly established In Solitude as a force to be really reckoned with in my mind, and it just confirmed that Watain continue to be one of the most important black metal acts around today (if not the most important). Because I’m a big fan of their boundary pushing, I’d have liked to have seen a set with their more epic material (“They Rode On,” “Waters of Ain,” “Casus Luciferi”), or even more of the new album (they even stayed away from “All That May Bleed” and “The Child Must Die”), but I can’t argue with what works and the set as it stood works.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 31: Every Day Is Halloween

Well, it’s been fun, but it’s time to actually put all this month-long scene-setting into action. So go out trick-or-treating, hit up some haunted houses, watch some horror flicks…however you celebrate this greatest of all holidays, have a tremendous night. We’re going to wrap up things here by sharing a sentiment from the good old days when Ministry really sucked and when Alien Jourgensen sang with a British accent and was being pegged as the next Howard Jones: “Everyday Is Halloween.”

Because when you get down to it, for some of us, it’s not a day. It’s not even a month. It’s a way of life.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 30: Bauhaus – “Mask”

Yeah, I know. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is the go-to Bauhaus song for this time of year. But too many people’s Bauhaus knowledge begins and ends with that one song. Thanks to it being featured at the head of Ridley Scott’s The Hunger, and the ultra-condensed version of the band’s appearance in the movie performing the song (pared down from over 9 to just over 3 minutes, broken up by intrusive pieces of the film’s score, and seemingly random cutting in the middle of vocal lines) played on MTV as a music video, it’s become a Halloween staple for even the non-goth set.

But THIS. This is the one that freaked me out. Peter Murphy lit from below in black-and-white, David J with some Quasimodo-eque facial deformity, both Murphy and Daniel Ash seeming to be in varying states of putrescence, Kevin Haskins stepping up to the slab and reanimating the twitching corpse of Murphy…It’s a bit technically wonky and crude (the jerky frame stutters instead of a slow-motion thing seems tied to very early ’80s video technology), but it’s effective. I’m not sure what it all means, but it’s creepy and I love it.

(Pet theory time here: I’m firmly convinced that Eddie Van Halen ripped off the extended opening of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” for the opening of “Everybody Wants Some!” from Women and Children First. Just the drums and the guitar effects, not the riff that EVH plays over the top of it before David Lee Roth comes in.  I can’t be the only one who hears this, right?)

31 Days of Halloween, Day 29: The Strange World of Coffin Joe!

In 1964, José Mojica Marins created the first Brazilian horror film with At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (À Meia Noite Leverai sua Alma). In doing so, he simultaneously created one of the greatest horror film icons, Zé do Caixão (the familiar of “José of the Coffins; or, in the English equivalent, Coffin Joe).

Joe (the character’s full name is Josefel Zanatas, the last name containing Satan in reverse), played by Marins, is an undertaker in a small Brazilian town. He’s openly dismissive of religion (shown eating lamb and laughing at the faithful on Good Friday), contemptuous of weakness (he sees all of his other villagers as weak; when he injures a man in a bar fight who dares to stand up to him, though, he pays for his hospital bills), possesses claw-like fingernails and an obsession with continuing his bloodline with the perfect woman. When his wife is unable to bear him a child, he kills her and seeks a more suitable mate. Those who do not meet his standards (which is pretty much everyone who dares cross his path) die.

This plotline is carried through all three of the films in the “Coffin Joe Trilogy” — the aforementioned first film, 1967’s This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver) and 2008’s Embodiment of Evil (Encarnação do Demônio). None of these films are for the faint of heart: their minuscule budgets are overcome by mind-bendingly surreal imagery and extreme violence. But they became such a sensation that Coffin Joe (and director Marins) became ever-present figures in Brazilian popular culture, showing up in comic books, TV programs, toy stores and in music from artists as diverse as Os Mutantes and Sepultura.

Besides the films in the trilogy, though, Coffin Joe makes appearances in other entries in José Mojica Marins’ filmography. 1970’s Awakening of the Beast shows Coffin Joe in a hallucinatory realm (and makes reference to the character’s pop culture status). 1974’s The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe posits Marins vs. his creation  as Joe is used as an avatar of Satan himself. 1978’s Hallucinations in a Deranged Mind is a clip movie, showing scenes deleted or censored from other Coffin Joe movies, depicted as one man’s nightmares. More questionable are two other movies of Marins’. 1976’s Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures features a nameless hotelier who rises from a coffin and resembles Joe. More convincingly close to Coffin Joe is Professor Oãxiac Odéz (Zé do Caixão) in The Strange World of Coffin Joe. This anthology contains the short Theory, in which the professor kidnaps and tortures a rival professor and his wife in order to demonstrate that savage animal instinct is stronger than rational thought and emotion.

