March 11, 2006 - Averse Sefira, Images of Violence, Devourment, Pleasant Valley, Insidious Decrepancy, Hatchetwork, Scattered Remains at Redrum Club, Austin, Texas

The Texas metal underground has historically been a divisive place: too many bands wanting to be number one and not helping others, so that there are infinite favorites but no greats. With the return of Averse Sefira to Texas after a long absence, a resurgence in confidence is seen in Texas metal. Not only has collaboration come to visit, but the community seems hungry for a few talented acts to represent a scene that was once overburdened with also-rans. This change in attitude is fortunate, because at this show not only did long-running Texas black metal legends Averse Sefira showcase a resilient and enduring sound, but also local death metal upstarts Images of Violence demonstrated the power and synchronicity of their new lineup.

After opening sets by Hatchetwork and Scattered Remains, one-man death metal machine Insidious Decrepancy banged out a set accompanied by drum machine. His music knows two modes of thought: first, a thunderous chromatic rhythmicism reminiscent of the elements of Morpheus Descends that inspired NYDM legends Suffocation, and second a fastpicked scattering of notes with minor key melodic implications in the style of technical death metal bands like Necrophagist or Martyr. The music is easy to listen to and gratifying in its old school attitude, yet seems to make no clear or forceful statement, even if in form - including vocals, guitar and the nonintrusive drum machine - it is highly polished. After this came Pleasant Valley, who craft a style of death metal that varies its consistency-heavy riffs with breaks and interludes that seem inspired by "found sounds" music in their attempt to mimic daily life. It was hard to figure where this band was going with their music or what was the desired content of articulation, but they were faithfully attended by a small crowd.

Images of Violence took the stage next. Fronted by local tattoo legend Jonzig and supported by former Acerbus battery expert Larry "The Professor" Jackson, this band have come together from the primitive death metal of their origins. Riffs flow smoothly together and those of little impact, the space-holding chorded disorder that many death metal bands use to connect disparate statements, have been dropped entirely. With new guitarist Dauber filling riffs with varied texture, including strumming speeds that would be oppositional to the motion of riff except for the high degree of internal counterpoint to the riff permitting parallax motion, Images of Violence have become more ambitious in addition to closing gaps in the conceptualization and execution of songs. They sound like an updated version of Montrosity that thanks to Larry's percussion is able to stack rhythmic breakdowns in a constructive manner; other influences would be a smattering of Suffocation in the corrugated internals of riffs that are on the surface basic patterns that by virtue of simplicity and boldness demand attention, and a sense of progressive melody in guitar fills, perhaps Pestilence or Gorguts. The essence of this music is an old school roar like Obituary or Malevolent Creation, but bleeding from within is a desire for a voice that speaks all languages in the experience of death metal, and the result is an articulate band that sacrifices none of the pleasures or impact of the germinal form of death metal.

In the short break that followed, most of the attendees of this show coalesced back onto the floor, watching the stage. Averse Sefira is not a band that permits fence-sitting; people tend to follow them religiously or despise them with ornery ecclesiastical passion, but tonight there was a sense of appreciation for these musicians who braved public disapproval of black metal in the early days and in its later days, endured being lost in the masses of nearly identical bands who like spawning salmon recorded demos and, stranded up a stream they could not navigate, died. Averse Sefira outlasted them all and recently released a triumphant third album that capitalizes on their technical skill and spirited, occult vision of metal as an art form (and not simply entertainment, like a video game or sitcom). The club darkened suddenly after a cursory soundcheck. Concentration broadcast from three sets of eyes, and an introduction composed of opposites, the sonorous and the abrasively rhythmic, the ancient and the modern, the smooth and the dispersed, filled the room. It was followed by a sudden attack. Being a three-piece, this band requires each member to fill sonic territory like an occupying chieftain, and after two songs and an improvised speech on the heroic values potentially accessible to the Texas scene, the band tore into the rest of their set like a marathon runner escaping sodomitic jailers. The highly specialized application of guitar and bass came together, and arch-drum veteran The Carcass (also of Death of Millions and Show Me on the Doll) held back his legendary energy in order to fit into the contours of each song. Guitarist Sanguine A. Nocturne channeled the spirit of deceased Voivod guitarist Denis d'Amour by wrestling with lushy discordant noise and messy squealing harmony, but he used this mess surgically by applying it in counterpoint to his more emphatic playing, which smoothly synchronized to the rigid rhythmic structures supporting it. The result was an impressive hybrid of Immortal's triumphant romanticism and the lost wanderings in violent wastelands portrayed by Morbid Angel, with influences from throughout metal's developing lineage. The collected experience of these band members, including for nearly a decade of death metal and radio presentation before Averse Sefira, gave them the confidence to pull off a performance that did not just "nail it" but was able to flex some muscles in the process and give depth to this experience. None of this was lost on the Averse Sefira diehards in the crowd, who lost it somewhere during the first song and probably did not regain mental stability until late the next day.

