Venue: Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
Date: September 24th, 2017
Toothgrinder: Toothgrinder first caught my attention in early 2015 when they were opening for The Contortionist on their headlining tour for Language. Two and a half years later, they managed to be even more impressive. Over the course of their 25-minute set, they won over the packed room at the Paradise with their wild energy and intriguing blend of prog melodies and mathcore spasticness. This is one of the more promising young bands in the scene right now and I'm very intrigued to see what they offer up on their new record Phantom Amour, which is currently set for release on November 10th.
Polyphia: Outside of Animals and Leaders and Intervals, I don't think there is a better instrumental band in metal right now than Polyphia. The precision and dynamic instrumentation the Texas-based quartet displays on record completely carries over to their live show. Their lush melodic riffing is consistently gorgeous and the astonishing level of talent they possess as a group becomes even clearer in a live setting (especially the contributions from their new drummer Clay Aeschilman). Polyphia was an excellent fit on this bill and I fully expect this tour to significantly elevate their already rapidly-rising stock in the prog metal community.
The Contortionist: For the 7th time since April 2011 and 3rd time in the last 18 months, I was blessed (?) with the opportunity of seeing The Contortionist live. In a not-so-shocking development, I was once again completely content yet somewhat underwhelmed by their performance. While I don't have any serious beef with the more straightforward prog direction (aka overwhelming Cynic worship) they've adapted since vocalist Mike Lessard joined the band on a full-time basis back in 2013, I'd be lying if I said I wish they never departed from the -core influenced sound of their earlier records. The surprise appearance of "Flourish" off of their excellent 2010 debut LP Exoplanet in their set served as a strong reminder of how much more interesting, lively and distinct they were as a band when they were making prog-tinged deathcore. They're too musically-competent for me to get irritated or disappointed by their presence on a bill, but I doubt I'll ever get overly excited about seeing them live again.
Between the Buried and Me: 2017 has been an absolutely insane year for anniversary tours. I got to see Coheed and Cambria play all of their 2005 LP Good Apollo I'm Burning Star Vol.1 From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness in May followed by The Black Dahlia Murder performing their blistering, breakout album Nocturnal in honor of its 10th anniversary in July. Between the Buried and Me's Colors marked the third (and most likely, final ) of my all-time favorite albums that I got to see played from start to finish this year and unsurprisingly, it made for one of hell a climax for this beautiful nostalgic journey.
Like a large portion of their fanbase, Colors served as my introduction to Between the Buried and Me. However, my journey with the record was a little bit different than most people's. I heard Colors shortly after it was released in September 2007 and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I didn't realize just how special it was until I saw them live for the first time in October 2008 with Children of Bodom and The Black Dahlia Murder. Shortly after that show, I became full-blown obsessed with Colors and by the time their next LP The Great Misdirect came out in October 2009, BTBAM had become my all-time favorite band.
The most staggering part about seeing this album played in its entirety for me was getting to hear the crispness of the transitions between songs in person. Colors was composed as a single 65-minute song broken up into eight different sections and as a music nerd, I took great delight in watching the variety of vastly different moving parts (crushing metalcore breakdowns, technical death metal-esque soloing, polka piano interludes, frenzied screams that turn into soothing falsetto singing, too many others to list) that are present in all of these songs turn into a cohesive whole. Watching the brilliance, beauty and complexity of this record slowly build in real time marked one of the rare occasions where I was truly floored by what I was experiencing. Even though I've heard the finished product hundreds, if not thousands of times over the past decade, seeing these tracks played live helped me gain a new level of appreciation for how phenomenal the songwriting and overall musicianship is on this record.
As I'm writing this, I can say without question that the power of this performance still hasn't fully hit me. I spent the ride home from the show last night starting to process the power of what had I just witnessed and that feeling has only intensified as the hours tick away on this shocking gorgeous late September day in Massachusetts. 10 years later, Colors holds up as a bold, inventive and unbelievably satisfying landmark album in the formation of my musical identity and I commend Between the Buried and Me for being able to bring it to life with the same level of technical proficiency and liveliness that they had back in 2007. This was an incredibly special performance that I will cherish for the rest of my days.
Scores:
Toothgrinder 8/10
Polyphia 8/10
The Contortionist 7.5/10
Between the Buried and Me 10/10
Setlists:
Toothgrinder:
The Shadow
The House (That Fear Built)
Futile
Phantom Amour
Diamonds for Gold
Blue
Polyphia:
Euphoria
Loud
Champagne
Goose
Icronic
Icronic
Finale
The Contortionist:
Return to Earth
Flourish
Clairvoyant
Reimagined
Language I: Intuition
Language II: Conspire
Between the Buried and Me:
Foam Born A: The Backtrack
Foam Born B: The Decade Of Statues
Informal Gluttony
Sun of Nothing
Ants of the Sky
Prequel to the Sequel
Viridian
White Walls
Encore:
Mordecai
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