Year's End Pt. 2: Tim's 2012

As we reach the end of the calendar year, it's good to look back and see what has affected you in the past 12 months. For me, as I go back through a year in the life of myself, most of the significant events tie to a certain album, song, or band that I had been listening to. Not always as a direct result, sometimes as coincidence, and others just by pure chance. This list will catalogue 6 albums that were events in themselves to me. Works that left me with no choice but to continue listening on repeat until every last bit had fully sunken in. Bare in mind, not all of these are from 2012, however I did try to keep it to bands that had released something or been active in 2012 in some form, for the sake of the year end list's purpose I suppose.

Krallice - Years Past Matter :

"Years Past Matter" is quite possibly my favorite release of this year. I have yet to be able to turn it on and not finish it completely. I've literally sat in my car outside my garage or work for the last 20 minutes of the record on more than a few occasions when it hadn't finished by the time I was where I was going. This band traps you in the voids of space and pummels you until you don't know how you got there. The only down side is that  I can't find a way to stay there beyond the end of the music.

Drudkh - Handful of Stars :

From the second I first heard this band I had to try to find everything they had ever released. Drudkh is raw, bleak, and hypnotic in all the best ways. "Handful of Stars" is on this list because I listened to this album more than any of their other releases so far, and I still queue is up when I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for.

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind :

I've said it before, listening to Converge is like being set on fire and loving every second of it. The way this band is able to capture such harshness, such blatant disregard for comfort is unmatched. This record album is flawless from beginning to end.

Between The Buried and Me - Parallax 1&2 : 

The piece of music that spans these 2 cds is incredible. A deliriously well crafted concept record that swoons with sweet comfort, slams into pummeling momentum, and then careens off a cliff into melodic cacophony over and over. No matter how many times I listen to this record, I still get totally lost within it and have a hard time placing where I am in the album.

Wolvhammer - The Obsidian Plains :

This album has a sore kind of sound to it. The whole thing sounds raw and even a bit messy, in the best possible way. Black metal that is truly rooted in the traditions of the genre without being even a little boring. Obsidian plains helped me beat the living hell out of my first 10K run and a few 5Ks over the year as well. When I want something drenched in hate and seething with murderous intent, I turn to these guys. If you can listen to this without imagining yourself trapped in the woods alone with some sort of corpse to feed on, you're doing it wrong.

Old Crow Medicine Show - Carry Me Back :

OCMS does a pretty damn good job of playing new music that rings true with all of the things that make true bluegrass great. Knee slapping jams and lonesome ballads, this one has it all. Most of all, like all of their previous records, this one is an absolute blast to listen to. I suggest it with coffee and the open highway early in the morning to get your day started in the right direction. 

ALSO:

Gilead Media - False, AshBorer, Fell Voices, Northless, Aseethe : 

I hate to lump all of these bands together like this, but let me explain. I attended the first Gilead Media Festival this past summer and had the chance to catch these, and a ton more awesome bands over the course of 2 days. Each of these bands presents an incredibly unique side of genres already well traveled. Fell Voices single handedly renewed my interest in black metal. They were directly followed by Ash Borer and False. Northless is heavier than anything has ever been, and Aseethe makes drone interesting in many different ways. So, in summation, no, these bands don't all sound alike. They all sound so different and unique, I offer them to you as a sampling of the awesome you'll find by visiting the Gilead Bandcamp page. 

Other stuff that was in constant rotation for me this year:

God Is An Astronaut, Pelican, Neurosis - Honor Found in Decay, Abraham - The Serpent, the Prophet, the Whore, The Mire - split w/ Cronos, Battlefields - Agasiz, The Avett Brothers, Nachtmystium, 

Peace and best wishes to everyone in the new year. Do yourself a favor and make a resolution to explore music the way you explore facebook from now on. Who knows what you might find.

