I have memories, clouded by sorrow

Ok, so to sum up my recent cd purchases of note:

Swallow The Sun > Insomnium > Katatonia > Paradise Lost

...and that's about all that needs to be said. Each band put out a fairly typical album but the quality differs.

Recently I also got 'To Lay Like Old Ashes' by Austere which is supposedly in the 'depressive black metal' genre but to me sounds more like simpified mid-period Katatonia with someone wailing over the top of it, and 'They Whispered You Had Risen' by Cryptal Darkness, who were basically Australian doom/death band The Eternal before they started down the route to mediocrity. They had Martin Powell of My Dying Bride/Anathema/Cradle of Filth 'fame' playing on this album and the violins are definitely reminiscent of early My Dying Bride.

Speaking of Martin Powell, he was at the Paradise Lost and Katatonia gig on Wednesday in Sheffield, along with Nick Barker and probably various other important people from the world of British metal who I wouldn't recognise due to not being 'in' enough. The gig was mostly good although a little disappointing. Katatonia played well but I would have liked to have heard more songs that weren't from Viva Emptiness or The Great Cold Distance. They only played one song from the new album, which was 'Forsaker', not one of the 2 I would have expected ('The Longest Year' or 'Liberation').

As for Paradise Lost, it was strange to see Nick in a sleeveless t-shirt for probably the first time since 1995. Recapturing his metal youth? Who knows. The band seemed to play well for the most part but it was hard to enjoy the gig. Firstly, the awful sound. Aaron's guitar was too quiet, Greg's was too loud to the point of getting feedback between all the notes, and Steve's bass was louder than absolutely everything else in the room. At least Nick couldn't complain about the vocals which were fine this time. And the setlist was a bit narrowly focused for my tastes. I don't expect them to play anything from Lost Paradise or Believe In Nothing, but this time there was nothing from Gothic, Icon, Host, or the self-titled album either, if I remember correctly. And they didn't play Last Regret off the new cd either, instead preferring some of the more meandering tracks. Ah well.

No more gigs for a few weeks, but Swallow the Sun and Insomnium come around in early December. I still haven't received my tickets for that, but I did get a 'You were out' card from the bastards at Royal Mail regarding something that was sent to me by recorded delivery. That was more likely to be Bloodstock tickets than StS tickets, but who knows. Needless to say the Royal Mail card had a date on it that was at least a day earlier than when it appeared in my mail box, and that when I tried to arrange a redelivery online, it refused because it said the date I entered was illegitimate, as they only hold recorded mail for 7 days. The fact that the date given was 6 days ago counted for nothing, apparently. More than typical.

The autumn of many gigs has begun, although not all has gone according to plan.

Friday was Finntroll and Battlelore. I really like Battlelore but having seen them twice now, it appears that they don't seem to be able to get the female vocals working live. It could just be coincidence that both times they were too quiet but I get the impression that if they turned them up loud enough to be audible, there was too much feedback. Perhaps she needs a better microphone, or have the rest of the band do without her vocals in the monitors if that's what causes it. Strange. Anyway, that was a bit disappointing. Then Finntroll came on and I just found them irritating unfortunately. Maybe it was just because about twenty teenagers started a big moshpit to songs they clearly didn't know leading to many a spilled drink, or maybe it was because a lot of Finntroll's stuff sounds the same and when things sound identical I tire of them very quickly. Either way I found it reasonably tedious and that contributed towards me not being in the mood for staying out in the pub with everybody else after the gig, so a relatively early night was had.

Saturday would have been Primordial and Swallow the Sun in Dudley but I had discovered during the prior week that this would be a logistical nightmare. Getting there would be awkward (train + taxi), getting back would be worse (taxi + train the next day), and that would require accommodation that night (2x taxi + hotel). I tried to book accommodation at a couple of places but they were already booked up, presumably with people in a similar situation to me. So in the end I gave up and stayed home playing The Bard's Tale 2 on the computer instead. It was a bit of a waste of a £40 ticket (which I'd bought on the incorrect assumption that since three-quarters of my friends like Primordial and/or Swallow The Sun, someone else would want to go), but on the other hand I saved the £70 or £80 extra it was going to cost me to travel and stay over. C'est la vie.

Sunday was The Atrocity Exhibit and Middenhelm plus 2 other noisy bands. I think one of the noisy bands had the drummer from Medulla Nocte who looks like the mancubus from Doom 2. Anyway, the 2 noisy bands plus The Atrocity Exhibit were mostly, well, noise. Well-executed and technical noise but it just seemed pointless to me. Still, if they're having fun, who am I to complain? Anyway, Middenhelm were the band I went primarily to see and they were a little better than the others, being of a more black metal persuasion and even having distinct notes that you could hear on occasion.

The next gigs in my diary are Ensiferum/Tracedawn/Metsatöll on Wednesday 7th, then Amorphis and Before The Dawn in London on the 10th (which I will go to regardless of cost and inconvenience) and Triaxis back in Nottingham the evening after.