Its Sunday night and for the first time it feels like summer. A warm evening with a giant blood red moon hanging over the House of Blues in Hollywood.  Candlelight Records Metal Maniacs is among the biggest show to hit so far this summer. With local favesSothis and the long awaited return of Absu. Both bands riding high on their new releases. Sothis' Opresso de Liber and Absu's self titled effort. There is a wickedness in the air and this show promises to be a muther fuck!

 

We got there about half way through Rumpelstiltskin Grinder's set. As we made our way to the bar to take the holy sacrament of jack and coke Rumpelstiltskin Grinder's virtuosic punk styled metal hit like a donkey punch to the back of the head. Hard, savage and lethal. They played blistering riffs at punk rock speed and fury.This was Philly Metal at its finest. No nonsense, balls to the wall mayhem and fantastic brutality. There was one song in particular about the rising of deadly trolls, that really blew me away. It reminded me of the episode ofMetalocalypse where DeathKlok accidentally unleash a killer troll of a Finnish village. The image combined with a song that just kicks fucking ass.Filling me with wicked silly delight. But at the same time I was a little sad. Here I have an excellent band playing their fucking hearts out and there is hardly anyone here to appreciate.Tis the curse of being the opening band I suppose. For those of us who got there in time to see Rumpelstiltskin Grinder it was a great way to kick off the evening.

 

Plenty of people had begun to fill in the place by the time Sothis took the stage, although it wasn't nearly as big of a crowds as I had expected, but I will chalk that up to Sunday just being a bad day for most people.Sothis is a band that always describes themselves as "polished black metal". You don't really get a feeling for how polished they are until you see them live. They put on a brilliant show and everything is pitch perfect with the album. There is no room for improvisation at aSothis show.They are so fucking tight they even head bang on cue. In a way their being so fucking perfect was a bit of a downer. Not because they didn't sound great or didn't have any energy. More because you aren't really hearing anything different than what there is on the album. And the things that were different had nothing to do with the band and were more of the way the sound guy did things. However those worked toSothis' advantage.There was more amp on Aseperia on keys, making it so that she was doing more than providing a bit on ambiance between riffs. Nor was she competing so much with the guitars. Which was a nice surprise. There were also some major changes in the bass. I don't know what the sound guy was doing but he made that shit drop so fucking hard that it felt as if the Dark Lord himself had come to kick the place in the nuts! Say what you will about their penchant for perfectionSothis still put on an amazing show.

 

Absu's started off intense if not a little odd. The band stepped on stage looking mean and bad ass with one of their interludes in the background sloshing over the screams and whistles of the crowd. They just stood there. Staring at the crowd for what seemed like an eternity. Drunken shouts of "Hail Satan" and "play somethingmuther fucker" began to fill the air. I was starting to worry they were going to pull some kind of Billy Corbin douche bag move and just stand there all night. The crowd was beginning a bit restless. And there is nothing scarier or funnier than a bunch of drunk metal heads. Just as things seem as if they are going to take a nasty turn,Absu hit us with a sonic blast of demonic mastery. There was more silence between songs but no one seemed to mind. What was at first thought to be a stunt pulled because they wanted to be douche bags was turned into something that showed supreme confidence and mastery over the crowd. They didn't have to say shit to us to make us get the message they let the music do the talking. And we all loved it. They ran through most of the major stuff from their catalog and some things from the new album. But when they broke out 4 things went ape shit. Pits were started and I would like to think faces were smashed in a sea of spastic brutality.