Many of Marins’ films are hard to get hold of, but if you can, immerse yourself in these brutally inventive and diabolical works.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 28: C.H.U.D.!!!

Okay, so I was coming up short with something to write about today.  So, after seeing the poster art on Tumblr earlier today, I decided I’d give this a watch tonight. Not with any intent to write about it, but just because. And man, I’d forgotten how entertaining this movie is. All you need to know is this (and I’m assuming that most of you already do, but in case you don’t for some reason, here it is): the acronym stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller, and it’s about homeless people being mutated by toxic waste being dumped in the sewers of New York into slimy HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP-looking creatures. And it’s got a great cast: Daniel Stern, John Heard, Kim Greist, Frankie Faison, Jon Polito, John Goodman…and the movie was half ghost-written by co-stars Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry. If you want to see a movie about subterranean-dwelling cannibals, you could do a lot worse (like the sequel, C.H.U.D. 2: BUD THE CHUD). But you really couldn’t do much better than this. (RAW MEAT might have it beaten, but I haven’t watched it recently, so my ADD-addled attention span can only focus on C.H.U.D. right now.)

31 Days of Halloween, Day 27: Satanic Sunday – GHOST

It’s the last Satanic Sunday before Halloween. So if you’re looking for that sweet spot where dressing up in costumes and Satan meet, you’re likely to land in the Swedish city of  Linköping, in the laps of Father Emeritus II and the anonymous Nameless Ghouls of Ghost.

Ghost have received a lot of criticism from some folks in the metal community. Well, of course. But I don’t care. I like what I like, and I like Ghost. They’re the first band in forever to make devil worshiping fun again. They write instantly catchy, tightly composed and immaculately performed tunes all about the Dark Lord with the intent of drawing the innocent into the web of Satan’s machinations. They may or may not be serious about their theological stance, but ultimately, who cares? There’s room for sing-along-able Mercyful Fate-esque pronouncements of blasphemy in my world as well as the more serious approach of bands like Watain, Ofermod, In Solitude and Arckanum.

Anyway, I cut together the video below. I decided to edit Kenneth Anger’s seminal occult underground short film Lucifer Rising to Ghost’s rendition of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” I thought it matched well, playing off the “sun / son” pun implied in Ghost’s decision to cover the song, and tying it to the “sun / Morning Star / Lightbringer” symbology of Lucifer. I’ve posted it before, but what the hey.

Happy Sunday, kids.

Here’s Satan.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 26: SPIDER BABY – The Maddest Story Ever Told!

Just watch that above video. I’ll wait. It’s the opening titles to Jack Hill’s classic in morbid humor, SPIDER BABY.

You finished yet? You wanna watch it again? Go right ahead. I’ll be right here.

If you like THE ADDAMS FAMILY more than THE MUNSTERS, this is the movie for you this Halloween season. The movie itself is a riff on the hoary Old Dark House tropes that were already tired back in the silent era. In many of these films, family members are gathered in a creepy mansion because of a pending inheritance. They are then picked off one by one as the story progresses. In this case, it’s the Merrye estate in question. The direct descendants in the Merrye line — Virginia, Elizabeth and Ralph (Jill Banner, Beverly Washburn and Sid Haig) — live on the estate under the guardianship of the caretaker, Bruno (Lon Chaney, Jr.). The Merrye family is afflicted with a strange syndrome (believed to have been brought on because of inbreeding): as the children reach adolescence, they begin to mentally degenerate. The older they become, the more childlike they become, eventually regressing into savagery and cannibalism. Bruno has sworn to protect the family until the final descendants have passed away. However, distant relatives (unaffected by the syndrome), their attorney and his assistant suddenly arrive, intending to claim the property as their own. As the household is plunged into chaos, Bruno’s control over the Merrye family slips away — something that can only be resolved through drastic measures…

Lest this sound like some serious, TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE prototype, the film is full of the darkest black humor, funny film references (the attorney’s assistant is seemingly very…erm…enthusiastic about the movie THE WOLF MAN), cartoonish characters and witty wordplay. Plus, it’s got the should-have-been-bigger Carol Ohmart (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) as one of the greedy relatives, and she does mean better than just about anyone. But the Merryes are the stars on display here, and they are great. Virginia is the “bad” sister, showing no hesitation about killing people and being generally duplicitous and possessing a borderline sexual attraction to her newly-arrived Uncle Peter that is…well…disturbing. Elizabeth is the “good” sister, tattling on Virginia’s every move. Ralph is completely gone, communicating only through grunts and gasps, and behaving like a bizarrely horny two-year-old. And then there’s Bruno.

