Black Angels 27/9/2017

This gig was part of the band touring their fifth album 'Death March'. Over the years the band have lost some of that initial raw excitement in their music and undergone a couple of personnel changes but they are still a great live act and I preferred their new stuff live over the CD versions. The supporting trio (A Place to Bury Strangers) was very noisy and had an industrial drummer and I was a bit 'meh'. Black Angels were a five piece and with the exception of the drummer (Stephanie Bailey) they swapped instruments a lot with all four front men playing guitar during the gig and for some songs all at the same time. The main vocalist was Alex Maas who has a great voice somewhat Jim Morrisonish and a lot of the nice guitar early on was played by Christian Bland. Later Jake Garcia dumped his bass guitar and played some good stuff on guitar as well. The moogs and drones were less prominent than in previous Black Angel gigs but they are still part of the sound and something I really enjoy. The projected graphics were great - all weird transformations which generally added to the psychedelic ambience. The gig took off for me about five tracks in when they played 'Medicine' off the new album. Other highlights from the new album were 'I'd Kill for her' and 'Life Song'. They finished with one of my favourites 'Young Men Dead' off of 'Passover' - great finish to a relaively short set at just under an hour and a half. A couple of firsts for me I think - the first time I had seen two bands with a female drummer and possibly also the first time I had seen a band with two lefty guitarists.