Finntroll Krass Judgement Cataclysmic Avatar Inverted Trifixion (USA, January 7, 2006)

Jaxx, Springfield, Virginia, USA, January 7, 2006

First off, I should make one thing clear. Even though they aren't listed at the top of this review, SODOM headlined this show. Yes, SODOM, in one of their incredibly rare State-side performances. Unfortunately, both myself and my companion at this show were unable to stay for their set, so I won't be making any mention of them beyond this. I know a lot of you are probably thinking "you didn't stay for SODOM?!?!" Well, no, no we didn't.

Anyway, Maryland's INVERTED TRIFIXION kicked off the show with some very simplistic, keyboard-laden Black Metal. According to the venue's website, this was either their first show ever or their first show there, I'm not sure which. These guys were definitely going for the whole Black Metal "thing" - corpse paint, blast beats, eerie keyboards and a whole lot of IMMORTAL aping. Ultimately, the set was unsatisfying, offering very little that I hasn't been seen and mocked incessantly in the past.

Next up was another Maryland Black Metal group by the name of CATACLYSMIC AVATAR. If INVERTED TRIFIXION were uninspired, then CATACLYSMIC AVATAR were just bad. The keyboards were nigh omnipresent, but the keyboardist looked utterly board. In fact, the whole band looked like they'd rather be doing anything but playing the show. You could probably chalk this up to stage fright, which especially apparent in the vocalist. He took the stage and merely said "Um, we're going to play a song called blah." That was actually his introduction for pretty much every song they played. They did the whole BAL-SAGOTH style vocal narrations, which were pretty cool, but the Black Metal shrieks were just plain bad. To top it off, the band had by far the shoddiest corpse paint I've ever seen. Particularly amusing was the drummer - never before have I expected to see a Black Metaller turn around and reveal incredibly low-hanging shorts that leave his boxers fully exposed. Really, this band justifies any worries you might have about the negative effect of DIMMU BORGIR on today's teenage youth. At this point, I was starting to wish that I had arrived later.

Thankfully, locals KRASS JUDGEMENT brought a quality set of Death/Thrash Metal. No frills, just heavy riffs and a lot of pissed off vocals. Some of the singer's introductions were quite classy as well - "You want to hear a song about killing motherfuckers?!" and "This next song is a love song. It goes out to all of you beautiful ladies in the crowd. It's called 'Demon Bitch'!" Wonderful. Thus far, this KRASS JUDGEMENT were by far the highlight and this is coming from someone who typically despises all things Thrash!

When the Hummpa sounds of "Bakom Varje Fura" washed over the crowd, we all knew it was time for FINNTROLL. The band took the stage, working the crowd perfectly and ripping through a number of tracks, including "Jaktens Tid," "Födosagan" and nearly every song off of the "Nattfödd" album. Wilska made it quite obvious that the band was very thankful for the crowd's response, as this was the band's first ever show in the United States. Both Wilska and Routa were very responsive to the crowd; the other band members might have been as well, but I couldn't tell from where I was. Overall, the band sounded tight, energetic and most importantly, fun! There was much dancing and merryment, as one should expect from a band like FINNTROLL.

In the end, this turned out to be a quality show. FINNTROLL dominated and I'm sure SODOM was pretty good too. KRASS JUDGEMENT were a solid opening act and only INVERTED TRIFIXION and CATACLYSMIC AVATAR held the evening back.

Head on over to www.jaxxroxx.com to see pictures from all five bands.

(Thanx Melanie for finding this! )