The 8th Plague Tour: The Riff Concert Review

Machine Head, Suicide Silence, and Darkest Hour

Saturday, January 21st @ Royal Oak Music Theatre

Holy hot damn, another concert on the heels of the last one already! Couple quick notes to start. Poor old Riffie couldn't score a photo pass for this show, so no shitty pics for you to peruse. Epic sad face, I know. Also, you can probably see another band on the tour poster called Rise to Remain. Well, they had to bail from the tour thanks to a broken van. 

Okay, onto the show!

Thine Eardrums Erupting: Drooling Fanboy Edition! (with one oddball)

Hey, something else we haven't done in ages: cd reviews! So let's get to some.

GOATWHORE!! GOATWHORE!! GOATWHORE!! If I were a Viking warrior, that would so be my war cry. But I digress.

Goatwhore's newest, to be released on Valentine's Day (because nothing says true romance like a sacrificial slaughter), is possibly their most aggressive album to date. The super fast blast beats of the opener "Collapse In Eternal Worth" ring of screeching black metal with guttural death metal vocals thanks to Mr. Falgoust. In fact, a good portion of the album has a more black metal lean than their previous release, Carving Out the Eyes of God. The fifth track, "Judgement of the Bleeding Crown", sounds like it could come straight from the early days of the Norwegian scene. Too gosh darn bad that the production is just so damn good.

Honestly, Blood for the Master is a great metal album that goes the Slayer route of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I call early Album of the Year contender right here.
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Okay, Corrosion of Conformity history time, kiddies. The band we know today as a Southern metal rock outfit with NOLA tendencies is actually just one form the band has taken over the years. They started out as an underground punk/hardcore band, with bassist Mike Dean on lead vocals. They would go through some style changes before they arrived at how they are known today. However, with Pepper Keenan busy with Down, the rest of C.O.C. have gone back to their roots and released a great self-titled album that bridges the hardcore with the band's modern style beautifully.

Opener track "Psychic Vampire" let's you know what you're in for, starting with a slow Southern bluesy drawl, then hitting you with a hardcore blast straight of the CBGB days. You can thank a lot of that beat to returning drummer Reed Muller, thus making this a full blown reunion of the Animosity era. Man, these guys must like the whole getting back together deal, because C.O.C. hasn't sounded this aggressive in a long ass time.
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The Rockstar Mayhem Line-Up for 2012 Has Been Released! Let's Dissect It!

The first obvious thing while looking at that poster is that there's way fewer bands on this year's tour. 9 (counting the mystery band) compared to last year's 13. Sounds like either there was some fat trimming, or there's another tour happening that stole a bunch of acts. We'll see come summer time. Now onto the acts themselves.

Slipknot and Slayer-Hey, no complaints here! These guys have toured Europe a ton of times together, so it's good to see them do a States tour. It'll also be the first Slipknot tour in the States after the death of bassist Paul Grey, so we'll see how the band holds up after such a huge loss. Also of note, this could be the return of Jeff Hanneman after his spider bite scare. I saw Slayer when they had Gary Holt as a touring replacement, and while he's no slouch at lead guitar, his tone just doesn't match to those iconic songs.

Super Secret Headliner Band-It's rumored to be Motorhead, which would make this a dream line-up. We'll see come March 5th.

Anthrax-Hey, they're actually playing in my neck of the woods! Usually, you have to go into the boonies to catch an Anthrax show, as they don't really like playing the Metro Detroit area. There'a always the possibility they would have to go to Harpo's, and Harpo's sucks. So yeah, that's pretty damn awesome! Plus, that makes half of the Big 4 line-up on one tour!

The Devil Wears Prada and Asking Alexandra-Well, you gotta go to the bathroom at some point, right?

As I Lay Dying-Glad to see these guys again, but I just don't think they can top the show they did on the Cool Tour some time back. I'd like to see them try though.

Whitechapel and High on Fire: Ah, the opening fodder, While I think it's a good spot for Whitechapel, I feel High on Fire are getting short changed yet again. Oh well, they've survived this long, so I guess they know what they're doing.

8-bit Metal Mondays: The Zombies Are Back!!

I've probably watched that Resident Evil 6 trailer about a dozen times by now, and I really like what I see. First, the game's gone dark again.I always had a problem with RE 5's daytime setting, as I felt the game got better when they got out of the sun. Second, there's gonna be ZOMBIES!! The classic kind! It looks like we'll also get some Las Plagas here and there, but it's nice to see the original strain of the T-Virus making a comeback.

So, in celebration of RE 6's imminent arrival this November, how about some metal bleepy covers of Resident Evil tunes? Here's a selection of stuff.

The Return of the Riff Concert Review!!

Friday, January 13, 2012 @ The Royal Oak Music Theater

Oh boy oh boy, I'm finally hitting up shows again! It's been too damn long since my ears went partially deaf from being pounded by metal goodness, but now is the time. The Royal Oak Music Theater is on a good groove this year, with this show and Machine Head this past Saturday as well! Of course, a review of that show will be up in a few days. 

 A note on this show: I sat down with Trivium's Matt Heafy and got to talk a whole bunch of nerdy gaming stuff with the man, so look for that in the coming week. It'd be sooner, but the man talked a lot! Takes time to transcribe all those words.

Okay now, onto the bands!

Last Week In Video Games

Greetings from Winterpeg. I am taking time out of my renovations project to give you guys this recap. Truth is everyone is asleep and apparently it's tough to sleep when I keep swinging hammers around. Who knew? Oh well, that leaves more time for video games! So lets get to it, shall we?

Resident Evil 6 is a go!

It was teased earlier this week through a few viral sites, but today the megaton bomb dropped: Resident Evil 6 will be coming out this year on November 20th! This time we get to be both Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield as they tackle bioterrorist on seperate sides of the globe. Leon's in the U.S., struggling with a small town with the disease, while Leon is in China where things have gotten to a riot level. Sneak the video below: