Enter the metal cabal with Seattle's Black Breath

Hair-raising gig: Black Breath's N.T. McAdams and Eric Wallace. (Andy photos)

By Andy

It must have been the most sedate Black Breath gig ever.

The Seattle metal band was certainly blazing -- hair flying, guitars wailing and all that good stuff -- but the setting was not ideal for a slam pit or the singer jumping into the crowd.

Queen Anne's Easy Street Records is where we first got a taste of Black Breath. Oh, it was stellar, but seeing them later at more intimate places like the Comet Tavern and the Black Lodge would bring the raging-full-on factor to new heights. Bodies packed tight, heads banging, vocals roaring, drummer's cymbals nearly falling over ... that's an earthshaking, bone-breaking Black Breath gig for ya.

Elijah Nelson eyes the crowd.

A pair of gigs at Neumo's (with Corrosion of Conformity and Converge) were larger-scale affairs, but the singer still yearned to be part of the crowd and hopped into the mass of metalheads, sharing vocals and slamming about.

Aside from "evil" songs like "I Am Beyond," "Eat the Witch," "Children of the Horn" and more, the best comment to the crowd from one of the Black Breath dudes had to be from guitarist Zack Muljat at Easy Street. He noted: "I told my roommate to come. He asked if there's was gonna be beer for sale, and I told him 'No, this is a record store.' He said he wasn't coming." (By the way, Cat feels that Muljat resembles Sam Merlotte's brother Tommy Mickens (Marshall Allman) in "True Blood" on HBO.)

Anyways, Black Breath will be playing Rain Fest this Friday at Neumo's in Seattle and then attack Europe with a tour in July.

Rip it up with the Seattle metalists:

http://www.blackbreath.com/

As for Cat and Andy ... more metal to come on this blog...

Armed and dangerous.