Concert - All That Remains, Chimaira, Black Tide, Light This City

This is only the second time that All That Remains has played Las Vegas, and I imagine they will be stopping by Vegas on many of their future tours. They packed Jillians, which is pretty much the only small venue Vegas has that will book underground metal bands. I was actually surprised that All That Remains, and not Chimaira was headlining. I thought that Chimaira would have the bigger draw, but I was wrong.

I arrived a bit late to the show and had missed the opening band, 7th Son. There was an enormous line which caused me to miss Light This City's opening song, which turned out to be kind of annoying, since they only got to play 5 songs. This is the second time I've had the pleasure of seeing Light This City and, although a short set, they were the best until All That Remains hit the stage. These guys, and girl, play straight up thrash, with Laura Nichol tearing up with her vocals. I didn't realize this band was fronted by a woman when I had first heard songs from their latest album, Facing The Thousand.

Next up was Black Tide, the new young band from Florida, that is getting some serious promotion for sounding like an old 80s thrash band, which is ironic, considering I'm not sure if any of the members were actually born in the 80s. Needless to say, this is a young band, the singer is only 15, and I doubt the rest are out of high school either. However, these kids can play. Both the guitarists show incredible talent, and the drummer was powerful. I don't know about the bass, cause in true 80s thrash style, you couldn't hear it... Maybe that was just the mix that night though. Even though these kids were talented, the songs were a bit boring. If I want to listen to 80s thrash, I will put in my Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth. They did a decent cover of Hit The Lights, although they pretty much played it note for note as the original. My biggest gripe with this band is that the singer is terrible. Maybe in a couple years when his voice finishes changing it will be stronger, but it was very weak last night. The problem with bands doing the 80s thrash thing, is that it pigeonholes them into trying to sound exactly like Metallica and Megadeth, and I its very unlikely that a band will write songs than stand up to those kings of the 80s.

After Black Tide, came Chimaira. I listened to one song, but then went to get a beer. Sin City Brewing Co. makes a very good hoppy amber, similar to a Fat Tire or a Sierra Nevada. Chimaira is boring... They used to play hardcore, but supposedly their newer album was more straightforward metal. I don't know, I tried listening to it, but could only get through a couple songs before being bored. And their opening song last night did nothing to persuade me that they were going to do anything other than the boring breakdown driven hardcore that I have always heard from them.

All That Remains had a bigger crowd than their first time here, so they were pumped up and ready to go. Not much to say about this band, they kicked ass just like last time. Their guitarist can sure write catchy and super heavy riffs. And the vocalist has an amazing set of pipes. He hits a large variety of styles, but mostly does his cookie monster with clean vocals mixed in. His clean vocals are very, very good. They really shine in the choruses to "For Salvation" and "This Calling."