Tag: satyricon
The Road to Psycho Las Vegas
Rob Shepyer
June 12, 2021
Later this month, I’ll attend my first indoor concert since March 2020. People will not be wearing masks or social distancing. I’ll have dipped my toes into the cultural soup I’ve swam in the majority of my adult life, relearning all the in’s-and-out’s of concert going. Stage-dives and mosh pits have been relegated to my long term memory banks awaiting to be unearthed. Although most metalheads will be breaking their concert fasts soon (if they haven’t already), Psycho Las Vegas is the spiritual grand re-opening of the metal scene in the wild American west. As the first large festival to take place since the beginning of the pandemic, Psycho is a test much like the ones Hunter S. Thompson indulged in with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Our senses may have been perverted, inverted, dulled and destroyed by lengthy quarantines but our imaginations are in better shape than ever and if I can imagine Psycho Las Vegas being the most insane heavy metal summit of my life, then I can will it into being. related content: A High And Beautiful Wave: Psycho Las Vegas 2019 Before the world shut down, Psycho’s 2020 lineup was one of the most anticipated slates of
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Satyricon’s Final Los Angeles Show At The Regent: A Night Too Blackened To Forget
Rob Shepyer
May 21, 2018
How do music writer’s typically describe the black metal sound? Frigid riffs? blast-beat drums? Cold shriek vocals? Epic? Medieval? Symphonic? These keywords are standard diction in black metal analysis but when talking about Satyricon one must introduce words like groove, experimental, and rock and fucking roll. That’s how the band set themselves apart from the rest of their contemporaries in the second wave of black metal (of the True Norwegian variety). They started with that typical winter blitzkrieg assault then evolved by slowing down the rhythm section for groove and making more chorus-heavy, kick-ass song structures while still fitting in the black metal mold. Satyricon should be credited for inspiring bands to blacken up their sound. related content: Slayer’s Final So-Cal Show At Five Point Amphitheater: The Most Insane Review I’ll Ever Write I remember first hearing Satyricon on the soundtrack for the cult movie Spun, directed by former Bathory drummer Jonas Akerlund and written by Will De Los Santos. The song “Mother North” off Nemesis Divina was featured prominently in the film and immediately made me take notice of their thrilling riffage and arrangements. Then once I saw the music video for “Fuel For Hatred” on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball,
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