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A glint in the desert, Byzantine was one of the most valuable bands to come out during a decade of rinse and repeat metal that struggled to find a new way, but was afraid to move forward.  Byzantine pushed forward, where others simply leaned.  The best part about Byzantine is that their seventeen-song set could have interchanged any of the other songs they had released and I would have been happy.  If you like one Byzantine song you like them all, not because of their lack of variation, but because of their seamless fusion of styles.  Each song has its own distinct flavor but is part of one giant bouquet.  Byzantine creates everything you crave from a heavy, well-composed song, done in a fresh way that you’ll love every time. “Hatfield” rushed over us as well as some other classics off of The Fundamental Component like “My New Casket,” “Sin Remover,” and “Stick Figure.”

Billions of years after our sun started the hydrogen to helium conversion, planets formed around the star, more complex life began, and the intelligent species made sacred rules and laws in order to gain control over the uncontrollable. …And They Shall Take Up Serpents hinges around this attempt to do God’s or man’s will, via risky practice, and deadly fundamental ideas.  The title of the album is part of one verse in a testament of the Bible.  The interpretation is taken very literally by the priests of certain churches who still handle snakes in West Virginia, which is the only Appalachian state not to outlaw the practice.  They willingly drink poison, and risk getting bit by copperheads to prove their God is in control and will protect them.

Byzantine

Photo courtesy of  John Konz

Byzantine

Photo courtesy of John Konz

The album persists much as the first in themes.  It honed in on the rise of man, but views him after his corruption.  It foreshadows of the eventual fall of society, which appears later in the last Byzantine album.  “Taking Up Serpents,” “Jeremaid,” and my personal favorite “Five Faces of Madness,” stood out off of 2005’s …And They Shall Take Up Serpents. All together, we circled and coiled much like the snakes, and it felt like “if we drank any deadly thing, nothing would harm us.”

In the dark club in Morgantown, I was in heaven.  For that hour and a half, life was back on track and back in order.  My three-day hell of getting to Morgantown melted away by “Justicia” and the tumult that lay between Byzantine and me.  There were no punches or spin kicks, just a slew of frenzied pushing.  What a pit it was, fast, tumultuous and loving somehow.  Everyone sang at each other and threw hands up to sing at Byzantine.  There was a push and pull between stage and audience, each member of Byzantine smiled back at us, and it was like how I've always described it: individually we combined to make one individual who's life span was as long as the show.  The line that has most eloquently defined it for me is from Clutch: "As they stirred Heaven and Earth, they combined to one, and everything was everyone and each one was all."  After a show, even with the same people, it can never be the same, the moment has passed, and that is the true beauty of a live show.

They matched the set to the night before in Valhalla Club, Huntington.  This did not make me sad or wanting, it only increased my appetite knowing I could hear it once more, for quite possibly my one last time.  “Nadir” and “Expansion and Collapse” continued the assault off of Oblivion Beckons, reiterating that Byzantine is an unmatched powerhouse in the genre of metal.  Their last album's theme was, very clearly, an ominous end.  But it felt more like the end on a grand universal scale.  There would be no reference to deserts or the waste that the earth would lay in.  Earth ceases to exist, the album calls you back to space and to the stars, waiting to watch them all expand and collapse back into absolutely nothing.

In the end, Oblivion Beckoned, and the riff built. I knew what was coming, hearing the last words from their last song, “A Residual Haunting,” on their last album: “These are the final words that will be penned from me, as empires rise, they do just fall and history shall forever repeat. So now I dig deep into my black beating heart and with open arms welcome you to.” Skip leaned forward into his mike and bellowed, “OBLIVION.”

And that's how I felt... like the wooden walls ripped off of the beams that were once dug deep into the mountainous foundation.  Splitting from themselves and  spinning  out,  surround
ing the tumult that was us.  This was just before the ceiling blew straight off, the shingles flapping like the wing of a bird, flying down the steep hill to Don Knotts Boulevard;   which     wasn't

© 2010 Lynora Conti

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even a road anymore, the bricks kicked out into where the parking lot and alley used to be, smashing cars and nearby buildings.  The blue water tower came crashing down and crushed my broken toilet and half the motel.  The ground shifted and started dragging down the mountain.  The dirt and debris kicked up into my face, and I had to keep my hands up to block the intense gusts of sweeping wind that was now swallowing everything.  The stage was like the center of the sun, howling and creaking under it's own weight, beams falling around us.  It felt like the end of all life, as we knew it.  I was at peace only in this last moment that the world was ablaze, staring intently into its corona, in awe.  There would be no rafters to swing from until our universe could re-expand from this collapse.  I desperately wanted to cling to the floor to stop it, as this beautiful moment seemed to erase itself beneath me.

They closed with "Cradle Song" and then, just as I had begun, there was nothing left but me.  I left Byzantine and left arguably one of the most bittersweet moments of my life.  I walked out onto Pleasant Street and over to the roof I was parked on.  I sat on the white ledge behind my car looking up at the stars overhead.  The town was intact, but over and over I thought of the one word that shook my entire world, "Oblivion."  I was painfully aware of cycles, of the expansion and collapse of everything.  If this was a sign we were in a degrading cycle as a genre, soon to return back to earth and be destroyed on reentry, then I should leave some evidence that we as a group of people existed in the first place.

My friend drank his beer next to me; "Man, we should just graffiti Byzantine across this entire wall," he said slapping the white wall beneath him.

“No,” I said with a frown, that’s not the evidence I would leave.  I sighed and threw my bundle over my shoulder, though now there was no dog at my feet and no rose between my fingers.  I started to walk towards the car already thinking how to write about what I witnessed, but I was different somehow.  I barely whispered, “Let’s go.” …East.

Check out Lynora's review of Byzantine's Oblivion Beckons here

March 12, 2010 / April 12, 2010

Byzantine Reunion Show - 2010

Report & Artwork by: Lynora

123 Pleasant St.
Morgantown, West Virginia

Sunday - March 7, 2010

BANDS:
12th Confession
Solarburn
Liecus
Byzantine