Derek Boyer is back in Decrepit Birth

Don't even try to be as metal as him, it'll only end in disappointment. Trust me, I know

Oooooh, now this is exciting. Over the years, bassist extraordinaire Derek Boyer has accumulated what could arguably be the best resume ever. He's been involved with bands like Criminal Element, Vital Remains, Dying Fetus, and most notably Suffocation, but after an almost decade-long absence, he's decided to rejoin another sick band, one Decrepit Birth. Boyer laid down the bass tracks for DB's first album And Time Begins, so in a way they're getting an original member back, which is always good news. And lucky for us, this doesn't mean that Suffocation are now out of a bassist, because he will be pulling double duty as a full-time member of both bands. Our hats are off to you Derek, those are two mighty impressive bands to juggle, but I'm confident he can pull it off; he's certainly talented enough. In their respective statements, both Boyer and the band expressed their excitement over the matter, so with all this positivity flying around something great is bound to happen. Keep a weather eye on the horizon folks, big things are going to be happening soon, mark my words. In the meantime, if you don't know what you've been missing, here's the title track from And Time Begins to give you a taste of Boyer-era Decrepit Birth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bW68a11px8

If you're as excited as I am (and why wouldn't you be), leave your thoughts below, and stay tuned 'cause there's more to come.

-BK

Show Review: Suffocation, The Faceless, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Decrepit Birth, and Fleshgod Apocalypse - November 13th in Allentown, PA

Last Saturday, my four buddies and I made a two hour trip to the Crocodile Rock to see the final stop of one of the most epic tours of this year. Things started out pretty slow due to the seemingly endless slew of medio-core local openers, with the exception of the Jersey band Grimus. I had seen these guys once before at a local show in Delaware, and while they are very breakdown happy, they have a very talented drummer, and they hate the douchebag tough guy dancers just as much as we do. Before one of their songs the vocalist even went so far as to go on a rant against them, saying "This song goes out to all the tough guy assholes out there who come to shows just to ruin it for everyone else. Go fuck yourselves!" Funnily enough, there was a group of about six or so dancers flailing it up for their set the whole time, and after he said this they all stopped and looked around like they were confused as to whether or not they should have taken offense to what had just happened, but once the breakdowns resumed they went back and did their thing.

Later, after what seemed like an eternity of sound issues, Fleshgod Apocalypse took the stage, and they decimated from beginning to end. Theatrics was the name of the game for this band, from beginning their set by blaring Beethoven's Fifth over the PA to the tattered conductor's suits they wore as their stage garb. However, they didn't sacrifice musicianship by any means. I had high expectations for Fleshgod, because their recorded material is nothing short of incredible, and they met those expectations beautifully. Both of the songs I wanted to hear the most, "Embodied Deception" and "Through Our Scars", were played, as well as several other songs from both their Oracles CD and their new EP Mafia. The only drawback to their set was how goddamn LOUD they were. Far be it from me to complain about a death metal show being too loud, but when I have a headache and I haven't even started headbanging yet, something's not right. But even still, they played great, and I got to meet their bassist Paulo Rossi when I bought one of their shirts. Nice guy.

Next up was one of my favorite live bands of all time: Decrepit Birth. This was my fifth time seeing them, and I swear they only get better every time. They're one of the few tech metal bands that not only play their songs almost flawlessly live, but also have very energetic stage presence at the same time. Their set list was actually switched up from other times where I've seen them; there were the usual suspects like "Diminishing Between Worlds", "The Infestation" and "Symbiosis", but they also introduced two songs from their new album Polarity that I had never heard them play before- the title track and "Metatron". As per usual, the crowd reaction was great. There weren't pits for every song, but when they did get going they were intense, and vocalist Bill Robinson doing his signature stage dive didn't help matters either. As an added bonus, when they played one of their songs from their first CD, Derek Boyer (Suffocation's current bassist) came out and did guest vocals, culminating in Robinson accidentally hitting him in the head with his microphone, to everyone's amusement. If you ever get the chance to see these guys in concert, do it. You will not be disappointed.

Unfortunately we missed Through the Eyes of the Dead, and the fault was partially our own. After Decrepit Birth started unloading and TTEOTD was preparing to load in, we noticed that more hardcore kids were starting to make themselves known, and also we were long overdue for a joint break, so we decided to sit them out. However, their new CD is top notch, so if they played any songs from it I'm sure they were awesome. The next time they're playing at a show I'm at I will definitely stick around for them.

