| Page 3 of 3 < |
MUSIC
The Asylum Street Spankers made old songs sparkle Thursday at Iota.
(Asylumstreetspankers.com)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
In Flames
Veteran metal act In Flames was forged more than a decade ago in Gothenburg, the same Swedish town that gave the world Abba and the Volvo. Headlining a sold-out bill at the 9:30 club on Thursday, In Flames showed influences of both the pop group and the auto (albeit a supercharged, finely tuned and unmufflered version of the latter).
"Trigger" was a typical In Flames tune, with subtly poppy Sex Pistols-like guitar riffs played fast enough to get you a ticket on the autobahn and with a precision only a machine could best. Like so many Nordic musical acts, In Flames writes all its lyrics in English, or some sort of alien version of the language in which syntax and sense are optional. From their fan-favorite "Episode 666": "Their dead-smile lips turn on their TV/While urban gravestones scrape the skies."
But gibberish can be quite entertaining when shrieked at the volume and velocity that vocalist Anders Fridn usually favors. Some provincial hard-core listeners have torched In Flames for the creep of Americanization in some of the band's more recent material. The quintet's "Touch of Red" and "My Sweet Shadow" could leave a taste of Korn, and the keyboards and industrial sounds coming out of mohawked drummer Daniel Svensson's double-bass kit gave "Cloud Connected" a Nine Inch Nails feel. But it clearly didn't bother fans who packed the club's floor and spent much of the 90-minute set smashing into each other or hopping up and down.
A domestic act, Orlando's Trivium, preceded In Flames with a 45-minute set. The band, for all its songs about death, violent death or really violent death, was most notable for frontman Matt Heafy's looks. He may have cussed like Bob Knight and fingered screeching solos on his Space Age-looking guitar (a model he endorses) as if born to shred. But for all his efforts, Heafy's hunkiness made him seem like a Disney version of a heavy-metal star.
-- Dave McKenna
