Concert review: Dethklok and Mastodon at the House of Blues (November 11)

by Todd Maternowski

DALLAS — The House of Blues hosted some viciously awesome metal Wednesday night, as Metalocalypse's Dethklok and Georgia's Mastodon packed the venue to the rafters with jacked-up metalheads. Throw in a couple of amazing underground metal bands in High on Fire and the insanely creative Converge, and you've got a metal tour that literally kicks the crap out of the big summer geezer quilting parties like Cruefest and Mayhem.

Unfortunately for a large number of fans (and this reviewer), the show started at the unholy crack of dawn (6:30 p.m., which for all intensive purposes may as well have been 6:30 a.m.), meaning most of the sold-out crowd missed out on openers Converge and High on Fire. Damn: Should've taken that imaginary start time more seriously.

By the time progressive sludge metal rockers Mastodon took the stage, however, the HOB was packed to the gills: While the majority of the (younger) crowd was probably there to see cartoon metal, every serious metal fan in the country would kick their best friend in the junk for a chance to see Masto-effing-don live.

For better or worse, the band's entire set was more slow and ponderous than brutal: Most of the songs off their newest album, Crack the Skye, sounded better on CD than live -- although that may have had something to with the sound system, which featured the drums and a whole lot of indistinguishable fuzz. Towards the end of the set, when Mastodon went back to some of their earlier material, the sound was improved but the frequent and unexpected shifts in timing took most of the crowd out of any metal groove; after seeing Mastodon live, there might actually be such a thing as being too progressive.

While the band had no stage show whatsoever, they did spruce up the visual show (touring with Dethklok, you pretty much have to), spending most of the show playing in front of a silent movie-esque Rasputin Goes to Hell and Slays the Devil storyline, and later playing in front of their totally metal backdrops: the three-headed beast fetish from the cover of Blood Mountain, the massive white whale attacking a ship in icy waters from the cover of Leviathan, and the exploding horse from their first album cover, Remission. Much like the following band, Mastodon was seemingly content to blend into the foreground and provide musical accompaniment for the surreal visuals on the projection screen behind them.

Finally, at the decidedly non-metal time of 10 p.m. sharp (say what you will about HOB, but they get their bands to start and end on time. As a performing musician myself, you have no idea how impressive that is), Dethklok took the stage. For those of you wondering how a cartoon band could "take the stage," Dethklok's solution was ingenious: Have the real band play almost invisibly in the foreground, while full-length videos of the television show's songs run on the big screen. It's a herculean task requiring impeccable timing and musicianship, but Dethklok was up for the challenge.

The actual band centers around Metalocolypse's creator/writer/director/songwriter/voices dude Brendon Small --you can listen to our interview with Small from last year's tour here -- and a motley cast of elite mercenaries, including wizened metal drummer Gene Hoglan, former Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally, and bassist Bryan Beller. Despite playing second-fiddle to the cartoon characters behind them, the band itself actually put on quite a show, throwing themselves into the show with a surprising amount of stagecraft while never missing a beat.

The band played the popular songs with amazing precision -- with one possible exception during Thunderhorse when the vocals and animation didn't quite link up -- and worked the crowd with Dethklok's Queen-inspired brand of hooky thrash metal. For the most part, the show was little different from last tour's, with a few new videos from the most recent season like Bloodlines, The Gears, and Burn the Earth mixed in with older classics like Awaken, (the highly disturbing) Murmaider, Hatredcopter, Birthday Dethday, and the Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle.

Almost as soon as the set started, however, it was over at 11 p.m. sharp -- likely just in time to let the younger members of the crowd get home in time for their favorite shows on Adult Swim -- but I'm not faulting the 12- and 13- year old fans in any way. However you get introduced to the beauty and power of heavy metal, whether you grew up listening to bootleg tapes of King Diamond, accidentally heard Quiet Riot on the radio once, or (like me) was turned on to metal by Metallica's Black Album -- it's all good.

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous