Municipal Waste - Toxic Holocaust - Black Anvil -- Rock'n'Roll Hotel - April 25 2010

Black Anvil - The question tonight is a whether I can handle a genre I know a bit about, but am out of date only interested in the best of the bunch, yet am seeing three bands I have not heard of? Well let us find out. The first band is a trio from NYC. They trend toward upper mid-tempo with a death metal sound. They do play a couple fast paced thrashers which I liked, sort of death metal Ace of Spades kind of songs. The two vocalists do variant demonic voices throughout. There is too much of the "if I can't sound like Rob Halford or King Diamond, let's do a guttural demon voice" thing that exists in this genre. But if stays a little low key in the mix, I can live with it. I don't know enough to say that they fall somewhere between Gorgoroth and Exodus, so that will have to do. But they certainly know how to open a show, unlike Exodus, and they did that here. The crowd got revved up and the set went well.

Toxic Holocaust - As I struggled to read their logo (what is it about the one style everyone uses--always a challenge with the Jaxx calendar), I see that another three piece hits the stage. They are faster than the openers with a sound more of the crossover hardcore and metal sound that DRI and west coast metal bands were doing back in the day. Well they are from the west coast, but from the more indie minded Portland, interestingly enough. The drummer can move it along and the other two seem pretty well locked in. The guitarist sings in a rasp again, but it isn't overly flamboyant which is good. The guitar breaks and solos are good, a bit thin at times but this is brief and not too shocking with one guitar. I like their songs mostly and thought they were quite good. The crowd grew to mostly full club and started going a bit crazy up front. So all is well tonight for the troops.

Municipal Waste - The nearly local band (Richmond, VA) hits the stage. They have a solid following world-wide and deliver a very fast thrash metal set. Each band got a bit faster and closer to that early 80s sound. They were a four-piece with a full time singer who went with his own voice. I almost heard a bit of the Boston hardcore scene in this music and some of that went metal, too, so it all kind of blends together if you look far and wide enough. Tough, strong music that the crowd got into. Oh, and the crowd had swelled, but earlier I did a count of black (or dark blue) shirts and came up with 42 of 50 with the rest in white, flannel or gray. That seems about the usual. One kid got tossed as we had to part ourselves for the security guy to drag him out the door. But nothing else too bad during this energetic set. And the final answer is that I enjoyed the night. I won't be going to everyone of these shows, but a good set of bands will bring me back.

Quote of the Night: "The next song is about ripping your fucking face off". I think fucking as an adjective was used about 3 dozen times in stage patter and much more in the lyrics and even the t-shirts.