Somehow, through the dense gloom of grief, Arthur Rizk – guitarist, producer and underground metal’s unsung hero of the century – managed to put together a tribute show for his bandmate Brad Raub, whose untimely death earlier this year crushed anyone who had the pleasure of knowing him. Rizk kept it within the family for this gig, stacking the bill with four bands of which he is an active member. It would be a marathon performance for him, no doubt, but Rizk is nothing if not inexhaustibly dedicated to his loved ones, as well as electric guitars blaring out of double Marshall stacks. I’ve known him since he was sixteen (and Brad since he was thirteen!), and while the finality of it all smacked me with a fresh wave of sorrow I naively didn’t see coming, the countless friends, kinfolk and fans that packed the grimy cement-basement walls of Underground Arts over capacity supplied a bittersweet warmth.

Sumerlands were first to take the stage, Brad’s ashes in a black canvas Manowar tote overseeing the event from atop a speaker stack. Sumerlands are probably Rizk’s least popular group, but that wouldn’t be the case if I was in charge of doling out popularity, as their dark, sensual take on late ’80s major-label thrash-metal is truly inspired. With two Relapse albums to their name, vocalist Phil Swanson opened the set with material from the group’s self-titled debut (on which he sang). With the packed crowd starting to warm up, Swanson respectfully passed the mic to current Sumerlands vocalist Brendan Radigan, whose theatrical howl and skulking stage-moves added a glorious jolt of energy to the proceedings. Swanson’s stoic delivery could verge on 2D, whereas Radigan was animated and dynamic, embodying his role of an ominous, mischievous metal cleric. Radigan sang on the group’s sophomore effort, Dreamkiller, and he belted out my personal fave “Twilight Points The Way” with impeccable range, proving that his pipes required no studio trickery (which reminds me – did Chris Jericho ever refute Sebastian Bach’s claims of lip-synching?). If Radigan was humorless, he could be the Steve Perry of modern metal, but his banter about Brad “gooning from Valhalla” was the most entertaining tribute of the evening. Along with Eternal Champion, Brad played bass in this group, his lines replaced by a backing track on stage as Rizk and John “Newjohn” Powers locked into dazzling dual-lead guitar solos for the first of many times that night.

Up next were War Hungry, Rizk’s group of which I had the least familiarity. I’ll be honest, I checked out War Hungry’s 2011 self-titled full-length when it came out and didn’t care for it at all, and it had been just as long since I had given them a second thought. It would seem I have some catching up to do, then, as it took half a brain cell for me to appreciate their meaty mix of Pantera riff-logic and NYHC beatdown breaks. If these are the same songs I heard on that full-length thirteen years ago, I have no idea where I went wrong or how my perception (or the band’s delivery) has changed. Whereas the crowd was respectfully stagnant for Sumerlands, bodies were soaring and flailing in typical revved-up hardcore fashion from the moment War Hungry set it off. It came to an abrupt halt after maybe five songs, however, as one stage-diver was unlucky enough to find a body-less space, landing head-first on the cement. Knocked out cold, the band had to pull the plug mid-song, and while I was not about to push my way through the crowd just to rubberneck someone’s terrible luck, an unexpected half-hour delay took place as an ambulance was called and the diver was stretchered out. With modern capital-H hardcore’s preference for these speedy headfirst dives at obtuse diagonal angles off the sides of the stage, I’m surprised this sort of gnarly situation isn’t more common. I figured that was it for War Hungry’s set, as the spirit of the room sagged considerably while everyone wondered if this guy would regain the ability to move his hands and feet (I heard that he did), but War Hungry picked up where they left off for a few more songs (and almost immediately, the dives resumed).

I get the impression that Rizk is a hired-gun for War Hungry and Cold World, but he’s one of the primary songwriters for the two non-hardcore metal groups that performed, Sumerlands and Eternal Champion. One of the few contemporary metal groups for whom having an “official fan club” makes sense, Eternal Champion ushered forth their fantasy power-metal with full commitment, vocalist Jason Tarpey emerging in a fearsome chain-mail coif (that I believe, as a literal blacksmith, he forged himself). Their galloping, epic metal thrilled the more Dungeons & Dragons-leaning members of the audience, ready to throw up their signs-of-the-hammer in glorious adulation. Seeing as Manowar played their only US show last month in what must’ve been years and most of us missed it, an Eternal Champion show is as close as we’re gonna get to this level of fully-committed, triumphant metal heroism, Rizk’s riffs shifting through motifs redolent of ’90s Metallica, ’80s Judas Priest and all eras of Manowar with the blink of a dragon’s eye. I take my thirteen year-old son to a comic shop specifically for the excellent recommendations given by the young-ish long-haired guy who works there (he finished Urasawa’s Monster series, what should he read next?), and lo and behold, that friendly cashier was right up front for Eternal Champion’s entire set, arms raised in invisible-oranges pose and head thrashing about in pure ecstasy. Next time we stop by, I’m going to casually sprinkle some Helloween song titles into our conversation and see if he bites.

