Wednesday, September 2, 2009
{The Blue Banner}
Page 8
UNCA band plays first gig at New French Bar
Ian Hayes - Staff Photographer
Left to right. Ritual members Ben Melton, Dustin Allen and Paul Blackwell played the band’s first show opening for Caltrop and Fin Fang Foom.
Music students combine musicianship with pure rock aggression
By Sam Hunt
Arts & Features Editor
SCHUNT@UNCA.EDU
In Asheville, a city
that prides itself on a
Concert diverse music scene,
Pot/iatA/ increasingly rare
rteVIcW fQ bands that just
plain rock.
One of the newest bands of this variety
comes from UNC Asheville, a metal band
called Ritual that has only existed for two
months.
Ritual played their inaugural show at
the New French Bar on Biltmore Avenue
last Thursday opening for two Chapel Hill
bands:'Fin Fang Foom and Caltrop.
Dozens of new listeners witnessed Ritu
al’s pummeling half-hour, three-song set.
The untitled opening song received a loud
ovation as it switched from slow and quiet
to fast and chaotic with little warning.
. “We don’t really know what we’re go
ing to sound like yet,” said guitarist Paul
Blackwell, a UNCA senior majoring in au
dio engineering and music performance. “I
mean, these are just the first three songs we
have. It should be changing once we start
writing together in the practice space.”
Blackwell, excited about his first metal
show in Asheville, could not have found
more suitable headliners. Caltrop and Fin
Fang Foom appeal to a similar taste and the
same regional fan base
Blackwell and bassist Ben Melton played
in a metal band called the Stolypins while
they attended Chapel Hill High School.
“Paul and I were working on new songs
for a while without a drummer around. We
said to ourselves, ‘One day, we’ll have a
drummer and we’ll really do these songs,”’
said Melton, a senior who also majors in
music performance.
Soon after the Stolypins disbanded,
Blackwell and Melton joined Myles Holt
and Parker Simmons to form John Wilkes
Boothe and the Black Toothe, who played
a handful of shows in Asheville last year.
While Holt and Melton still play togeth
er, guitarist Blackwell split from the group
to form Ritual last summer.
Melton agreed to play bass, and Black-
well got in touch with 29-year-old drum
mer Dustin Allen, who graduated from
UNCA with a degree in percussion perfor
mance and has played in several Asheville
bands.
According to Blackwell, Allen was look
ing specifically for a new band that was
“heavy,” despite his incredibly diverse
musical education.
“I’ve incorporated a lot of schools of
thought from my studies at UNCA,” Al
len said. “I studied Afro-cuban drumming,
classical snare pieces, metal and punk.
“I used to set up five music stands with
music from all of types of disciplines and
practice switching between them. I’m try
ing to bring that attitude into my drum
ming,” he said.
Blackwell and Melton also learned a lot
from the UNCA music department, which
affected each band member differently.
“For me, UNCA created the desire to op
pose jazz,” Melton said. “There’s nothing
wrong with jazz, I just don’t like it.”
“But, it’s hard to say that school and
music aren’t interrelated,” Blackwell said.
“You can’t prevent any aspect of life from
having an effect on other parts of your life.
We study music theory, and it’s subtly in
spiring when we play metal.”
Ritual showed lots of potential at the
New French Bar, playing well as a unit and
nailing some dramatic changes in speed
and tone.
Blackwell’s lightning-speed solos were
'matched by Melton’s quick bass lines,
while Allen’s double-kick pedal allowed
for a wide range of tempo.
“I used to hate guitar solos, coming from
punk rock. I liked the spirit of punk, but
not the spirit of really good musicianship,
which I always thought kind of ruined the
music. But now I enjoy fast soloing be
cause it’s just really fun.”
Blackwell enjoys progressive metal like
Mastodon and Isis, while Melton attributes
influence to Baroness, a five-piece metal
group who came to Highsmith Union while
on tour last spring.
“We’re very influenced by Baroness’ dy
namic. They interweave their parts in such
a way that it keeps you captivated for the
whole song,” Melton said.
Blackwell said that Ritual is similar to
the music he used to play in high school.
But over the course of three years. Black-
well gained a new appreciation for lengthy
instrumental passages that require more at
tention to tone.
“I’ve been getting into effects pedals
lately. I added two to my setup, and I built
an octave-fuzz pedal myself,” Blackwell
said.
Ritual has found an excellent niche in
Asheville’s metal scene. The spirit of punk
is still there, but there is no lack of profes
sional musicianship.
“After we got in touch with Dustin, we
had our first jam session at his house,”
Melton said. “We said, ‘This works. We
need to keep doing this.’”
Ritual’s brutally loud amp stacks and
well-composed distortion epics will hope
fully remain a strong force for years to
come.