Black Lotus, Red Midnight

On Friday last, I took in a live Death Metal show - a first for middle aged me, and a night I will never forget.

Me and my crew parked and got primed in the car, with a few dutchies and a mickey each of Gibsons finest sipping whiskey, and arrived feeling fine with two acts still on deck.

First up was Antediluvian, who lived up to their name, and how, as a thick black tsunami of liquid cement slammed the willing thrall into zombie submission of the mesmerized.  The groove was vicious and viscous and without quarter.  Each quaver of pulse like a lifetime in a steel mill. Soon the crowd is drowned in molten oil -  the blackest oil, from the heart of the earth, where perfect dark awaits in serene ambivalence to wash away the stench of evil in the name of God.  Totally fucking bitchin'.

At the end of Antediluvian's rigorous madness someone calls out "Hail Satan".  I think it might be me.  I think I mean it.

Chilling outside, sharing a rolly or two and the last of our whiskey, me and my cadre of ninjas begin to feel a little out of place.  We catch a few sidelong glances - all of us basically clean shaven and dressed like rejects from a frat party - what the fuck are we doing here?  Sure, we look a wee bit autre, me and my gangstas.  Looks will deceive - but make no mistake, yea droogies, we are here for the music and in a short while we will leave fully quenched.  Quenched of an invisible fire and ready for fresh guts, or at least a short stack with a side of bacon at the all night Husky.

Next up, headliners Begrime Exemious.

Holy Shit do these brothers thrash with their brass out.  Quickly into their set, I feel a chaotic ball of twilight descend upon me, as one by one my chakras turn into Newcastle's finest pitch.  Perfect pitch in the key of midnight.  The coldest coal.  It was at this instant that the mirror cracked.  The crowd, at one moment repentant and in fusion with relentless tommy-gun drum riffs, break the unseen wall unto the tightrope of depravity.  Front man Brian Leland (aka Violent Restitutions) baptizes in sulfur all who enter upon the threshing floor into the vital, bloody nexus of Begrime itself. And here the pungent balance of raw and screeching Death Metal and stone funky riff-mastery seems to rise in super-heated ripples not merely from the band but at last from the killing floor itself as those Begrime be-knighted groove on down to the depths of Gehenna - or thereabouts.

To put it bluntly Begrime fucking pwns, mutha!  A fitting tribute to the Master.

I know. I've got the bruises to prove it.

Peace Out Pimps.