Bruno is one of Lon Chaney, Jr.’s best performances. His gentleness and genuine affection towards those in his care is almost heartbreaking in its sincerity. He genuinely seems like a man who has been driven almost to the point of madness after the years spent taking care of a house full of crazy people (whom he can never let leave the property), yet who is still driven by a solemn oath he pledged to the estate’s former patriarch. He’s the anchor that grounds the entire movie, and Chaney is superb in doing so.

The production company went bankrupt after the film’s 1964 production, and so it sat unreleased until 1968. It was thereafter plagued by recuts and alternate titles that bore little relation to the film’s subject matter (THE LIVER EATERS, anyone?). It took a while to find its audience, but a cult has slowly grown around the movie over the years. Join the cult now, and give the film a watch this Halloween season!

31 Days of Halloween, Day 25: The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Dear lord, do I love this movie. I’ve probably seen it 40-50 times at least.

Vincent Price stars as Dr. Anton Phibes: expert inventor, musicologist, classical organist, and doctor of theology. While rushing home from a conference while his wife underwent an emergency surgery, his car careened off a cliff while she died on the operating table. Now (now being 1925), the doctor — long believed dead, but instead burned beyond recognition with his face covered by a mask and his voice transmitted via a connection in his neck — has emerged from the shadows to seek revenge on the team of nine doctors and nurses whom he believes let his beloved Victoria Regina Phibes pass away.

This is a sumptuously beautiful movie. Chock full of art nouveau and deco decor (even though everyone mentions art deco in relation to the film, Phibes’ lair is much more heavily nouveau influenced), brilliant colors and exquisite sets and contraptions, it’s directed by Robert Fuest with his typical eye toward visual overload. The plot is direct and straightforward, yet subversive. Phibes is perhaps the only relatable character in the film. Long-suffering Inspector Harry Trout — who is investigating Phibes’ crimes — comes close, but we’re never made to really feel sympathetic toward his character. He’s basically the “straight man” in the comic relief portion of the film. No, Phibes is our anti-hero, carrying out unspeakable and elaborate revenge in the name of his eternal, undying love for Victoria.

And now that I think about it, there’s an element in the film that carries along a theme I brought up in yesterday’s discussion of DEMONS. Like that film (and Fulci’s THE BEYOND), there is a seemingly supernatural character whose existence winds up being in peril. Phibes is assisted by the mysterious Vulnavia. She never speaks (there’s only mention of her speaking with a banker at some point, and even that is in question), and is essentially summoned from out of the aether by Phibes at the film’s beginning. But she winds up being killed by ordinary means. (She returns in the sequel, played by a different actress…is she the incarnation of some spirit, taking on a new mortal shell whenever the old one passes? Who knows?)

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Vincent Price’s passing from this mortal coil, give this one a watch tonight. It’s perfectly creepy, delightfully diabolical, and evil in the most romantic of possible ways. Heck, if you’ve got the time, watch the sequel too. It’s set in Egypt and it’s almost as much fun as the first.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 24: DEMONS (1985)

DEMONS was Lamberto Bava’s first international hit. The son of Italian horror maestro Mario Bava, he had made several horror and giallo films, and had collaborated with his father (on SHOCK and the television film LA VENERE DELL’ILLE) and Dario Argento (he was Assistant Director on TENEBRE) before reteaming with Argento on this film. Argento’s presence is strongly felt on this production: he produced the film and co-wrote the story, his daughter Fiore is featured, and the film’s Assistant Director (and bit part actor) was Michele Soavi, who had collaborated with Argento behind and in front of the camera several times before.

The story is minimal, yet inexplicably hard to explain: a female student obtains tickets to a special screening of a film from a mysterious, partially masked man (played by Michele Soavi; it’s unclear whether he is masked or if half his face is metal, so we’re going with masked). She and her friend attend and meet a could of boys. In the lobby of the theater, a display of a figure on a motorcycle carrying a metal mask (uncannily like the one worn by Soavi) gets the attention of a pimp (the amazing Bobby Rhodes) and his two prostitutes. One of the prostitutes puts on the mask and cuts herself removing it. In the movie being shown that night, a group of teens break into Nostradamus’ tomb where they find an identical mask. One of the teens (again, Soavi) puts on the mask, cuts himself, and turns into a demon. Right about that time, the same thing happens to the prostitute watching the film. From there, it becomes a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD scenario in which anyone who gets attacked by a demon turns into one themselves. And for some reason, the theater has become inescapable, all of the exits sealed.

