Best Show of the Year

Non-Boat, Of Course

I had the pleasure of seeing Ne Obliviscaris for the first time ever and, boy, was it amazing.  Before I tell you all about their performance I will let you know about the bands that opened and a little preface to the show itself.

Ne Obliviscaris is a band from Australia that has recently gained a large amount of notoriety.  Much of their notoriety comes from the use of a live violinist as well as some very progressive and technical playing of death metal.  The band operates with two singers, one harsh and one clean.  The clean singer being the violinist.  The band also recently faced some local scrutiny when they opened a Patreon account to help finance their endeavors instead of operating under the typical expectation of receiving money solely by record sales and concert sales.

Touring with them were Black Crown Initiate and Starkill.  Black Crown Initiate, a favorite of mine, has been in town a lot in the past two years and I have now had the opportunity to see them perform three times.  This was the first time I had seen them since their new album, Selves We Cannot Forget was released just last month.  Starkill was a band that I saw on the cruise ship last year and was instantly impressed with.

Starkill opened (after a local opener) and they played a large assortment of songs ranging their entire short catalog.  This setlist also included some newer songs from their forthcoming album.  What was really cool about Starkill was they included their most recent album with their shirt purchase, which I thought was excellent.  Virus of the Mind is probably the most well-known of their songs and a personal favorite of mine.

Black Crown Initiate played next, featuring “For Red Cloud” and “Selves We Cannot Forgive”.  This setlist was probably my favorite of the ones I have seen from them in the past because they also included “A Great Mistake” and “Stench of the Iron Age”, the latter being featured on their old EP.  They also played in a venue whose sound was more equipped to handle the music they performed.

From the beginning of the Ne Obliviscaris set, we knew things were going to be different.  The violinist was up there and he mentioned that they had to play their set differently than most sets.  This was because their harsh singer was sick and they had to improvise their set.  This meant playing extended intros, different versions of their songs, or omitting harsh vocals from songs altogether.  “Forget Not” was particularly poignant as well “Devour Me, Colossus”, in which the singer of Starkill came on to perform guest vocals.  All in all, it was five songs spread out over ninety minutes in one of the most beautiful performances I have ever seen.

We have a lot coming for the end of the year!  I know it’s only August but things will be jam packed! We have new albums from Opeth, Epica, Atmosphere, The Agonist, The Devin Townsend Project, and Starkill.  We have concert updates of Carach Angren, Epica, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Arkona, The Agonist, Gojira, Tesseract, Steven Wilson, Blind Guardian, and Watsky.

See you next week!

-Ryan