After that, we made it back in just in time to see The Faceless wrapping up their sound check. The Faceless is another band I've seen multiple times, and like Decrepit Birth, they only seem to get more awesome every time, perhaps even more so because the first time I saw them they weren't very good at all. Before Planetary Dualitycame out, these guys sounded sloppy and uncoordinated, like they knew how to write and record complicated songs but not necessarily play them to an audience. However, that phase is long gone, and The Faceless are now just as impressive on stage as they are on CD. Their set was surprisingly short but still had all the essentials such as "Planetary Duality Pt. 1 & 2", "Xenochrist", "An Autopsy" and "Pestilence", as well as a new song from their upcoming album. The new song was a bit more melodic than one would expect from these guys, but it still had plenty of killer solos and riffs, so I'm interested to see where they're going to take things.

Last but certainly not least, after a long night of very talented bands, the death metal legends Suffocation took the stage to deafening cheers and applause. The crowd seemed to have thinned out a bit by this point in the show, but that didn't dull the intensity of their set one bit. After twenty plus years, these guys still know how to make everyone else before them look stupid and work a bunch of tired-out kids into a frenzy. Just when I thought everyone was going to stop moshing and assume the "headbang a lot, throw the horns and scream the words" phase, Frank Mullen would command someone to start it up again or to get a circle pit going for the next song, and they obliged every single time. Even I couldn't contain myself at one point and jumped in for a round despite my considerable headache. They played songs from all throughout their discography, opening with "Liege of Inveracity" and going right into songs like "Entrails of You", "Funeral Inception", "Blood Oath", "Infecting the Crypts" and many, many more. Another thing that many old school bands seem to fall victim to is lack of stage presence, but Suffocation don't slack there either. Frank, Terrance, Derek and crew all look like they're still having the time of their lives even though they've been doing the exact same thing for two decades. The highlight was when they brought all the vocalists from the other bands on the tour on stage at once to do guest vocals for "Funeral Inception", inciting yet another frenzy from the crowd.

Finally, after at least a dozen songs, Suffocation called it a night, and we all headed for home feeling deeply satisfied (splitting headache, fatigue and extreme thirst notwithstanding). We made new friends, cheered as a tiny, unassuming kid managed to fend off a dancer hell bent on fighting him, defended and won back the pit from the dancers for The Faceless and Suffocation, almost smoked out Bill Robinson, and basically made it a night to remember. Leave your comments below and share your experiences if you went to this tour or have seen any of these bands play at some point.

- The Baby Killer

The Baby Killer's Take Part II: Brutal, not Br00tal

Below you'll find another well worded rant from writer the Baby Killer. It's not about hardcore dancing necessarily, but it's definitely worth a read. Think of this as part two in introducing him as a writer. I insist you read on.


It's cute how people listen to some silly mainstream band like Atreyu, In This Moment, Bring Me the Horizon or something to that effect and think just because they listen to bands that have distorted guitars that they're "brutal" and that they have some semblance of a clue what metal is. Now, I'm not usually an elitist by nature, I'm normally pretty carefree. It's your right as a person to like whatever you want to like, and I try not to deride people for liking something that I don't, but seriously, this shit's gotta fucking stop.

Less than a day after the Mayhem Festival came to town this past summer, I noticed an outpouring of stupid preppy bitches ranting on their Facey-Spaces about "fucking shit up in the pit at a Lamb of God show my friend took me to at the Tweeter Center". Don't kid yourself slut, you were there to see Atreyu or Korn or Rob Zombie. You're just trying to look tough for your friends because, for some inexplicable reason, metal is rising in popularity, and you're subconsciously trying to stick with the "in" crowd. You want a real metal show, with pits that make even me nervous, someone who regularly attends them and has received more than his fair share of lumps in the process? Try moshing for Cannibal Corpse and see if you make it out alive. You want real metal bands, not trendy, flash-in-the-pan bands that are only popular because Hot Topic jerks them off? Try going to some shitty bar in south central Bumblefuck to see the underground bands that bust their asses trying to get their name out, and are willing to play at midnight on a Tuesday to seven other people, because those seven people are the real fans. They're the people that go to shows because they genuinely love the music and want to support the bands in whatever small way they can, not because everyone else is going to be there and there are a couple bands playing that you like because you saw one of their videos on MTV2 or some shit. Try going to shows for bands like Short Bus Pile Up, Gutted Out, Lethean, Cerebral Bore, Jungle Rot or some other band that you've probably never heard of. The tickets are cheaper, the bands are exponentially more talented, and the whole experience is so much more gratifying, because you know that you're contributing to something far more intimate and special.

