THRASH INVASION TOUR NOV 21 V-LOUNGE VICTORIA
Early shows at the V-lounge are always fun because you can hit up the strippers first. Afterwards I got upstairs to hear some awesome metal. Torrefy was starting the night off with the release of their album "Thrash and Burn". From the first note it was the kind of energy you get from a young band fighting for attention. Hearing the bassist Simon start the vocals on a Game of Thrones inspired song was definitely unexpected but put a grin on my face. The duel vocal work got the attention of most of the bar. They thrashed it up for most of their set getting a mosh pit going. There was a lot of headbanging and drinking and I would bet that Torrefy got more than a few new fans tonight.
I'll have to be honest, I have never heard of VX36 before and based on their name I was expecting to hate them. For some reason I thought I was going to get some sort of shitty thrash-core band and I was totally wrong. What I got was three pieces of deafening thrash monstrosity. Vocalist Nate had a lot of stage banter but I couldn't really understand much of it so I just assumed he was saying "Here's another awesome fucking song" because that's what we got. Their set was fast, tight and short so I'm likely going to spend some time searching them on youtube.
Artillery is a band I know a few songs by and I like a lot of the 80's essence they have going on and they brought a lot of that to their show tonight. A lot of thrash bands you see now don't even look like they were born in that decade but this band had the vibe that goodtimes and parties just followed them everywhere. Being Europeans they usually make sure of their showmanship and Michael Dahl was all over it. He made sure to keep the crowd fist-pumping and hair-spinning right along with him. They had a bit of a mix in eras with the songs but seemed to play more of the newer catalog. Probably has a lot to do with the new members.
Onslaught started without a lot of introduction, they just started playing. They are of the harder side of old school thrash with gruff vocals and lots of attitude. These guys meant business and played the songs with the forcefulness that would win any argument. Vocalist Neil Turbin has the presence of that 80's tough guy that you didn't want to fuck with but you also totally wanted to be like. The rest of the band followed him in behind like a musical gang of badass through a set that didn't seem like it lasted long enough. They crushed every song they played with a confidence of a band that knows you're there to see them.
Heavy Metal UVIC put together a great show and Victoria should be thankful that we had this lineup here. I doubt that anyone in the bar had a bad tie except maybe the bartenders, but they're always a little grumpy. Hopefully the V-lounge keeps letting metal shows play there because I'll keep going to them. And to Heavy Metal UVIC, I hope they keep putting on good shows.
Michael F. Carnage
http://www.myspace.com/onslaughtuk
http://www.artillery.dk/
http://www.vx36.com/
http://www.torrefy.bandcamp.com/
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