It’s insanely gory, pus-filled, skin-popping, flesh-ripping and completely without a sense of logic. It’s never clear whether the film being shown is to blame for what’s happening or the theater itself, why or how the exits were sealed, where the film came from, who’s running the show, or why these people were selected to be in attendance. And if that’s not enough of a lack of logic, for no reason whatsoever, a HELICOPTER CRASHES INTO THE THEATER. And tonally, it not only feels Argento-esque, but also has touches of Fulci’s bizarre sensibility. For example, the usherette of the theater seems to be unnecessarily sinister, and we believe that she has to be in on this. But when the shit goes down, she’s just as much in the dark as anyone else. In this, she’s a lot like THE BEYOND’s Emily: a superficially supernatural character whose motivations are unclear and who winds up being in peril alongside our heroes.

But above all, it’s just ridiculously entertaining. It’s seemingly nothing but an excuse to show off some fantastic gore effects, and its free-wheeling sense of “anything can happen at any time” keeps things constantly energetic and engaging. Just when you think that what you just saw can’t be topped, something jaw-dropping happens. It’s got a great metal and new wave soundtrack, featuring Saxon, Accept, Mötley Crüe, Rick Springfield, Go West and Billy Idol. Goblin main man Claudio Simonetti composed the score. And it’s got an ending that continues through the credits and makes no sense given what’s just happened for the entirety of the movie we’ve just watched. It’s one of those movies that I always forget is so much fun until I start watching it again. Don’t skip it this Halloween season, unless you’re weak of stomach.

31 Days of Halloween, Day 23: BURIAL GROUND – THE NIGHTS OF TERROR

Of all the lousy zombie movies to come out of the Italian horror boom of the late ’70s and early ’80s, there are a handful of notable entries, each with their own charms. ZOMBI 3 is a mish-mash of low-budget yet eye-catching weirdness from the combined efforts of Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei and TROLL 2 helmer Claudio Fragasso. HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD is a trashy romp of incompetence and stock footage from Mattei and Fragasso that at least jumps around lively to the strains of Goblin music that was stolen from other movies. Umberto Lenzi’s NIGHTMARE CITY is well-directed and energetic, yet has batshit insane plot contrivances (there aren’t any real zombies on hand, much like 28 DAYS LATER, and these…things…can use weapons and FLY PLANES) and suffers from laughably awful makeup effects.
But then there’s Andrea Bianchi’s BURIAL GROUND (aka THE NIGHTS OF TERROR). Bianchi is otherwise best-known for one of the sleaziest gialli ever made, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER. And this is probably one of the sleaziest zombie films ever made. What can I say? The man likes his sleaze. A handful of well-to-do horndogs descend on a villa near a tomb that was recently opened, from which is emerging a whole slew of undead jerks. These, too, have rudimentary tool skills, and they proceed to get in the way of anybody trying to get it on in scenes imitating Fulci’s ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE). So everyone is sexually frustrated *and* terrified, which is how nobody wants to spend a weekend.
This, unbelievably, has better makeup effects than NIGHTMARE CITY. (But not by much — I swear that one zombie is just wearing a doctored-up Don Post mask of Boris Karloff from THE MUMMY.) The gore is extremely over the top, and the blood flows in torrents. But the main reason to watch this is to witness the odd majesty of Peter Bark. In his only film appearance, he plays Michael, the young son of Mariangela Giordano who appears to have a huge Oedipal fixation on her (to the point of despising his stepfather). The only problem is that Peter Bark is probably about 40 and is wearing an obvious toupee. Obviously cast only because of his slight stature (and because nobody wanted to make a minor act out the incestuous subplot), his wide-eyed stare, lack of acting ability and obvious age discrepancy makes his every appearance a surreal high point.
Like the other films I mentioned earlier, though, BURIAL GROUND is wildly entertaining. If you want to watch good old-fashioned slow-moving zombies actually outsmarting their human opponents (not because the zombies are intelligent, but because these people are STUPID) and unleashing rivers of grue, plus the most uncomfortable mother-son relationship since Greek tragedy, check this thing out.