High on Fire

Live at The Novo

Los Angeles, CA

October 19th, 2016

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

High on Fire are a Heavy Metal band out of Oakland, CA that fall somewhere between classic, gritty Rock in the vein of Motörhead, and Stoner Doom Metal like Orange Goblin.

High on Fire are a three piece fronted by Matt Pike who also plays lead guitar. Des Kensel plays drums and Jeff Matz handles bass guitar. Matt's voice is gravelly and rough but the vocals are not growled or snarled like other forms of Extreme Metal.

Last year saw the release of their 7th album, "Luminiferous" and the band is continuing to tour in it's promotion as special guests of esteemed Swedes, Meshuggah.

They opened the set with "The Black Plot" from this latest release, and followed that up with another track from it, "Carcosa". I've seen these guys before and Matt is always shirtless, furiously playing his guitar as he sings.

They did "Rumors of War" off of the 2007 release, "Death Is This Communion" followed by "Serums of Liao" from their second to last record, "De Vermis Mysteriis".

Delving further into "Luminiferous", they did "Slave the Hive", and then my favorite song of theirs currently, "The Falconist".

After finishing up the song "Turk", Matt said, "I don't smell any weed in here. This next song is about weed, you should smoke some." With that they played "Fertile Green" from "De Vermis Mysteriis".

They went all the way back to their debut album "The Art of Self Defense" for the next track, "Blood from Zion" before finishing up the set with "Snakes for the Divine" from the album of the same name.

It was a good show, it seemed quite a bit longer than the last time I saw them as they were on a bill with three other bands, while this time, they were the only support act. They played a good hour set and performed material from quite a few of their releases.

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