Date: Saturday, April 13, 2013
Venue: Ten Eleven, San Antonio TX
Bill: Army of Drunks, Aggravator, Hexlust, Insinnerator, Lich King
It was July 2010 when we last rocked the house with Insinnerator. Since then, they released an acclaimed album (Stalagmite of Ice) and an even more widely celebrated EP (Hypothermia). We in Hexlust... did stuff. Over the two and a half years since, we kept in touch, sharing early-Nintendo jokes and guilty pleasure pop videos, making fun of new Anthrax, and sending promises back and forth that we would soon enough share the stage again. And oh, what an occasion that would be.
Finally, on a mid-April Saturday night in San Antonio, an occasion arose. Insinnerator, hopping on board the Texas leg of Lich King's Born of the Bomb tour (in support of the album of the same name) came to the Ten Eleven to join forces with Hexlust once again for a real, honest-to-goodness nut-busting thrash show. No arbitrarily-booked core, post-black, or Pantera-worship bands on the bill tonight!
ARMY OF DRUNKS/AGGRAVATOR
As with the M.O.D. show, this audience needed no extended warm-up; they came ready to rock. There was head-banging, fist-pumping, and a few unprovoked choruses of "Hey! Hey! Hey!" during Army of Drunks, who, for a band with one guitarist (exclusively rhythm), no bassist, and a meat-and-potatoes drummer, really know how to get a show going. Their songs are a well-balanced arrangement of fast and aggressively mid-pace, and they're no slouches in terms of stage presence, constantly moving and headbanging.
Their guitarist spent the rest of the evening trying to get a member of Hexlust to have a beer with him, an uphill battle considering half of us are stubborn (yet polite) teetotalers and the other half would greatly prefer to drink in the privacy and safety of their own home, if they ever drink at all. Being the great guy that he is, JT eventually fell on that sword and accepted a Lone Star, earning himself ten diplomacy points and... well, a beer.
Aggravator continue to be San Antonio's most persistent work-a-body band, releasing a kickass album (The Age of Combat), going out on tour, and even playing a few shows in Norway over the past year, in addition to making themselves continually available to play any local metal show offered to them, whether as openers or headliners.
Hard work and a busy schedule indeed have their rewards, as these guys continue to get better and better every time I see them. Their performance tonight was super tight and hella punchy, building even further upon their modern-day-Megadeth method of raw, aggressive thrash sweetened with melodic lead guitar work. Speaking of lead guitar, did that guy grow hair?? Holy hell, I guess it has been a while since we've seen Aggravator!
HEXLUST
I started counting off the first song and shit immediately started going wacky. My hi-hat stand was half on the drum carpet and half on the smooth stage floor, so we weren't even out of the intro to "FBF" before my pedal-pumping action sent it sliding away. This continued throughout the whole rest of the set. Thankfully, my kick drum was rooted firmly on the carpet, but my side hi-hat was also half on the stage floor, so I couldn't even rely on that like I usually do when something goes wrong with my main hats. The fact that the side hats share a stand with my china cymbal give me two different opportunities to send that one stand moonwalking into Tarzan's bass amp.
Shit, this was going to be one of those shows, where I play mostly from muscle memory because my actual attention is focused on keeping my kit from being all "Bye, Dart!" and abandoning me altogether. My floor tom, which I guess felt bad for me and wanted to give me a hug, was sliding toward me instead of away, at some points grinding on my thigh. This was not only way christing uncomfortable, but also got in the way of pedal work. I held up quite a few songs having to disentangle stands and pull everything back in even after Tony had announced the next tune.
I wasn't alone in dragging down the momentum of our stage show. At one point Tarzan had to re-tune his bass, and he doesn't have a pedal so he had to pull the plug out of the amp, plug into a tuner, do his thing, and re-plug his amp back in. Yep, after Tony had announced the next song. And poor JT had to once again spend some time fiddling with the settings and getting a decent sound out of an unfamiliar amp, since he still hasn't bought a new one and was borrowing Fry's.
Tony was not a happy camper. He was also nervous as all get out, since at some point in the evening some beer had been spilling on and around the outlet into which his amp was plugged. He did his best to dry it off but was still operating under the terrifying premonition of his amp exploding.
Even though all the technical nonsense weighs heaviest on my mind, we played pretty damn well tonight. My drumming was uninspired but spot-on, guitar solos went off without much of a hitch (although JT did lose track and overextend his solo in "Toxic High," which is captured in the video I posted below). Tarzan did have some trouble with his arm cramping and his voice going out, but he held it together very well. The crowd was really supportive in spite of all our crap, and genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves. Big thank-you to everyone in the audience that night, including the ever-supportive Hellbound Jeff and BJ, Tony Rivera, Insinnerator's Chris Atomic-Thrasher, my brother Damiyan, and the surprise appearance of Humut Tabal's Grimzaar.
Set List:
FBF
Toxic High
They Conjure
Baphomet Dawn
Meganecropolis
Tombs of the Blind Dead
INSINNERATOR/LICH KING
Insinnnerator ruled the night from the instant they counted off. The energy was high, the headbanging was immediate, and the moshing was continuous (ol' JT busted his lip pretty well participating in the pit that night). Juan Speed is a monster on the kit; it might just be because he's a bigger dude but every stroke of his sticks seemed to be brought down with the entirety of his power. His poor drum heads, he must have to replace them every week! Brutal Ben handled bass and vocal duties very well. What surprised me is that he played with a six-string bass. I didn't get a good enough look at his playing to determine how much of the increased stringload he used, but I'm sure he wouldn't bother if he didn't feel it necessary.
And of course, we have Christopher Atomic-Thrasher, whose classical training (as in a legit college degree, not just a few half-ass lessons) informs his playing very well without being obnoxious. In fact, unless you knew what to look for, you'd hardly know it's there. Tarzan told me he saw Chris making some very unusual chord shapes in one of their songs, the type only a learned player would know and a well-practiced one could pull off at those speeds. His solos were just the kind I like, a mixture of tight, accurate shredding and noisy whammy bar abuse, with just the right hint of melody. Insinnerator are far and away my favorite of the current generation of thrash bands, and they ruled the evening with their insane talent and boundless energy. They even played "Nightmare Theater!"
We only stuck around for about half of Lich King's set, and most of that time was spent saying goodbyes to our friends and comrades. I didn't hear much of Lich King's music but I did meet their drummer and guitarist, who were incredibly friendly and humble dudes, so the impression I walked away with was a good one.
