The Black Dahlia Murder & Nile @ The House of Blues, Hollywood. 4/5/12.

Shrines to Madness

The Black Dahlia Murder are one of my favorite bands around. They played an awesome show last week that I was luckily enough to attend (got someone to cover my shift at work just in time!). I've written about them SEVERAL times on this here blog in the past so feel free to catch up if needed.
Anyways, about the concert. We arrived late and missed the opening band Hour of Penance and caught the last two songs from Skeletonwitch. This bummed me out because I've never seen Hour of Penance before and since they're from Italy, they don't frequent the United States so often. Skeletonwitch is also an amazingly fun live act and wished I could have seen more from them.

Luckily Nile came out and made everything just peachy. You might remember them from January's Crunch Time installment. They made the best of their brief 40 minute set, pretty much playing at least one track from each of their albums. Of course the highlight of their set was "Sarcophagus." Like I said in that Crunch Time post that song is RIDICULOUSLY heavy. Can't wait for Nile to come back and headline on their own.


The Black Dahlia Murder came out and the place went nuts. Again. Like usual. Happens all the time man. I wish all my favorite bands could be as huge/successful as these guys. 10 years ago (FUCK I'm getting old) there was only a handful of people, myself included, stoked to watch them opening for Arch Enemy and Hate Eternal at The Troubadour...these days they headline/sell out The House of Blues! In fact, I've seen BDM and Nile tour together before. In 2004, Dahlia went on before Nile when they supported King Diamond. Now Nile goes on before them! I'm getting all nostalgic for bands I still like...wtf?

Either way, Black Dahlia Murder slayed. They played a lot of newer stuff off Ritual and the crowd of perpetual teenagers ate it up. Their setlist consisted of songs from their last 3 albums aka the "Shannon Lucas Era." I don't blame them though, he's arguably the best thing to ever happen to this band and will be featured in my DrumTHRONE series in the near future. They ended the night with "Unhallowed/Funeral Thirst" of their debut album for us old timers. It was awesome...or "cray" or whatever kids say nowadays.

Here's BDM playing "Necropolis": enjoy!


*I knew their bass player Bart was sitting out this tour so I wasn't worried when I saw the buff dude from Despised Icon (R.I.P.) filling in for him on stage. I wasn't expecting to see Bart standing around the sound board after the show chilling with the old singer from The Faceless. Please don't retire Bart. You have a cool name and always make me laugh on Black Dahlia DVDs.

Crunch Time: Nile

Darkened Shrines lineup.

*Welcome to the latest edition of Crunch Time, where I swoon over some of my favorite HEAVY riffs.*

Nile. Technical death metal juggernauts, with a knack for Ancient Egyptian themes. Usually, Nile songs blaze through at a 1000mph (or 250+ BPM for drum geeks) but today, we feature one of their slower, yet heaviest tunes of their catalog.

I first got into Nile back in 2003. This was my senior year of high school and I was already listening to all the cool metal bands of the day...or so I thought. Hearing Nile's 2002 album In Their Darkened Shrines smashed my skull (via disc man) to pieces. Three distinct vocalists, rapid fire riffs, dazzling lead guitar work and lets not forget my personal favorite, the drums. I was sold instantly. Saw them twice in concert that year and could not wait for their next album. Then their bassist/vocalist and drummer quit. I was bummed. Sure, Nile added drum phenom George Kollias to the fold (easily one of the fastest drummers on Earth) but I didn't dig their following two albums as much as Shrines. People may thing I'm crazy but I prefer Tony Laureano's playing to Kollias any day of the week. As this song illustrates, speed isn't everything:
(Crunch Time riff begins @ 0:18 mark)

Damn that still gets almost a decade later. This song makes me want to command a legion of soldiers, conquer a foriegn land, then bang my head slowly as I ride a pack of elephants through the streets of my victory parade.

It's so simple, so haunting and so, so heavy. I've never abandoned Nile though. In fact their last album, 2009's Those Whom The Gods Detest, was amazing and almost as rad as Darkened Shrines in my book.