Napalm Flesh: March of Brutality & Pentagrammation

As another weekend approaches, the level of metalness in SLC will grow exponentially from last weekend’s local metal gigs and the Summer Slaughter Tour. Here’s a short preview and rundown of some massively good metal times to be had this week/weekend with some web-exclusive CD reviews, as well as some older concert-relevant reviews.

If your weekend starts on Thursday or if you just need a dose of brutality before the weekend, head on down to Burt’s Tiki Lounge and dig in to some porn-grind from the Meat Shits, death metal from Decomposition and local death metal wrecking crew The Obliterate Plague, whose original line-up will be together for the first time in six years. Also opening up the show is the local act Blessed of Sin. The brutal sounds are underway at 9 p.m. $10 at the door.

Friday night marks a rare occurrence for me, as I will be seeing a show comprised entirely of bands that I have not seen before. More importantly it’s a huge dosage of metal, more metal and god damned heavy metal. Exodus, Malevolent Creation, Bonded By Blood, Holy Grail and SLC’s Killbot will be wreaking havoc for the worthy and willing to bang their heads at Club Vegas. The show starts around 9 p.m. Tickets are available at The Heavy Metal Shop, via Killbot themselves, 24tix or Smith’s Tix and are $15.

One could debate the relevancy of the current incarnation of Exodus as compared to the Exodus of the 80s until the cows come home. The focal point should be that the band’s guitarist, Gary Holt, is a thrash legend, as is the band’s other mainstay drummer, Tom Hunting. I have my gripe about the validity of the “Big Four” shows that happened with Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax— the first three bands’ influence to thrash metal and heavy metal in general are huge, but labeling Anthrax as part of the “big four” is up for debatable. I hear much more influence from Exodus in the new breed of thrash metal that’s crawling out of every scene’s orifices—hell, look at show support coming from newer thrash act Bonded by Blood, who took their band name from the classic Exodus album. In my cynical-ass opinion, Exodus has released many better albums than Anthrax. Yeah, Bonded by Blood is the uber Exodus classic, but I’m actually partial to Pleasures of the Flesh as far as older Exodus is concerned, and aside from the rather dull Atrocity Exhibition A: the year 2000 era Exodus is still awesome. I’m actually quite glad I don’t have to see Exodus as part of a big arena tour and I get to get my thrash fix up close and personal at a club show. The band just released their 10th studio album The Atrocity Exhibition B: The Human Condition—keep reading for a review at the end of this article.

Also posted in this entry and exclusive to the blog is my review of the killer new Malevolent Creation album Invidious Dominion. Malevolent Creation helped define the Florida death metal scene and helped define the sheer power of the American death metal. I’m easily just as excited to revel in some good old American death metal punishment as I am to see Exodus for the first time.

Also noteworthy as part of the Exodus tour package is straight up heavy metal band Holy Grail, which features ex-members of White Wizzard. The band will definitely be playing tunes you’ll only hear live, since they have only released Improper Burial, a four track EP which features two cover tunes. Based on the two original cuts from the EP, Holy Grail has promise to be much better than White Wizzard. If you’re a fan of the classic NWOBHM influenced stuff, you’ll dig what Holy Grail should deliver—it’ll be damned epic.

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