### Hate Eternal, Origin, Vital Remains, Abysmal Dawn: 2011-07-11

#### 29/07/11 || InquisitorGeneralis

Who: Hate Eternal, Origin, Vital Remains, and Abysmal Dawn When: July 11th, 2011 Where: The Ottobar, Baltimore MD

Just look at the motherfucken bands on this bill. If you do not immediately begin playing with yourself, you are not fan of extreme metal. When I saw this bill, I gave myself a five-fingered pleasure cruise right to the Grand Gayman Islands. My purple-headed love dolphin swam in the sweet foam of technical metal self-ecstasy. When I saw that this steamroller was coming to The Ottobar in Baltimore where I work, DJ, get in for free, and drink at a greatly reduced price I furiously beat my dick like it had just fucked my sister. You’ve got to be kidding me! Needless to say, this was going to be an intense Monday night of blasting beats and drunken bromance. Add to the fact the night before I had worked a ten hour long show with Suffo-fucken-cation as the headliner in the same fucken club added to the sheer brutality of the entire event. Besides the awesomeness of the bill, three of the bands have just recently released new records and I was excited to get a big ole’ mouthful of that new material in the live setting. Guess which band wasn’t touring on a new record? It’s ok Vital Remains, no one really wants anything new from you. Just keeping on playing “Hammer down the nails” and “Dechristianize” and no one will know the difference. More on that later…

Charlie and Abysmal Dawn delivered a seriously apocalyptic, misanthropic death metal set with skill and power. Cheers!

I got to the venue just before Abysmal Dawn hit the stage. I have been a huge fan of these Los Angeles based death metallers since their 2006 debut “From ashes”. To be honest, they were the band I was most anxious to see! Witnessing the power of Eric Rutan’s forehead and John Longstreth from Origin ass-fuck his drum kit were also big motivators, but Abysmal Dawn is definitely my favorite band musically from this bunch. Anyway, they came out strong with “Programmed to consume” and got a pretty solid reaction from the crowd who had already been subjected to four or five local opening acts. Abysmal Dawn has had a lot of in’s and out’s in their line-up, with frontman, founder, and main creative force Charles Elliot being the only constant member since the band’s inception. I got a chance to hang with him after the show and talk metal shop over a few cold National Bohemian beers, definitely a solid individual. Back to the tunes, Abysmal Dawn Version 2.011 is pretty fucken tight. Drummer Scott Fuller laid down one precision beating and/or groove after another with some serious Mike Smith vibes. The band had recruited some Japanese dude to play guitars and he kicked ass too. I can’t find his name anywhere but I bought him a beer later in the spirit of international goodwill. The rest of the band’s set was completely taken from their newest release “Leveling the Plane of Existence”. I would complain about this because I like alot of material from their first two albums, but the new shit was sexcellent; it has groove, heaviness, variation, and good ole’ school aggression. “In service of time” and “Rapture renowned” stood out the most, but each of the new cuts were very good to awesome. Even though I would liked to have heard “Path of fire”, “Twilight’s fallen”, or ‘Servants to their knees” I really can’t complained because I enjoyed the set immensely. Fuck yeah, things were off to a good start.

Absymal Dawn Setlist: Programmed to Consume My Own Savior Rapture Renowned Perptual Dormancy Leveling the Plane of Existence Pixilataed Ignorance In Service of Time

Vital Remains came out, the singer had spikes on, they hated on Jesus, played some songs mash-ups, blasted alot, and were their usual decent selves. They played “Savior to none, failure for all” which was awesome, but it seemed the drummer had a hard time keeping up. Not a bad show (Vital Remains never is) but with no new material to play or any change in the band’s show or routine at all, I think they should have opened things up. Anyway, that’s all I have to say about Rhode Island’s finest batch of Satanic metalheads.

Vital Remains Setlist Where is Your God Now?/Icons of Evil Savior to None, Failure for All Hammer Down the Nails Let the Killing Begin/Dechristianize

John Longstreth from Origin doing what he does best…drum kit mutilation!