-Tim

 

 

   

Year's End Pt. 1: Will's top 7

So this year again, we've taken time to bring you our own personal "Top" listing for the year of 2012. I've decided against a "top 10" as most people do, for the bands that I've caught live this year, in the moment that I saw them it was perfect! No video feed or recording could possibly capture the true emotion and depth of atmosphere and the underlying "feeling" of what these bands accomplished! And so I'm reflecting on the year with the number Seven which to me represents a perfect numeral which breaks order (10).
I do not list these bands in any order, because to do so would build an unjust bias. With that I give you my "Perfect 7 List of 2012:" (7 bands that really kicked ass live in the Twin Cities!)
 1.) Morality Crisis
 2.) O'death
 3.) Russian Circles
 4.) The World / Inferno Friendship Society
 5.) Guzzlemug
 6.) Speaker Eater
 7.) Lungs
 A couple of these bands have a few things in common, but there are a vast number of differences separating them entirely onto 7 different planes. A challenge to anyone who wants to check any of them out is to prepare your mind and let it marinade in every note and pitch, close your eyes and let it take you on a journey. Concentrate and reflect. Open your 3rd eye and let it speak directly to you! Imagine! Hope everyone has a happy New Years celebration, see you on the other side! (2013)
-WSOrwell

Erik's Live Rig

Hey all, Erik here. Seeing as Tim threw up his rig, thought I'd let you guys see what's happening on the other side of the stage. Hope you gear hounds are still paying attention...

Warrior "Fully Armed Knight" Guitars These guitars are unbelievable. Excellent build quality and superb tone from these guys. The guitars have a unique neck shape that make them almost effortless to play. The quilt top is loaded with Seymour Duncan Alternative 8 in the bridge position and Jazz bridge in the neck, while the natural mahogany has a Suhr SSH+ bridge and SSV+ neck set. Both sets have tons of output and are coil tapped to allow single coil tones. I like to get silly with my pickups to get different sounds throughout the set. These guys run through my board into...

Splawn Quickrod (early 3 pre version) I've had a lot of great amps, but this guy beats them all (for now). A 'roid raging Marshall. This thing can do Plexi to hot-rodded JCM800 with ease. Get the right pickup combo and the clean is pretty decent too. What's this pumping into?

Port City WaveOS 2x12 "The best sounding 4x12 that just happens to have 2 speakers." I found this beauty in my local guitar super store Dave's Guitar Shop (where I found most of my rig really) and I don't think it'll be going anywhere. This cab blows me away every time I plug into it. The front port design adds the low end and thickness of a 4x12 without the extra speakers or weight. This beat out a Mesa OS 4x12 in my book. And then there's.....

THE BOARD! This guy is ever changing for me, but it's loaded with some awesome effects to bring out the layers Tim talked about earlier in Avoh. Starting in the upper left, a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb. Awesome reverbs from old school spring 'verbs to haunting cavernous echos. Modtone Analog Delay, cool little short analog delay for some leads. ISP Decimator G String pedal to keep things quiet. Eventide Pitchfactor, TONS of cool sounds in this guy, great harmonies and synths in this. When I get bored I start going thru this thing to see what other sounds I can find in it. Korg Pitchblack Plus tuner, great reliable tuner with two inputs programmable for different tunings. From bottom left, Line6 DL4 Delay Modeler, fantastic delays in this thing with an easy to use looper, MXR EVH Phase 90, the coolest phaser I think, the EVH model has the old school "script" version and the newer "block" phase. T.C. Jeaurnig Gristle KING pedal. Great tube screamer on the left, gain boost on the right. Many cool tones from this guy. You can even switch the gain boost to be pre or post tube screamer to act as a volume boost or gain boost. Everything is connected from board to amp with a cool cable called the Pedalsnake. It has four different cables in one, each with Midi connectors on the ends that accept different adaptors to run audio or power signals, so I can keep my power supplies back behind my amp and run audio to the front of the amp and to/from the effects loop. Cool thing is that as my rig changes, I can change the ends of the cables as needed without buying different cables altogether, plus it's just one calbe running to the board instead of 4 or 5. So there it is! You can see all this and us on tour in just a few days!

Creating Layers Live: Tim's Rig

So, for the gear nerds out there I thought I'd give you a run-down of what I use live to recreate all the righteous sounds we have on AVOHFASIH. I'll go through it in list form to make it nice and easy!

- AMP -
• ENGL PowerBall - Best head I've ever owned. Reliable, tough, and loud as fuck. Plus the focused mid option gives my tone some extra fat.

• Marshall 4x12 - To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what this cab is, but it's loaded with 4 25 watt BlackBack speakers. Insanely gnarly.

