The Black Dahlia Murder at Irving Plaza

Trevor Strnad

Vocalist Trevor Strnad was looking for a fearsome name for a melodic death metal band in 2000 in Waterford, Michigan. He learned about the gruesome unsolved murder of an aspiring actress, Elizabeth Short, often referred to as Black Dahlia, who was bisected at the waist and left on display in a California parking lot in 1947. He named his band The Black Dahlia Murder. The band is presently comprised of Strnad, guitarists Brian Eschbach and Ryan Knight, bassist Max Lavelle and drummer Alan Cassidy. The Black Dahlia Murder's sixth and most recent studio album is 2013's Everblack.

Tonight's Black Dahlia Murder's concert at Irving Plaza was broadcast live on Yahoo Live. There was little left of the Black Dahlia Murder's early metalcore influence tonight. The band's melodic death metal was wrapped around high speeds, blast beats, growled vocals and barely-discernible macabre lyrics. The music was harsh, brutal, sledgehammer rock, slightly softened occasionally and briefly by lyrical guitar licks. The band began with "In Hell Is Where She Waits for Me," the opening song from Everblack and the only song to refer directly to Short's murder, written from the point of view of her killer attending her funeral anonymously and admiring his trophy. Subsequent songs were equally grim, including "Everything Went Black," which referred to the finality of death. The technical inventiveness of the band was more evident in the compositions, where the band mastered complex arrangements without ever sacrificing speed or thrust. For the less attentive members of the audience, however, there was more than enough intensity at the basic level to encourage moshing and crowd surfing.