Orange Goblin

Live at The House of Blues

West Hollywood, California

March 21st, 2013

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Having discovered Orange Goblin just a little over two years ago, they quickly found a constant place in my musical rotation. Their blend of driving, psychedelic, metalized rock with their trademark horror/doom infused lyrics parallel my own interests and moods perfectly.

Since I saw them last, they have released a new album that at once brings to the table all the things I love about the previous albums, but crowns this off with new material that doesn’t retread their previous offerings, just adds to the catalog of favorite songs.

Orange Goblin were direct support for Clutch, a band I have had zero contact with in the past so I wasn’t sure what the crowd or the set list would entail. The crowd ended up being fairly mellow, but enthusiastic none the less.

The set would take a number of their newer tracks off the latest release, “Eulogy for the Damned,” and intermix that with a number of their favorites from the back catalog.

There are way too many good songs from their previous albums to get them all, especially on a billing where they are not headlining, so I had resolved myself to just enjoy whatever they pulled out of their time-traveling, acid-eating hat.

The band itself consists of four dudes, who since seeing them last, have become quite hairy. Their guitarist was pretty much unrecognizable with his hair in his face the entire show and everyone else had grown long lochs and in many cases a sizable facial growth as well.

With lead singer, Ben Ward’s height, he looks something of an English metalized Sasquatch as he bellows out his awesome lyrics. The bassist moved about the stage as he and the drummer laid down the driving rhythmic foundation of the songs.

Pulling from the “Eulogy of the Damned” release, they gave us “The Filthy and the Few”, a tale of hopped up motorcycling maniacs tearing across the land, “Acid Trial”, a fantastical experiment with LSD that is told in moving stories that induce the visuals that he is experiencing quite vividly, and the awesome “Red Tide Rising” telling of the coming apocalypse and our inescapable end. They closed the set with this mighty song and it was a perfect way to leave the audience. This is the song I would recommend anyone who hasn't heard the new album yet to start with as it encompasses their harder, darker side and lays the foundation for the rest of the new album.

Older material filled in between these and weaved an inexplicable pattern of subject matter as it went from song to song.

Favorites included “Scorpionica”, “Some You Win, Some You Lose” adding a sobering thought to the set (maybe the only one), “Time Traveling Blues” which embodies their signature psychedelic space and time warping sound, “They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls)” which is an awesome tribute to zombie films and the undead, “Blue Snow” a melancholy yet powerfully moving song and maybe as close to a ballad as they get, and finally the fan favorite “ Quincy, the Pigboy” which is about as explicable as the title of the song itself.

I think they did at least one more song but getting swept up in the moment, I can’t remember what it was (but I know I enjoyed it while they were playing it).

Their stage presence is commanding to say the least, from the opening intro track “Suspiria” by the Italian horror soundtrack masters, the original Goblin, to the imposing presence of their front man, Ben, to the twisted psychedelic guitar layers, all the way down to the crazy drummer (who always seems to me to be about two seconds from some sort of major drug-induced meltdown with the intensity of his playing).

I had a great time at the show and loved seeing them again. I look forward to them coming through LA again and hope they can get a headlining gig so we can get more of the new album and few more of my favorites they did not have time to hit here. That being said, they played a rewarding set that was packed with plenty of material for die hard Orange Goblin fans like myself and pull in new listeners who came to see the headliner of the night.

All in all, I highly recommend checking out Orange Goblin when they come through your area and also give the same high regards to their entire roster of albums. The new one for me is definitely their best and that is saying a lot. They have a great five disc set out that will catch up on a majority of their back catalog in one fell swoop too.

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