Friday Recap

I had a blast playing with Plague Bringer at The Abbey Pub on Friday. It was a really strong night, overall. Lungs from Minneapolis opened up, and they had a sort of brooding, Neurosis meets Amphetamine Reptile label style sound... doom metal meets noise-rock, with lots of nice guitar texture. I Klatus were the great surprise of the night for me... I am pissed that I never saw them before, and now they will be on a live show hiatus. They combined early Tampa death metal, a la Morbid Angel, with a Sunlight Studios/Swedish death style, with a gnarlier, more atmospheric thing... maybe Neurosis again... layering in samples/FX, weird retro-cyber video projection, and a pedal-board-rig/band logo sign that could have come right from a Wolf Eyes show. Very bizarre and totally excellent. Blood of the Tyrant play with an ultra-high level of musicianship, but just when you think that they are going too far off into some proggy Isis or Pelican place, they bring in some much-welcomed muscle to balance things out. Melody meets atmosphere meets power and rage. Plague Bringer was up next and I played synth (Korg Monotron) throughout the set, adding backing vocals here and there, but especially on their new song, "One Into Parts," which garnered really nice words from several people after the show. I have rarely had the experience of hearing my own instrument through my monitor as loud and clear as I did on Friday. It came through so startlingly heavy at the beginning that it made me nervous that I was way too high in the mix. All was good, but I am just not used to actually getting a monitor mix exactly like I asked for. Nice! Witchbanger was up last, and draped by a really excellent projection of what I interpreted as barren or charred trees that filled the entire stage, the group bulldozed through a set that somehow had the rage and rawness of High on Fire, yet rarely strayed from the slothful pace of Sleep. Knowing some of these guys' pedigrees, it was no surprise that they brought such a heavy game to the stage. Thanks to Greg and Josh for having me back. Thanks to Sean at The Abbey Pub. I am looking forward to heading back there in September and October with Anatomy of Habit...