Before Cold World took the stage, I did what any self-respecting Cold World fan would do and hit their merch table! Thirty dollars and one Operation Ivy-parody T-shirt later, I bumped into personal mosh icon Jay Scheller, who I first spotted in front of the stage for War Hungry’s set. He told me he’s been listening to a lot of Roc Marciano and Elucid and urged me to do the same, and we bemoaned the loss of Double Decker Records (the place I first met Brad), having just past the first anniversary of its closing. Even on a regular night, Cold World brings out a crowd filled with old friends, but alongside those who primarily came to honor the memory of Brad Raub in attendance, you couldn’t do a windmill without clocking a friendly acquaintance in the nose. The guy who runs a well-curated bookstore in Fishtown was there (I didn’t know he liked this kind of hardcore – the gold chain he wears should’ve been a clue); a bandmate of mine talked to his pal in Pissgrave who confirmed their third LP is nearing completion; another friend revealed to me that noise impresario DJ Dog Dick and fashion designer Lauren Manoogian (who needs to release a men’s line already!) were high-school best friends. This goofy cross section of benevolent gossip echoed the spirit of Brad, a guy who would always somehow already be friends with the least likely people in the room. The world is a dimmer place without his cheerful, unguarded extroversion, though I felt it in practice that night.

Which brings us to Cold World. An argument can be made that they are the last innovative hardcore band, and while I’d be happy to have that discussion with you offline, there is no squabbling about the dynamic power of the group onstage. After a lengthy delay (c’mon Arthur, three other sets and you can’t find a working guitar cable??) featuring a lot of Supertramp over the PA and the anxious on-stage guitar noodling of WarZone and Underdog classics, Cold World dove in and didn’t look back. Three guitars strong and riding high after an unassailable 27-13 Eagles victory earlier in the evening, the crowd was fully committed to shouting Dan Mills’s words back at him, louder than any microphone could be. As bodies continued to fly, little guys in fitted caps and giant guys with diamond earrings all materialized in a pit that was equal parts frenzied, communal and dangerous – a decent shorthand definition for hardcore itself. Finishing his sweatiest set of the night (even with a fresh shirt for each band – the Sepultura hockey jersey was my favorite), I hope Rizk felt at least some fraction of the love that he has given to all these excellent bands, and his dearly missed friend, back from all of us.

The evening started unexpectedly early: the Mortiis show was pushed up from a typical eight o’clock start time to five-thirty at Kungfu Necktie, a well-established sore-thumb in the embarrassingly “up-and-coming” Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. My heart went out to the archaic ghoul – all of us performers know how annoying a last-minute schedule change can be – as I received my second surprise of the night. Sitting down for pre-show cocktails at an attractive new bar less than a block away, my girlfriend and I realized, after ordering our drinks, that the entire cocktail menu was crafted from non-alcoholic spirits. Whoops! A full list of cocktails under fifteen bucks should’ve been the giveaway in this part of town, no matter that the descriptions still featured words like “gin” and “bourbon”. A modest suggestion: they should cutely modify the names of fake spirits the same way they do it for vegan meat substitutes. Had I seen V’dka and not-tequi-LAH listed, I swear I would’ve figured it out sooner.

After quickly departing and meeting friends for (boozed-up) cocktails at a different spot across the street from Kungfu Necktie, we sauntered under the El and into the corner club, evading the final raindrops of the day for an evening of dark electronics. Already on stage were Sombre Arcane, a staunchly medieval synth duo from Worcester, MA. Presenting two sizable racks of synths, they firmly established the evening’s vibe, what with somber-marching, fantasy-gaming instrumentals that ebbed and flowed like a horse-led caravan over a craggy war-torn mountainside. They reminded me of Carrot Top in the way that they made sure to give every prop in their trunk a whirl: glowing orb, check; triumphant animal horn, check; replica 1600s-era lyre, check; wizard and barbarian costumes, double check. A friend remarked that the wizard’s cloak was wrinkled in a manner ill-befitting the medieval era (“the creases looked like a picnic tablecloth!”) but the wiz’s spirited thumping of a large staff in time with the occasional synthesized bass-drum thumps proved an entertaining distraction from any period-appropriate wardrobe inaccuracies.

