To observe the blessed birth of a self-titled debut EP, Riparian, a lacerating new Pittsburgh death metal band featuring members of Wrought Iron, took the stage at Get Hip Records on a rainy Saturday night and showed a packed audience that they have plans to turn our scene upside down. Frontman Rob Grisly growled his intestines out on the floor, the stage being too small to contain his unholy, bloody rage, his teeth gnashing as...
Immolation are a band I haven’t always been keen on, their perpetual blastbeat downpour being somewhat impenetrable to me as a man who prefers his death metal melodic, tricky, and with a sense of groove. Yet upon a revisitation of Immolation’s catalogue, particularly more recent albums such as Atonement, I found many connectable and intelligent moments to latch onto, more so than I had previously. Beginning to feel as if I were a fighter ducking...
North Carolinians Corrosion of Conformity are seemingly in the midst of a revival since riff-dealing madman Pepper Keenan rejoined the band in 2014 and have arguably been making records that are even better than their 90’s classics, one of which, Deliverance, marks its 25th anniversary this year. And their set at Mr. Smalls on a slushy Thursday evening with a sludgeoning, stoning, doomstomping threesome in Crowbar, The Obsessed, and relative upstarts Mothership was amply representative...
Thin Lizzy, despite only having one album go gold in the United States through the power of two enduring radio hits, continue to be a tremendously influential act decades after they disbanded and their seminal frontman, Phil Lynott, passed away. There’s been some controversy over the band reforming under the Thin Lizzy name in recent years and with a new one boasting original material in Black Star Riders. But none of that mattered this evening...
More than two months ago, intensely morbid, violent, and technical Toronto death metallers Tomb Mold branded the psyches of those who were fortunate, sturdy, and brave enough to attend Migration 2 over the course of their set. On a misty Monday in November, they returned to a nearly full house at Bloomfield’s Howler’s Coyote Café, slamming skulls into gravestones with funereal aplomb. Percussively impressive was skinsman/larynx Max Klebanoff, who was able to growl and rumble...
Robb Flynn is a warrior born. Early in the year — the team captain of a band with a very complicated trajectory that took them from groove metal to nu-metal to thrash to a place where they embrace their entire history–stopped a show 45 minutes into what was to be a 2 1/2 hour spectacular after a throat infection put up an insurmountable wall. A date was rescheduled. Tickets from the prior date were honored....
It was like a well-attended family reunion that was being held on a misty Saturday night close to Halloween in a decidedly industrial part of town. The venue, Get Hip Records, also doubles as a record label, shop, and warehouse and was highly apropos for such a historic event and a general showcase for Icarus Witch, one of Pittsburgh’s most exciting metal acts. Andrew D’Cagna, a multi-instrumentalist known for his work in Brimstone Coven and...
Thirty years ago, my father, then a limousine driver, chauffeured Alice Cooper around Pittsburgh when he toured here. To this day, my dad can’t get over how “normal” and decent he was. Since then, I’ve had an affinity for the gruesome old devil and his violent vaudeville spectacle, which I’ve caught on numerous occasions since 2010. Alice Cooper, rock’s most macabre villain, made it to The Steel City yet again the other night at a...
A Clutch concert is always a quasi-religious experience, and last night was ideal for such a church service. It’s become an annual tradition in Pittsburgh for Clutch to swing by for an evening of worship, a fall classic if you will. And you will. Rock that is, by the will of iconically bearded electric evangelist Neil Fallon and his murder of crows. This having been my seventh Clutch show, I found the set to be...
That Deceased aren’t as renowned as other thrash and death acts, be they mid-level or major league, is an injustice. They should be headlining festivals large and small and packing the denimed, leathery, mophead mobs in. Instead, they gave their all in front of a small Pittsburgh crowd on a patchy, concrete floor at an odd, appropriately disheveled new Oakland venue called Babyland, which serves as a workspace for struggling artists during the day....
