Austin, Texas, hosts the reunion of the punk-metal band Superjoint Ritual, a band who rekindled a decade old flame amidst legal complications.
They’re back! In a way..Superjoint Ritual, forced through legal reasons to reunite as simply Superjoint reunited to play The Housecore Horror Film Festival in Austin over the weekend. Check out our previous article on the reunion for a more in depth development of how this band came to reunite.
The band enjoyed touring success throughout the early ’90s and broke through to a position of wider recognition with two studio albums in the early 2000s. Unfortunately as fate would have it at the same time that a dispute between Joe Fazzio and Phil Anselmo led to the eventual dissemination of the band. As the story goes, Fazzio, the original drummer had filed a suit against the band after they broke up and even though Jimmy Bower can affirm the fact that Anselmo is responsible for writing the vast majority of their music, the name was truncated to Superjoint to appease to Joe Fazzio’s dispute. Their appearance in Austin marks their return to touring.
Frontman Phil Anselmo lead his quintet through what the crowd seemed to recognize as staple songs from their two studio albums, such as “The Alcoholik” from Use Once and Destroy (2002) and “Waiting for a Turning Point” from A Lethal Dose of American Hatred (2003), with additional tracks from their live repertoire. The one straight angle at which the camera rests for the performance that lasts slightly over an hour captures the crowd interaction well with the movements of the bandmates around the stage, and you can see the old banner flying in the breeze behind the stage. At one point, Phil calls out a bandmate and asks the crowd if they remember him, which alludes to the fact that many of those in the crowd may be familiar with the hardcore punk metal that Superjoint brings to the stage, inciting the headbanging and arm thrashing of their devotees. The venue seems a bit small for such a reunion, no doubt Anselmo could be using this to springboard back into larger stages, where more wattage and crowd space will be standard, although he has expressed a desire to work more on producing bands, and has said that the Superjoint reunion was included to cap off a big year of activity for him and may be a one time event. He is actively working on a new EP for DOWN, and continuing to work with Jimmy Bower in a project called EYEHATEGOD.
The line up for the show is Phil Anselmo on vocals, Kevin Bond and Jimmy Bower with guitar duties, Joey Gonzalez holding it down on drums and Stephen Taylor on bass. Jimmy Bower is a veteran member, having been with Phil since the beginning Kevin Bond joined up in 2002 for the release of their first studio album, and it looks like Joey Gonzalez replaced Joe Fazzio, and Stephen Taylor replaced Michael Haaga on bass.
For more information, check out Blabbermouth’s coverage on the concert.
The track listing for the show is as follows
01-Oblivious Maximus/It Takes No Guts, 3:24 – 6:45
02-Everyone Hates Everyone, 7:45 – 11:40
03-The Alcoholic, 12:53 – 15:10
04-The Introvert, 16:00 – 19:35
05-Fuck Your Enemy, 20:50 – 22:25
06-4 Songs, 23:54 – 26:53
07-Antifaith,28:40 – 31:00
08-Ozena, 31:40 – 35:20
09-Drug Your Love, 35:47 – 38:40
10-Stealing A Page Or Two, 41:55 – 45:15
11-Waiting for turning Point, 45:31 – 46:51
12-Haunted Hated, 49:31 – 52:00
13-Stupid, Stupid Man,52:08 – 54:36
14-Creepy Crawl, 57:15 – 59:03
15-Superjoint Ritual, 1:01:25 – 1:07:50
Leave a Comment