The crowd was respectful of this act who have bravely and steadfastly worked their way up the black metal food chain without compromising their ideals for anyone, or backing down from their high ideals of what makes excellent, enduring art. Interestingly, the audience of this show were mostly older, a fact given context by the emo-core and ambient alternative stoner grunge zydeco blaring from nearby clubs like Emo's and The Velveeta Room: the horde of clueless kids who will find something to champion for their years between 18 and twenty-five have moved on, finding black metal to be less pleasurable than the next trend. These people bloated black metal in a situation reminiscent of microcosmic imitation of human behavior; they discover a good thing, and finding that people want it and people wanting it mean power, distill it into a basic but accessible experience and then flood it with wanton, careless, selfish people, at which point it collapses into a polluted ruin. Such behavior was more common five years ago but now has mostly run its course, since the imitators brought in so many bands that they diluted quality down to the level of mainstream radio rock, at which point most people who could pass the GED were heading away from black metal as a genre. Although this situation is still rampant, wiser heads have prevailed, and the ranks have thinned alongside the hairlines as the black metal generation has grown up and maintained the faith while the trendfollowers have scattered like their own vapid thoughts. Those who attended this show saw how this historical process affects bands through the newfound diligence of the crowd and the way that the few drunken failures who did turn up were rebuffed, quietly, as one might purposefully ignore a homeless person at a eugenics conference. Respect was given where deserved more than before, and this bodes well for the Texas scene not only recovering from black metal's latefound popularity but getting over its carny hipsterism that caused problems for bands in the 1980s, as anyone who remembers dead horse deconstructing can attest.

Devourment played last with a style of disconnected technical metal that is both intriguing and completely visible as the bare bones of a simple animal: no matter how intricate some of the riffs will get, these songs like those of chug-metal veterans Skinless plod along with the aim of gratifying a primitive groove instead of shocking us through transition and layering as all the great bands in the style did. Although one of their guitarists came from legends Imprecation, it's doubtful that this band will be anywhere near that important.

For some this was a first introduction to the Redrum club, which is a nice enough place built like conventional Austin housing on a raised platform over a winding polluted stream ridden with trash. Its airconditioning was insufficient, its bar lavish, its sounds system not just competent but endowed with a sound engineer who was dedicated to finding a representative sound for each band and watching over them during the show. The setup was more professional than past metal shows, and while it didn't change the agenda of the bands onstage, it did make it easier to witness. It is no wonder that more Austin shows are going to Redrum than other venues. Thanks to the labor of several different entities, the entire show fit well into this kind of casual professionalism, and endowed the fans of these older but increasingly valid styles with a varied and yet consistently powerful concert experience.

Bands:
Devourment
Images of Violence
Pleasant Valley
Insidious Decrepancy
Averse Sefira

Averse Sefira video Live in Québec (WMV)

Promoters:
Redrum Club
Extreme Texas Metal