Chaos in Tejas Live (Night No. 2): Bolt Thrower

UK grindcore innovators Bolt Thrower specialize in mayhem, warfare, and violence. A broken P.A. wasn’t about to derail their plans to conquer Chaos in Tejas Friday night.

The 1994 lineup that bulldozed 2005’s unstoppable wargasm, Those Once Loyal, proved as unphased by roadies ripping apart the 1100 E. Fifth Warehouse’s speakers mid-set as they were by the constant flood of stage divers.

Everything once deemed so wrong with Bolt Thrower now seems so right. They were never the cool kids of Nineties British extreme metal. They crammed in a dozen time-signature changes back when stomp-stomp-stomp was enough to appease headbangers. They dallied with commercial sponsorship, letting a fantasy gaming company design their album sleeves.

And in the unforgiving and often misogynistic world of black metal, having a woman on bass was often written off as novelty.

Yet when veteran roarer Karl Willetts wrung out his sweat-drenched shirt and spun his hair like a dervish last night, original recruits Baz Thomson and Gavin Ward locked strings in a disciplined axe assault, and Jo Ward’s bass rumbled over Martin Kearn’s blitzkrieg hammering. Thus, 27 years of history shook out as nothing but fresh battle scars and bloody glory.

Kearn revved “No Guts, No Glory” into a threshing machine, even if his subtler swerves on “When Glory Beckons” got swallowed whole by the Warehouse’s cavernous, corrugated arches. The quintet bore down for over an hour with purest evil grind, like the heavy tank bombardment of “For Victory,” its domination absolute.

Age has not wearied Bolt Thrower. It proved them right.