The jovial atmosphere established by Sombre Arcane was roundly shushed by the presence of the next artist, seminal Swedish power-electronics artist Brighter Death Now. Wearing the typical elder noise-guy uniform of matching black short-sleeve button-up / train-conductor cap and hunched over the typical “noise table” array of effects pedals with digital and analog hardware elements, he whisked the crowd away from any sort of friendly cosplay atmosphere into something far more elemental and crushing. Considering Brighter Death Now’s dead-serious demeanor and physical appearance matching any given member of Genocide Organ or Grey Wolves, I had to wonder if he was aware of how soothing his set was; there was a lulling comfort to his mechanical rhythms, long-tailed static pulses and monk-like vocals distorted into oblivion. Many pretenders have run this style into the ground over the past few decades, but his concise set was artful yet unpretentious, a distillation of the best elements of death-industrial from one of its heralded originators. I doubt he’ll be back around here anytime soon, so I felt extra lucky to catch him while I had the chance. You don’t get into making this kind of music because you want to greet strangers around the globe and sell them t-shirts.

It wasn’t even 9:00 PM – was it even fully dark outside yet? – as we maintained our solid crowd position for the arrival of Mortiis. Kungfu Necktie is decorated like a Hollywood set designer’s idea of a wild rock club – part The Bronze from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and part PCU common area, with Halloween masks repurposed as glowing orange lights and a punk rocker’s take on TGI Friday’s-esque bric-a-brac, all coated in a thin layer of stickers of terrible bands no one has ever heard of, not even me. Could’ve used a few more cobwebs (real or fake) or splatters of corn-syrup blood on the walls for Mortiis, but the well-worn rock-club atmosphere didn’t necessarily clash with his brutalist rig. It appeared to be a rusted-out steam-punk engine shell on a table, not unlike something Bob Bert would bang on alongside Jon Spencer. It surely concealed some modern technology within – an electronic keyboard, at the very least – but I appreciated the strict attention to visual and sonic detail, no half-assing, not even for this motley Kungfu Necktie audience. Mortiis sported his trademark prosthetic nose and cheeks, and his skin was painted a distressing shade of grey to match, from his forearms up over his ears and across the shaved sides of his head. As advertised, he played two of his 1994 albums back to back, long suites of repeating medieval motifs that relied on sullen, forlorn melody over rhythm or heaviness. A projected slideshow cycled through black-and-grey etchings of ancient depressive landscapes behind him, images you might expect to float through J.R.R. Tolkien’s dreams during a fitful night of sleep. Occasional shots of low-end consistently reverberated in an unnatural cadence, a nice trick that had me wondering if any ancient spirits might have had a small hand in the proceedings. It’s undeniable that Mortiis more or less created what eventually became categorized as “dungeon synth”, and from his shirt designs brandishing the slogan “dark dungeon music”, he appears fully aware of the legacy he fostered and interested in ensuring that he receives the respect he’s due. If anyone’s expectations remained unsatisfied at the end of his extensive set, there was simply nothing to be done to please them.

The Kungfu Necktie show’s unexpected early arrival proved to be fortuitous, as I quickly snaked my way through the crowd without anyone’s eyeshadow smudging my shirt while Mortiis plucked his final somber notes. Mary Jane Dunphe was set to headline her own show a couple miles down the road at Foto Club, a veritable island of punk rock ill repute far from the city’s more favored social enclaves. It’s an indoor-outdoor “private” club well equipped for all bacchanalian purposes, from drum n’ bass DJ nights to egg-punk fests to anything that starts with the term “after hours”. Punk bands record their seven-inches there now, too! I’m not saying with certainty that you could find a poorly lit corner of the compound around 4:00 AM, pass out and wake up the next morning to discover that you’re the new DJ or janitor, but I’m not ruling it out, either.

My crew made it to Foto Club with enough time for me to buy and consume a home-made tofu pupusa from the punk with a fully tattooed skull that was vending them inside the club before finding our way upstairs to the flashing disco dance-floor from where the crowd would watch Mary Jane Dunphe perform. Singing along to backing tracks, she played guitar on the opening song, the calmest MJ Dunphe live moment I’ve ever witnessed. Had she finally mellowed out, her inner lightning bolt reduced to a manageable pulse? The answer is resoundingly no, as the guitar only lasted a song before she was stomping, dancing, posing and thrusting while running through numerous bangers from her fantastic debut full-length, last year’s Stage Of Love. I don’t think she was wearing tap shoes, but her dancing was so undeniably physical that the stomp of her shoes acted as a sonic percussive element, spinning circles within circles as her legs shook the rhythm to life. The PA system was shaky but not unexpectedly so, and while Dunphe’s body frequently moved around and beyond the active range of her microphone, I didn’t need to hear her voice perfectly to process the vivid emotions she was communicating. I have the album (and the Sub Pop single, and the CC Dust records, and the Vexx records…), so I know she sounds half like Björk going through a terrible breakup, half like Kate Bush giving birth to twins when properly amplified. It was a quick set, too quick if I’m feeling greedy, but the energy expended was greater than the sum total of what I witnessed at Kungfu Necktie, and the bar, and the non-alcoholic bar. Just a couple of miles apart, Mortiis was the wet, fertile soil birthing ancient strains of lichens and Mary Jane Dunphe was the laser light-show ripping a hole in the sky.