### Necrophagist, Origin, Misery Index, 2007-09-03

#### 06/08/07 || The Duff

Engine Rooms in Brighton, UK.

Intro: Another gig at the Engine Rooms, and quite a line-up: Misery Index (about whom I have heard much but never given the time), some band I can’t remember the name of ‘cos they were so pretty damn fucken shit, Origin, and to top it off Necrophagist as headliners: sweet fucken deal.

Walking into the venue, I came upon Misery Index halfway through their set. Now, I’ve heard a lot about these chaps, and I can understand why such a commotion has been caused by their music; live, they are a tight outfit with a sturdy stage presence, and although I thought a lot of their slower, groove-led riffs sounded far too similar, I was largely impressed by what they had to offer. I doubt I’ll ever check out their material by purchasing one of their albums, but fuck, these guys churn out nothing exceptional and yet avoid sounding derivative simply by delivering the goods in the form of downright decent tunes that outshine bands with half the imagination.

Some Other Band: The band between Misery Index and Origin were so pretty damn fucken shit, so we’ll leave them without any coverage…

Origin: The first thing that hit me with Origin was that the vocalist is a fucken leviathan – real big fucken guy! The second thing that hit me was that there was only one guitar player; what’s more, the guy had a very unusual way of picking (has this review become more interesting yet?) – where his hand would flap about like a flaccid penis blowing in the wind. And then I witnessed the bass player warming up – at first, I thought the guy was just showing off without any sound (y’know, not actually being able to play what he was farcically fretting away), but when the first song kicked in (by the way, don’t be expecting a setlist, as all the Origin songs in a live setting sound identical – I know they played “Larvae of the Lie”, “Portal”, “Reciprocal” and “Amoeba”, but that’s all yer getting), you could tell this guy had put in some serious fucken hours; as much as I may have thought the guy’s fretting hand appeared ridiculous as all hell, Mike Flores is quite simply the best bass player I’ve ever seen.

The vocalist was also something to behold (noticed his hand curling round into a rather camp pose whilst attaining the apex of some of the higher-end screams, and at times the guy kept rearranging his hair, all of which I found chuckle-worthy – this behemoth of a man screaming about nuclear bombs and searing of the flesh all the while being quite effeminate in the process); as much as I don’t think much of vocalists who don’t play an instrument, this guy sure could perform (although he did appear to get a little frustrated with the crowd for not moving enough/not being enthusiastic enough about some of the songs selected for the show).

Necrophagist: Throughout the band’s performance, Muhammed seemed to be having trouble with the sound guy, giving him the evil-eye after the majority of the songs played; I think he wanted the kickdrum volume increased, and the guy (from now on known as Fred) wasn’t doing something right to comply with his wishes.

At one point, Fred seemed to lose it completely, and increased all the drums to the point where the guitars became a chore to make out; this mild inconvenience lasted for about one song, so it’s not as though the entire set was ruined as a result. Fred also fucked up on the bass sound, as the guy (I have no idea who the fella is – Necrophagist sure do go through bandmembers) was turned down way too low; during the solo, tapping parts of the songs, he was barely audible. This could be down to his purely being a shit player and not hitting the notes accurately enough, but I somehow doubt it, as every time he broke off into one of these solo moments, his face would light up into an expression of giddiness before sinking into disappointment each and every time he realized the problem hadn’t been fixed.

A number of you may be aware that Necrophagist use a lot of artificial harmonics in their material; imagine, if you will, an annoying little fucker going “boop” every time one throughout “Intestinal Incubation” turned up, and you can pretty much gather how tedious the Brighton crowd could be. It’s like, “Buddy, we can tell you’re super-tight with the tunes, and you can hum them with a breath’s notice, or else you wouldn’t fucken be here supporting the fucken band! Shut the fuck up, and let us enjoy the show!”; but these fucken asshats just have to be heard, I guess. Again, it was only for the one song, so it didn’t make me see red for the entirety of Necrophagist’s set.

The setlist included “Foul Body Autopsy”, “To Breathe Within a Casket”, “Extreme Unction”, “Fermented Offal Discharge”, “Intestinal Incubation”, “Stabwound”, “Seven”, “Only Ash Remains”, “Epitaph” and “The Stillborn One” (not too sure on the last one, as it was some time ago now – fuck you, I belong here!). A little gutted that they didn’t play “Symbiotic in Theory”, but you can’t win ‘em all – the band was great to see, and performed its set both professionally and admirably. At the end of the show, I hung back with the at the time only remaining Origin guitarist (who sounded somewhat like Michael Jackson), spoke with him a little about the UK crowds, and got my copy of “Epitaph” signed by Muhammed Suicmez – once more, the Engine Rooms shows its superiority over the Concorde 2.

8 bitter sound guys out of 10.