*Dahlia to fat-awnry cat not included*

- PedalBoard -
• Homemade board

• Line 6 MM4 - I basically picked this up because I couldn't fine a Phase 90 locally. Dave's guitar in La Crosse had this thing laying around. It has phase, flange, tremolo, chorus, etc etc. Fun to mess with, and I use it for some auto-wah and flange type stuff live here and there.

• ISP Decimater - Noise gate, I try not to use this unless we have a part in a song that requires real silence, otherwise, I just like to let the amp hum and hiss all she wants.

• T. Juernig Gristle King - The king of versatile overdrives, hand-built right here in Wausau by a rad dude named Tim Juernig. We used this for most of the overdrive/distorted tones on AVOH in some way, and I have it on live for various parts to add thickness. Also, I use the second channel of it for a solo boost. It's not the cleanest of boosts, but who the hell cares, it sounds fucking awesome.

• Korg Blackout Tuner - nice and simple, registers low tunings well. Can't beat it.

• Channel switch - lets me access all 4 channels of my amp with just 2 little buttons.

• Line 6 DL4 - I use this pedal for tons of stuff. It has a bunch of great delay, and a 16 second loop, which we use live for "From Depths, I Rise" to get multiple guitar lines layered for the intro.

• Eventide SPACE - You can't find a cooler pedal than this. Honestly the only thing I've found that rivals it is the Eventide Pitchfactor, which Erik has on his board! haha. In all honesty though, If you need reverb, delay, or just some crazy sounding stuff, this pedal can do it. You could ask my wife how many times we've been listening to music only for me to turn it down and say "I bet I could make that sound with the SPACE" and you'll probably get and angry look and a answer something like "too god damned much" lol. If you ever have a chance to play


   

And that's it! Other than a couple LTD guitars and some monster cables!
Thanks for looking and feel free to ask questions if you have any!

mind-numbing detail.

2012 August Tour Announcement!

We're Hitting the road with our brothers in SPEAKER EATER. Check it out. RSVP right here on our site to put it on your facebook calendar. We can't wait to bring AVOH to you guys on the west coast, and we are truley excited to be taking a trip through some of the most beautiful areas of the country that most of us have never been. Please help us spread the word! Thanks, see you all soon!

- ORWELL 

- Speaker Eater is offering a of the third track from their new album, Lords entitled "Inalienable Tongues," availably exclusively on Metalinsider.net.  

LINK: http://www.metalinsider.net/new-music/orwell-announce-western-tour-exclusive-stream-from-opener-speaker-eater
Aug 09 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Tree House
Aug 10 - Fargo, ND @ The New Direction
Aug 11 - Missoula, MT @ Zoo City Apparel
Aug 12 - Seattle, WA @ TBA
Aug 13 - Portland, OR @ The Know
Aug 14 - Oakland, CA @ Vitus
Aug 15 - Los Angeles, CA @ TBA
Aug 16 - Las Vegas, NV @ Yayo Taco
Aug 17 - Salt Lake City, UT @ TBA
Aug 18 - Denver, CO @ The Lion’s Lair 

---
www.aseatinhell.com
www.facebook.com/orwellwi
http://orwellus.bandcamp.com/

http://speakereater.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/SpeakerEater
---


To contact for additional information, interview requests, or general questions:

orwell.metal@gmail.com
speaker.eaters@gmail.com

Woah...

?

June 29th - Summer 2012

     This website will now return to a semi-active/fully active status. We have a ton of stuff going on, which is why we have been basically silent for a month. So here's an update.

     To start, we are playing our last show of the summer (gasp, did summer even start yet?!?!) June 29th at the Speakeasy in Schofield (Wausau). This is going to be an absolutely awesome night. Sleeping In Gethsemane, an incredible instrumental, band will be coming through our humble/half-home-town of Wausau on their way out to the east coast to record with fucking Kurt Ballou. On top of that, Speaker Eater is joining the bill. 3 bands, no bullshit, free show.

   Also, I screen printed what are probably the final run of our "AVOHFASIH" shirt. Not 100% on that, but we'll be doing some new stuff soon. On top of that, I printed 25 posters, each 100% unique for the June 29th show. They are numbered of coarse and range from black with red to maroon and yellow. SO, yes, we'll be selling those at the show! All merch sales are GREATLY appreciated right now, as we are doing a bit of fundraising. No, we aren't just going to ask you for money, we will make cool stuff (like this) and if you want to help, you get something awesome in return. Fundraising for what you ask?

