Show Review: Sorcerer @ The Relax Bar, Friday the 13th!
TEXT BY: SASHA LEE
PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO BY: JENNIFER ZILIOTTO
In keeping with their unique brand of black-cauldron black magic & white metal wyzzyrdry, Sorcerer played the Relax Bar recently this Friday the 13th. A fitting time for this coven of magicians to meet, in fact- Friday was originally named after Frigga, an epic Norse goddess of love! When she was banished by marauding Germanic Christian tribes to a high lonesome mountain, Frigga became an evil witch of doom. Thus every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting of eleven other witches and the devil made thirteen, and plotted all ill fate for the coming week. For centuries in my favorite land of Scandinavia, Friday was known as “Witches Sabbath.” Anyways, these highly skilled mages in the craft of shredding joined forces to produce a lightening bolt sound shocking to most mortal ears! The full moon most definitely shined her dark side on Sorcerer that night.
For those who have not heard Sorcerer, they are sort of the next step that New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands would have taken if metal had not become about strippers, wearing make up and only pretending to Shout at the Devil. These guys take killer riffage a-la Maiden and speed it up through Metallica’s heavy blender. Double force guitar attack by James La Rue and Eli Santana sound like Thin Lizzy snorted a rail of Trouble’s cocaine and sold their soul at the crossroads to Yngvie Malmstein! (Side note: how rad were their brofficially adorable matching Yngvie shirts at the show? Almost as cute as Trigger Renegade’s triumverate of coordinated white explorer guitars!)
The wizardry that was emitted by this two-pronged attack also caused me to realize that James’ spirit animal is a Green Basilisk Lizard, which looks like a dragon and is able to create tiny pockets of air under their claws that allows them to run on water. Fuck mundane swimming, La Rue just decided to play so fast he treads water! Actually, fuck it, La Rue’s spirit animal might just be a dragon.
Drummers in the back never get much of my attention unless they are shirtless, but Tyler Meahl is just a ridiculous thunderbox machine gun. His timing and aim is pretty much exactly like Zeus throwing a symphonic series of perfectly synced roaring lightening bolts from the sky.
Not to be outdone, James Luna’s singing kind of bitchslaps Rob Halford in the face not with the fine white suede of a gentleman’s glove but Halford’s own studded black leather biker cuff! I wouldn’t mind seeing these dudes stand on opposing mountains and try to shatter the heavens with their falsettos.
Sorcerer plays next March 1st at Cinespace with Devils Orchestra.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Sasha, your heavy metal/hedonistic mythologist prose is both delightful and informative. Sounds like some fairly freaky falsetto Friday. I fear I have forsaken the freak metal.
February 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
hahahaha why thank you!
Never forsake metal. It will find you in the black of night when the full moon shines bright.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
hmmmm. I must be made out of wood because last time they threw me in the river I floated.