The underground is where you'll find the true talent, the bands that are doing what they're doing because they truly love to, and are putting their blood and sweat into it because it means that much more to them. In other words, as cliche as it might sound, don't pay attention to the mainstream bands and stick to the underground. Mainstream bands are a given, and more often than not they end up becoming stagnant, boring and watered down, because the labels and industry executives find out what the general public likes and stick to it until the next big trend (aka "cash cow") comes along. The underground, unknown bands will always be the ones who never compromise or falter, and the fans who support those bands and go to the shows at the bars, fire halls, Elks lodges, church basements, etc. will always be the truest of the true. In fact, metal itself should never have been allowed to become mainstream in the first place.

Metal has always been about rebellion, individuality and anti-establishment mentalities, so becoming mainstream contradicts and undermines everything that metal supposedly stands for. It feels great to know that you like something that few others do, but now all of a sudden every fourteen-year-old girl with black hair and boy problems is wearing a Slayer shirt even though they only know "Reign In Blood" because they played through it on Guitar Hero. Sure, "Funeral Thirst" was and still is a great song. Sure, Job For a Cowboy has some pretty cool songs, especially in their more recent albums. Hell, I even like a good breakdown once in a blue moon. However, the point is the popular has now become the norm in metal, and as a result the lesser-known but undeniably more talented bands that I listen to are now frowned upon by the same exact people that claim to love metal. If you love The Black Dahlia Murder and Job For a Cowboy and Whitechapel, what's wrong with Necrophagist, Suffocation or Cannibal Corpse? Those guys are direct influences to the mainstream acts, without them they wouldn't exist. If you're so hard up for deathcore and breakdowns, why not listen to bands that have a great groove but are still brutal as fuck, like Dying Fetus or Abominable Putridity? And if you love those stupid clean auto-tuned choruses so much, why not listen to bands with naturally gifted singers like Dimmu Borgir or System Divide? For Christ's sake, ICS Vortex sang opera before he got into metal, he doesn't need any vocal processors, he's already got a beautiful, powerful voice that sends shivers up my spine.

In closing, what I'm ultimately trying to get across is that if you want to feel special, go out of your way to check out the underdogs. Every single day, I feel empowered, because I listen to music that is there for me no matter what, music that tells me I can be as strong and powerful as I want, as long as I stand my ground and never surrender, and these posers are actively eroding it out from under me. You think you're metal? I'll see you in the pit at the shows for Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Skeletonwitch and/or Deicide. Keep an eye out for me, I'll be the one caving your skull in with my boot.


How do you guys feel? Agree with the Baby Killer? Disagree? I know I completely see where he's coming from, but I actually love Lamb of God pits (see http://moshrebellion.blogspot.com/2010/10/sick-breakdowns-to-mosh-to-pt1.html) and am a surprisingly big fan of Rob Zombie. Weigh in below...

First post. What is this blog about?

Welcome, true metalheads the world over, to Mosh Rebellion! I have created this blog out of outrage and pure anger. I am fed up. And what am I fed up with?

Hardcore dancers.

Slamdancers. Karate Moshers. Whatever you wish to call them, they have permeated themselves into metal culture. It's impossible to go to a decent metal show any more and participate in a good ol' fashioned mosh pit with these kids swinging their arms around, doing jump kicks and endless other types of annoying moves. I understand it's part of the hardcore culture, but when you bring that sort of stuff to a metal show you have crossed the lines. No one in the audience wants to be near these kids because they're scared of getting hurt, and they eventually reduce what could have been a thriving pit into a barren floor for them to use as their own playground and personal dojo. 

I have had many bad run-ins with these types of people in the past and have nearly gotten into fights with many of them. After a hardcore dancer hit me right in the face at the Suffocation show last weekend at the Gramercy theater I decided I couldn't take it any more. It pains me to see a bunch of metalheads staring at the pit, waiting to get their mosh on all night but being forced to watch a bunch of basketball short and flat brimmed hat wearing kids wail at their air.

There is literally nothing more I despise in the world than hardcore dancers, because they ruin metal shows for true fans looking to have a good time. Which is why I say enough is enough. Metalheads, this blog is your opportunity to share with the world your hatred for these people. I insist congregate here, speak in the comments below, and share the world your stories and opinions. The main goal of this blog is to eradicate hardcore dancing from the world, and if we can unite and speak out then it is a possibility. 

I can't take this shit much longer, and I know you can't either. Unite, so that we may rid the world of the hardcore dancing scum! And questions and comments can be emailed to moshrebellion@yahoo.com.

Let the mosh rebellion begin!