We are heading out to the west coast August 9th - 19th. Most of the dates are confirmed, and we will be posting the routing very soon. We are incredibly excited to see all of you folks out west! 

-t

    

Minneapolis, live, tonight.

Saturday MAY 12
Dean's Tavern
8 PM

Something New!

http://rwake.bandcamp.com/

Check these dudes out. Their new album is called REST and it is SERIOUSLY FUCKING GOOD.

Gilead Media Fest Recap - Part 1.

To start off, Cris had gotten home from tour with his other band Face of Ruin at about 4 am. I had been baby sitting his dog for the past couple of weeks, so I packed up my best bud Max (my dog) and Cris's spaz-oid german shepherd Doc into my little car and left for Milwaukee at 8 am! I knew I was in for a weekend of heavy, sludgy, doomy-doom-doom, so I kept the tunes on the drive pretty light. Well, I dunno, I guess they weren't "light" per say, but I pointedly didn't listen to most of the bands I was going to see at the fest. The ones I hadn't heard of organically anyway. I figured it would be way more fun to see and hear all these sick bands for the first time live.

(driving tunes: Ancestors-In Dreams and Time, Thrice, Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction, The Armed - Young and Beautiful, Battlefields - Agassiz, and a little Old Crow Medicine Show for good measure)

Just to get all this out of the way now, EVERYONE at the fest was amazing. Every single person I met ( except for 1 moron with a flip cam and way to much beer money) as insanely cool. From the crust punks, to the hippies, from the bar staff to the event staff, etc etc. Everyone was cool as hell. The environment was insanely open, there were no opposing security guards or dick-head cops across every corner, it was a great time in the company of great people. Now for the goods, although, don't expect anything scathing, literally every band I saw was fucking awesome.

Day 1. Saturday April 28

Darger+Plague Mother  

these guys were a perfect fit for opening this show. Gentle, slow building waves of sound. It felt very calming to watch, and really seemed to put everyone in a relaxed, open-minded mood. 

Arms Aloft

These dudes came out blazing. It was quite poppy, but it was fun, and punk, and while this isn't my style, I enjoyed their set. 

Aseethe

I love this band. It's my second time seeing them, and I'm bias, as their bass player Drew is Cris's twin. But seriously, this 3 piece makes rafters rumble. Heavy isn't really a good way to put it. I think I'd say IMENSE. They paint such thick layers of distortion and delay, etc etc. Their records rule, but live is where these guys really make you feel what they are doing. Plus, their art, the hand-screen vinyl, ugh, so inspiring to see a group be so creative with their output on all fronts.

Protestant

Get Rad

Unfortunately I had to make a trip back to the hotel during Protestant and Get Rad to let my dog do the deeds, but I was told both bands ripped.

Hell

These guys crushed. I came in about 1/2 way through their set I beleive. Super heavy, incredibly dark, just what a band called HELL should sound like. Plus, their latest vinyl release is one of the coolest 12 inches I have ever seen. Check out Gilead Media's store.

Fell Voices

OH FUCK. This band smoothed out my brain. Think about black metal that is so fast, and so hypnotically unchanging, that you forget that you've been listening to the same riff for 7 minutes. These guys do that to you. That, and their drummer, who is already blasting 300bpm for 15 minutes on end, is the vocalist. Mic? Who needs a Mic?! This guy just fucking screamed over the entire band. SO GOOD.

Ash Borer

Ashborer was also completely insane. They roared through the most vicious and hypnotic black metal I have ever bore witness to in the live setting. Their sound was a caccoon of horror, in the best way possible.

Loss

Normally, I'm not a huge fan of funeral paced doom of this sort. Not live anyway, I tend to enjoy it more in the van on a long stretch  of highway I guess. Either way, Loss was actually pretty fun to watch live. Despite some technical issues, they sounded pretty awesome (although I was all the way up front and directly in front of a 4x12). Loss provided the wind-down to the collective attendees after the previous 2 hours of pummeling hypno-black metal. haha

...silence...