Next up was the first co-headliner, Kansas’ own Origin; a band that has been making waves over the years with insane amounts of sheer brutality and technical skill. I was really only familiar with a few songs from the band’s newest album, “Entity”. Daemonomania hooked me with the “Echoes of Decimation” a few years ago but I never really got into it. Live though, these guys are a sight to behold. Alot of the songs bled together, and I am still not sold completely on them due to a few songs that just don’t click with me, but I can safely say that I am now a fan. I’m not interested in any of their early records, but I definitely need to check “Antithesis” out. “Saliga” stood out as the best song and featured some actual sections that were not fast as all fucking hell. I know Origin have made their mark by being the most extreme boys on the block, but when the actually slow it down a little bit they can unfuckwithable. Other songs that I remember standing out were “The wrath of vishnu” and “Antithesis” which, again, makes me want to check out the latter’s namesake album. John Longstreth, who had the flu that night (I know this because I saw him pounding orange juice and cold meds before the show) is a must see for anyone who gives a shit about metal drumming. Several of us in attendance were amazed at the wall of sound he produced while maintaining a calm, almost relaxed yacht-rock like demeanor behind the kit. Also, I got to hang with Paul Ryan for a while during and after the show and he was pretty fucking cool too. We discussed Mortal Kombat sweeps, touring, fixing the national debt, Medicare reform, and Global Domination. So, kudos to Origin because I like ‘em now and I bought a shirt. Hooray for me.

Origin Setlist: Expulsion of Fury Purgatory Conceiving Death Evolution of Extinction Wrath of Vishnu Vomit You Out Implosion of Eternity Staring from the Abyss Finite Saliga Swarm The Burner The Aftermath Antithesis Portal

The aura of metal bromance was thick in The Ottobar that night, as you can tell by the hoBROsexual undertones that clearly exist in this picture of me (big Ape on the left) and Origin sweep-master deluxe, Paul Ryan (sexy little man on the right).

Finally, to add the blastICING on the cake, Hate Eternal took the stage to a good reaction from the crowd. Besides producing some absolute shit like Pain Principle, Eric Rutan’s time with Ripping Corpse and Morbid Angel plus the severe brutality of every Hate Eternal record gives the man top-level death metal credentials. I have the band’s newest, and critically acclaimed, “Phoenix Amongst the Ashes” and its predecessor “Fury and Flames” but have only really familiarized myself with the latter. A huge chunk of the set was devoted to new material, but we did get “Bringer of storms”, my personal favorite by the band, and the classic cuts “King of all Kings”, “I, monarch” and “Behold Judas”. It was clear the crowd was starting to suffer from whiplash and irreversible brain damage due to listening to over five hours of blastarific death metal, but people found the strength to mosh and slam to Hate Eternal’s overwhelmingly brutal set. I still am not in love with this band, but Eric and company live have definitely earned my respect. Rutan also is a captivating frontman who did some impressive headbanging-while-soloing. Oh, and his forehead looks like the bastard lovechild of Surtur and Mt. Everest. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it for more than five seconds.

Hate Eternal Setlist: Rebirth The Eternal Ruler Thorns of Acacia Behold Judas Lake Ablaze Bringer of Storms Haunting Abound Art of Redemption Phoenix Amongst the Ashes Powers that Be I, Monarch King of All Kings

Behold (Judas!) the power that is Hate Eternal!

When was said and done, this was a bill that lived up to the serious hype that preceded it. Abysmal Dawn has moved up to one of my favorite bands at the moment, I can tolerate about 500% more Origin than before, and Hate Eternal, through blunt force trauma, have proven themselves worthy of the attention they get, even if this obscure webzine writer still isn’t a huge fan. Vital Remains is still Vital Remains. All the different band members I chatted with, and drank with, seemed to be cool dudes and it was nice to have a 100% metal tour role into town with no core, no emo, and no melody whatsoever. I doubt another bill like this will come around anytime soon, so I am lucky I got to experience this one… for free bitches! Everyday hustlin’ Global Domination, everyday mother fucking hustlin’.