Concert Mon Nov 29 2010
Step into a Crystal World
This week's Monday night free show at the Empty Bottle (1035 N. Western) is chock-a-block with witchy endeavors. In support of their new double CD, The Crystal World (Utech Records), Locrian perform a set of their increasingly idiosyncratic weaving of metal, drone, noise, kraut, and minimal synth, and also debut a video program for the album's release. Once a band that seemed to subsist on split cassettes, Locrian now traffics almost entirely in definitive statements -- their last four records, including Rhetoric of Surfaces, Drenched Lands, Rain of Ashes, and Territories, all staked claim in a massive uncharted territory, and the new double CD will no doubt dominate the icy northern regions.
Meanwhile, long-running metal/goth/industrial project Anatomy of Habit, though well-rehearsed and playing several powerful shows around town, have yet to release anything to prove their power to people unable to travel to the Midwest. Their long, dirge-y songs would be happily lodged for months at a time in the home stereo system of any doom/metal fanatic.
Cellist Helen Money casts a similar iron-gaze into the void, her multi-voiced cello piercing like a lead guitar or grinding like a rhythm backhoe.
9 p.m., and FREE.
— Chris Sienko