#jared klein

Photo by David E. Jackson

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On their 9th studio album Verminous (Metal Blade), The Black Dahlia Murder continue to do what they do best, show off their versatility in performance and metal subgenre. Produced by their guitarist/backup vocalist Brandon Ellis, it was released just after COVID hit last year, and tonight, they play their first tour date since the pandemic at Concord Music Hall in Chicago. The album’s title track opens with--what else--Alan Cassidy’s blast beats as Ellis and guitarist Brian Eschbach add choppy riffs and cascading solos, Trevor Strnad’s alternating icy screams and guttural growls guiding the song along. Overall, they combine technical tempo changes with the fast-paced bombast of old school British metal. The galloping guitars and drums on “Removal of the Oaken Stake” recall Iron Maiden (on the day a new IM album comes out!), while a song like “Child of Night” sports drums and Max Lavelle’s bass so quick it’s almost pure noise. And where vocal chants follow the same pattern as the guitars, as on “Sunless Empire”, there’s still roam for soaring solos. The penultimate track is a 40-second acoustic interlude, gorgeous picking combined with sounds of dripping water and squeaking rodents before the band launches into closer “Dawn of Rats”. It’s the most different song on the record, but it exemplifies the band’s ability to seamlessly combine the beautiful with the ugly.

Minneapolis prog metal band After the Burial, San Diego County deathcore band Carnifex (who we’re fans of and are, too, releasing a great new album today, Graveside Confessions via Nuclear Blast), Pennsylvania technical death metal band Rivers of Nihil, and Rochester death metal band Undeath open. Remember to bring your vax cards (or negative COVID tests; if you could have gotten the shot but didn’t, you suck) and masks!

Pennsylvania’s progressive death metal progenitors, Rivers of Nihil, will release their self titled 5th studio album on the 30th of May. Sixteen years and five albums into a band’s career might seem a strange time to release a self titled album. Aside from when it’s a debut, band’s tend to release self titled albums later in their career when it is time for a refresh or a reset. Perhaps both.…

Rivers of Nihil are an interesting extreme metal band for me.

Some loud passages - and yet not overwhelming to the ears

Many interspersed quieter parts to a song - so your brain doesn't zombie out with the incessant notes

Singing! (not just growling)

Saxophone!! (in such death/extreme metal? how?)

Very recent release.

As soon as it started, I thought:

Oh wow. Saxopohone in this song too...

The lighthouse... could it have been inspired by the movie Annihilation? (No, it wasn't. But that was an interesting movie. Natalie Portman made an exception by being in a horror movie.)

The song description on YouTube: