Photo Gallery: Drummers, Part 5

March 25, 2023March 9, 2023 Wayne EdwardsBlue Ridge Rock Festival, Buckcherry, Cannibal Corpse, Carnivore AD, Casket Robbery, Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Higher Ground, Live Music, Mortiferum, Pop Evil, Primitive Man, Pure Filth Festival, Sevendust, Tennessee Metal Devastation, The Monkey House, The Native Howl, The Vogue Theatre

**The Native Howl, Higher Ground, Burlington**

**Primitive Man, The Monkey House, Winooski, Vermont**

**Mortiferum, The Monkey House, Winooski, Vermont**

**Casket Robbery, Tennessee Metal Devastation**

**Cannibal Corpse, The Vogue Theatre, Indianapolis**

**Buckcherry, Blue Ridge Rock Festival**

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

© Wayne Edwards

Primitive Man at The Monkey House, Winooski, Vermont, May 30th

June 7, 2022May 31, 2022 Wayne EdwardsBody Void, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Elizabeth Colour Wheel, Heavy Metal, Jarhead Fertilizer, Live Music, Mortiferum, Primitive Man

Denver’s Primitive Man is on the road with Mortiferum, Jarhead Fertilizer, Body Void, and Elizabeth Colour Wheel. Spirit Possession joins in July for several dates as well.

The show at The Monkey House featured the first five bands, beginning with Elizabeth Colour Wheel. It takes a lot to describe Elizabeth Colour Wheel. They are a doom band, I would say, but their approach is unique. The lead singer wanders through the crowd during the performance some of the time – at other times she is playing the keyboard or lying on the ground. There is a great deal of stomping on stage, and shrieking can often be heard. I could go on, but you really need to see the performance live to appreciate it fully. There isn’t much like it out there.

Body Void is well known in Vermont. They are a doom duo, performing as a trio. Teetering on the funeral doom edge some of the time, slow ponderous riffs are abundant in their performance. Their latest album is Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth, housing four long tracks all running over twelve minutes each. Their live performance maintains the ambience of the studio recording.

The first thing you notice about Jarhead Fertilizer is the overwhelming assault of percussion that lands hard from the beginning to the end and at all points in between. Their music is a death metal / hardcore / grindcore slam that will shake you fillings loose. This was my first hearing of them and I was left wanting more.

Just when you think you can take a breath, Mortiferum hits the stage and really pins your ears back. Their newest album is Preserved In Torment, and it is a death/doom metal manifesto. I first heard this band on the split they did with Hyperdontia a couple years ago and I have been waiting anxiously to see them live ever since. They were incredible in every aspect. They have made my list of bands I will see whenever possible, and it is a short list.

The headliner stood in posture of contemplation. Primitive Man, touring their Insurmountable album, lived up to what the press has been saying about them. The new EP is exceptional (link to review below), and their doubtless execution of doom leaves you speechless when you witness it. The music seems to emanate from them as a primal force of nature; their instruments are as creatures themselves. Put yourself in their path and you will be changed.

The tour goes on through mid-July so there are many chances to see these bands in action. Don’t miss out.

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

Links.

Primitive Man, https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/immersion

FFMB review of Insurmountable, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2022/06/01/primitive-man-insurmountable-closed-casket-activities-2022/

Mortiferum, https://mortiferum.bandcamp.com/

Jarhead Fertilizer, https://jarheadfertilizeroc.bandcamp.com/

Body Void, https://bodyvoid.bandcamp.com/

Elizabeth Colour Wheel, https://elizabethcolourwheel.bandcamp.com/

The Monkey House, https://www.monkeyhousevt.com/calendar

Mortiferum ~ Hyperdontia, Split 7 (Carbonized Records 2020)

December 14, 2020 Wayne EdwardsBlack Metal, Carbonized records, Copenhagen, Death Metal, Denamrk, Doom Metal, Hyperdontia, Instanbul, Me Saco Un Ojo Records, Mortiferum, Turkey, Washington

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts with the new Doom split by Mortiferum and Hyperdontia.

This split release was meant to be a companion EP for a tour the two bands were going to do together in 2020. We all know what happened to every tour this year. Still, the split exists and is being released now at the end of the year as a sort of prelude to the tour that will happen as soon as live music rises from its temporary grave.

One side is Mortiferum, a Washington state Death Metal band that made big waves with their album Disgorged From Psychotic Depths last year. Playing to the Doom side of the field, they contribute “Abhorrent Genesis,” a lurker drenched in cemetery fog. The beautiful distortion and foreboding riffs slowly squeeze the life out of you for a minute and a half or so until the tempo lurches forward and escape is clearly no longer possible. The low register vocals are a surrounding force and the noticeable lead guitar work is a defining characteristic of the band.

Another side is Hyperdontia, whose members come from Turkey and Denmark. Their first full-length appeared in 2018, Nexus Of Teeth, and they have issued a bevy of EPs and singles as well in the past few years. The Doom lives in the ever-present background of “Punctured Soul,” encircling the Black and Death Metal centerpieces in a dark cloak. The music is aggressive and understandable; the sentiments and intentions, joinable. Whirring guitar work and determined drumming are interspersing agents in the caustic dankness of the music. It is a whetstone for your imagination.