Thurs., Aug. 8th. 9:00pm, $12. 21+. BUY ADV. TICKETS
Instrumental power-trio extracting the grit, rawness and obscured beauty of old black, death and doom metal inspired by bands like Ulver, Darkthrone, Enslaved, Morbid Angel, Swans with the structures and harmonies of the classical world composers.
Behold the Arctopus was formed in New York City in 2001 by Colin Marston and Mike Lerner. Their music exists at the nexus of extreme metal and progressive rock, with a compositional approach heavily informed by 20th century classical music.
They recorded the “We Need a Drummer” demo with programmed drums in 2002.
Charlie Zeleny joined as the first drummer in 2003 and the band re-recorded the songs from “We Need a Drummer” as the “Arctopocalypse Now… Warmageddon Later” 3” cd. In 2004 they made their 2nd recording, “Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning,” and began touring more actively. Behold worked on the music for “Skullgird” over the next 3 years and finally recorded and released the album in 2007. But before that, in 2006, they recorded and released a single song, “Paincave” as a split 7” with Orthrelm. the 7” included cover art from Voivod’s Away and was created as a dedication to Piggy, who had recently passed.
In 2008, after a tour of eastern Canada, a US tour with Intronaut and Mouth of the Architect, and a month in Europe with Genghis Tron, everyone decided that Charlie Z shouldn’t continue with Behold the Arctopus.
2009 saw the beginning of writing for “Horrorscension,” and at the end of the year Weasel Walter joined as the band’s second drummer. Walter’s music (especially the compositional Flying Luttenbachers albums) were a significant influence on Behold in the early days, so his drumming and writing style were welcome additions to the band.
Behold recorded and released “Horrorscension” in 2012 and did 2 tours, one eastern US, and one west coast tour with Weasel.
Weasel decided to leave the band in late 2013, busy with Lydia Lunch, family, and many other musical projects, but Colin and he still play together in Encenathrakh.
Over the following year, Behold worked with Lille Gruber (Defeated Sanity) on new material that was begun with Weasel. Eventually it became clear that the logistics of such a long distance working relationship would be too impractical, so the search for a new drummer began again.
Jason Bauers (previously of Psyopus) moved to New York City and joined in 2015, and the band worked on what would become “Cognitive Emancipation” over the following year. The album was recorded and self-released on election day, November 2016. In 2018, the band toured the eastern US with Defeated Sanity, as well as the west coast.
Behold has now finished writing their 7th recording due out in early 2020. The new music is a significant step forward, leaving behind the traditional drum set and exploring more idiosyncratic territory.
NYC-based avant-black metal.
Born in the metropolis: Imperial Triumphant embodies the sounds of New York. The chaos, the menagerie, the perils and majesty of the greatest city on earth. We portray this great juxtaposition between high society luxury coexisting with absolute filth and urban decay. Our city is like the corpse of a giant. What was once so bright, grand and spectacular, is now filled with greedy maggots writhing towards their share of 'success'. We don't support it nor are we against. We only play the sounds of the New York City as we hear them.
Spontaneous sound exploration. Founded in San Francisco in 2008 by sole member Ephemeral Domignostika (also of Pale Chalice, Mastery, Apprentice Destroyer, Ulthar, and more), Pandiscordian exists to fulfill Domignostika's own fascination with various avenues of extreme metal and their sound relationships, in addition to the discovery of the full capabilities of a live, one-man band.
On OUTER SUPERNAL, the third Pandiscordian full-length, all music is performed live and improvised by Domignostika with the use of a bass drum, snare, and hi hat (all played by foot), guitar, and voice. The only exception being the use of synth for ambient tracks. The resulting music is a schizophrenic and diverse series of compositions that meld the raw minimalism of black metal, intensity of classic death metal, speed/thrash guitar meanderings, or plodding doom.