Hey folks,
SO, right now we are working on lots of exciting things. Unfortunately for us, that means we'll be laying a bit low for the first half of the summer. We'll have a few shows here and there, but nothing to crazy. We hope to cover some ground in the 2nd half of the summer. Also, we are working on new music a bit, as well as some ideas for a cover we hope will see the light of day sometime in 2012. Either way, please spread our music and help us continue to get AVOHFASIH out there. Thanks!

-T

Dat shit grey

Grey on grey as well as a slew of other stupid new combinations of bleak colors of merch for the upcoming shows.

...all is not quiet

We are working on booking s bunch of shows currently. We will be hammering the midwest through out spring. Announcements, some new merch and artwork, and a bunch of other fun stuff will be announced soon. Thanks for your patience as always.

-T

woah...

it is very important to us that we are able to create an atmosphere when playing AVOHFASIH live. Whether a bar, basement, or club, we want to convey the same emotion and energy.

We will finally be putting our visual show into motion on our weekend warrior with Morality Crisis and Speaker Eater.

Hope to see everyone out.

-T

Better off Dad: 3 days with Blue Ox and OJ

holy.fucking.weekend.

As some of you more adventurous folk may know, Orwell spent the last 3 days on the road with Blue Ox and Our Judgment. We started in Merrill, went south to La Crosse, and then back north to Minneapolis.

Overall, the weekend was a blast.
Friday night was unfortunately a bit of a trainwreck for us. My(Tim) amp decided not to work once we got loaded onto the stage. Then over the coarse of the next 3 songs, both of my guitars went. On top of that, Cris was caught in a snowstorm on his way to the show, and literally made it to the venue with enough time to walk directly on to stage. Luckily Dan from Blue Ox is a righteous fucking dude, as he let Cris use his kit to save time. Anyway, we owe you one Wausau! hahahaha Honestly, we still had a great time, Ox, OJ, and all the other bands destroyed and we met some awesome people. Also, we did karaoke with Blue Ox at the bar after the show, videos coming soon!!! hahaha

Saturday was crazy. We got to the Kwik Trip about a mile from my house in Wausau and had to change a tire. Not a great start to a morning. After getting the van moving again, we high-tailed it to La Crosse, and took all of my non-working gear to Dave's guitar shop, where our muscly, bald, goateed savior  Bern waved his magic shred hands and made all our problems go away. A few pots, selectors, and tubes later, my rig was back in working order and being backlined on the warehouse stage.
The warehouse was amazing as always. Our brothers in Heir to the Throne and Climactic absolutely destroyed. Blue Ox put on one hell of a show, and Our Judgment were as tight as I had ever seen them.  Our set also went great. Steve at the WH provided some fog, and what seemed to be very specific lighting throughout the show as well as gave us maybe the best stage mix we have ever had. Plus, the kids, fans, and all of our amazing La Crosse friends made the show a huge win.

After tearing up the downtown area for a while and making a stop at the wonderful JB's Speakeasy, we crashed at Erik's.

Upon slamming down a shitload of coffee and bacon, we all hit the road. The drive, was not fun at all. Freezing rain, icy literally EVERYWHERE. Luckily our van is a beast and a half. We had a few moments that freaked us out a bit, but hey, nothing is quite as scary when you are only going 45 mph. lol So yah, it took us forever to get to the cities, but we got there. The Triple Rock is one of my favorite venues on earth. The sound is amazing, the stage is perfectly sized, and there are always a ton of righteous people there. Without making this longer than it needs to be, we had a great set, met up with some awesome friends, did some interviews, said a bunch of goodbyes and jumped back on the icey roads at about midnight. It took us somewhere near 5 1/2 hours to get home from the cities (and Cris still had to drive another couple hundred miles to get to his house). This was pretty close to the most scared I have ever been behind the wheel. White knuckle, 25 MPH feels to fast, slippery, blizzard, shit.
Either way, we made it home safe and crashed hard.

ANYWAY. Thanks to our brothers in Blue Ox and Our Judgment, and everyone who came out to the shows and chilled this weekend. We had a blast!

-T

Pictures courtesy of Jeanette photography in Wausau and our friend Laura Godden in La Crosse

Merrill, WI: Jan 20, 2011

The Warehouse: La Crosse, WI, Jan 21, 2011