The Black Dahlia Murder
I'll preface this to say once again, grunt metal
is not my thing. On the other hand I enjoyed these guys well enough
considering I don't have an ear for the style of music. The hardest
part of watching them turned out to be the fact that the lead singer
is a dead ringer for a friend of mine, in looks and mannerisms. I was
watching this guy and thinking the whole time.. man if Patrick were
cool enough and there but for the grace of angels or something like
that, it could be him up there on the stage. I never quite got over
that feeling for the whole show. The other thing that distracted my
thoughts was the tat on the stomach, HEARTBURN? That one has had me
thinking for over a week on it. Is he a walking Pepsid commercial?
Is it like one of them medical alert bracelets but more permanent,
is a some kind of reference to the actual Black Dahlia and it's placed
essentially where she was cut in half at. Hell I just don't know.
I've seen a few of these death/black metal bands the last year or so and
though I'm by no means and expert I at least have some clue about them.
1. The best ones come from Sweden (I don't know why but they all do). 2.
The american death metal bands often sound like they are trying oh so desperately
to emulate or try to get close to what the Nordic bands have mastered.
3. Mostly they fail, they grunt and growl because they can't really sing
a single note. (See Opeth for an example of a band that can sing and grunt
and pull both off incredibly well.) 4.
The Black Dahlia Murder is the first american one I've seen that I could
have believed came from Europe. which is both good and bad. They grunt
but he can go the other extreme in a flash. The only problem is they may
be just a bit too much like the Swedish bands. But this may be something
they'll grow out of and start developing their own distinctive style before
long.
Photographically speaking, I was pretty pleased
with the show, considering how fast these guys move it's tough to get
a halfway correctly exposed shot that isn't blurred to hell and back.
I would have loved to get more of the pit shots since they spent a
lot of time off the stage communing with the fans I guess.. Great stuff
if you can get it.. but not much in the way of lighting off stage (go
figure) so I barely got anything along that vein.
satyr
3/10/2006
satyr@satyrgraphs.com
