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Shining

Live-Blackjazz

(Indie Recordings; US: 31 Jan 2012; UK: 14 Nov 2011)

Blackjazz, the 2010 release from Norwegian avant-jazz and extreme-metal maverick Shining, was a hugely dramatic and innovative album. Infused with the finest eccentricities from the world of free-jazz, set against the blackest and bleakest of metal furies, it was a magnificently unorthodox masterwork. The prospect of transferring all that ferocity and meticulously structured noise onto a live stage obviously didn’t faze multi-instrumentalist and frontman Jørgen Munkeby in the slightest, not if Live-Blackjazz, the band’s new CD/DVD release, is anything to go by. Recorded at Rockefeller Music Hall in Oslo, Live-Blackjazz retains every ounce of Blackjazz‘s intensity as Munkeby and cohorts produce a furious run-through of some of the choicest cuts from the album along with a scattering of earlier tracks and one almighty, and very apt, cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man”. As expected, the live show is staggeringly visceral, with the band never letting its punctilious technicality or tightness hinder the maelstrom of noise and ferocity. For 60 minutes the band teeters on the edge of fragmentation and disintegration, balancing tantalizingly on the edge of a discordant meltdown. Live-Blackjazz is a breathtaking display of barely controlled chaos, and an awe-inspiring example of nonconformist and genuinely rebellious fusion.

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Craig Hayes is a contributing editor and columnist at PopMatters. Alongside his music and book reviews, his monthly column, Ragnarök, travels the byways of metal, noise and points in-between, and he co-authors PopMatters' monthly metal round-up, 'Mixtarum Metallum'. Craig also writes for Hellbound.ca and Heavy Metal about.com, and occasionally updates his own blog, sixnoises.com. Craig is partial to loud, progressive, experimental, ambient and eccentric music in all its guises—but has a life-threatening allergy to symphonic metal. He is also extremely fond of ‘70s dub, any film featuring a shark, and a strong cup of tea. (You can find Craig losing followers daily on twitter @sixnoises)


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Shining - Live-Blackjazz preview
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