Black N Blue Bowl--April 5, 2008 @ Studio B in Brooklyn NY

"Our lyrics are about things like beatdowns, drug use, hunting down rats, and being loyal to your boys and your crew," said Setback bassist Pete (he just goes by Pete) in a recent interview. The Queens natives played early in the day at the Black 'N' Blue Bowl, formerly the Superbowl of Hardcore, a 10-hour, 15-band marathon celebration of hardcore punk and the New York scene, especially. Nearly every band dealt in themes similar to those of Setback--the hard reality of life on the streets--but it was that last part, the bit about the fraternity among "your boys and your crew," that resonated most during a long, loud and surprisingly upbeat day in Brooklyn. The music was angry but the atmosphere was that of a raucous family reunion.

New York hardcore has, if not family, then at least a few fans in the staff at Rockstar Games. The company sponsored the Black 'N' Blue Bowl in promotion of Grand Theft Auto IV, which features tracks from Madball, Agnostic Front, Sheer Terror and others on a hardcore-themed mock radio station "hosted" by Jimmy Gestapo, singer for the long-running band Murphy's Law. "This game is nuts and so is hardcore, so it goes hand in hand," Gestapo said genially in an interview backstage.

Kevone Bulldoze during a surprise set. The band played the songs
"The Truth" and "Nothing But A Beatdown." Photo by David Hsu.

He was one of many inebriated hardcore mainstays gallivanting both backstage and in the crowd. Sometimes the party spilled onto the stage. Paul Bearer, revered in the scene as the frontman for the now-defunct group Sheer Terror, joined headliners Agnostic Front for a rousing rendition of the band's classic punk anthem "Crucified." Local legend Bulldoze played an impromptu, two-song set, pleasing the crowd (i.e. inciting the mosh) with its slow, bruising sounds.

Another surprise performance came from CIV, whose spirited set provided the day's only dose of melody on buoyant tracks like "Can't Wait One Minute More." They might've been the only act whose music fit the day's mood.

Guitarists Eric Klinger (Pro-Pain) and Scott Roberts (ex-Biohazard)
with Bloodclot, who also performed. Photo by David Hsu.

Just a handful of bands on the bill hailed from outside New York City. Among those were Kickback from Holland, Death Before Dishonor from Boston, and Terror from Los Angeles. The latter two have become some of the best known hardcore bands in the country over the past five years. They were also two of the newest bands on the bill, a reminder of the lack of new blood in the NYHC scene. Almost all the New York bands that played were formed over a decade (or two) ago.

But those in attendance were happy to party like it was 1995. "I want to see Breakdown," said Terror vocalist Scott Vogel. New York's Breakdown, which has played on-and-off for over 20 years with little more than a couple of demos under its belt, was perhaps the most highly anticipated band of the day. Singer Jeff Perlin rapped about random violence on "Streetfight," repeating, "Walking down the street with a Big Mac/Outta' nowhere, someone gets whacked." The audience roared in approval when a fan handed the McDonald's signature sandwich to Perlin onstage. It was an amusing gesture, one that said nothing about urban violence and everything about the spirit of the day.

People got rowdy during Breakdown's set. Photo by David Hsu.

review: Hate Eternal--Fury and Flames

Hate Eternal aren’t reinventing death metal. They’re just playing it exceptionally well. Fury and Flames is so dense, fast and outrageously heavy that it could easily have sounded like a noisy mess, were it not for its excellent production, courtesy of band growler/guitarist Erik Rutan. Crisp but not overly polished, the recording keeps each instrument distinct in the mix. Even the bass, often all but inaudible on death metal albums, hums clearly, which is fortunate because bassist Alex Webster can groove; he’s not merely adding thickness to the sound. The other half of the rhythm section, newcomer Jade Simonetto, gives a jaw-dropping performance, rattling off blast beats and fills with machinelike speed and precision. Rutan and guitarist Shaune Kelley punctuate their furious riffing with haunting leads, and the musicianship on Fury and Flames impresses constantly. The album’s only drawback is its uniform sound. With the exception of the outro “Coronach,” there’s no sense of dynamics here; the songs are balls out heavy the whole time and they’re largely indistinguishable, so you’ll either enjoy all of them or none at all. Death metal fans will love every one.

Sick of It All: February 9, 2008 at Highline Ballroom, NYC

Hardcore punk depends on an energy and enthusiasm that can only be described as youthful. A style that reveres animated performance and breakneck speed, it lends itself to brevity--short songs, short albums, and often short careers; genre godfathers Minor Threat played for fewer than five years. To endure for any great length of time would be, it seems, to burn-out.

But Sick of It All proves that, with the right attitude, a couple of punk rockers can maintain an angry, earnest, and convincing exuberance for decades. During their show at the Highline Ballroom in February, the 22 year veterans of the New York hardcore scene bounded across the stage like a couple of pissed-off, fun loving teenagers. Guitarist Pete Koller hopped playfully in circles as he churned out sharp, simple riffs in a fashion that was workmanlike without being mechanical. His brother Lou belted leftist political diatribes both old ("Injustice System") and new ("Uprising Nation") like he still meant every word. You couldn't accuse them of going through the motions.

After so many years on the road, Sick of It All understands these shows better than anyone; they know what their fans want. They encouraged the crowd to stage-dive, sing along, and circle pit to their heart's content. The band played for a modest 50 minutes and drew quick, scrappy tunes from all eight of their albums. The three cuts from their latest release, Death To Tyrants, were worthy additions to the set, but the band focused mostly on early material, especially from 1989's classic Blood, Sweat, and No Tears.


While onstage, Sick of It All never felt the need to posit themselves as the torchbearers of the scene, nor did they congratulate themselves for lasting while so many others have come and gone. They came across as a group that's just happy doing what they genuinely love. It's all they know. "After so many years in hardcore," said Lou, "I realize how socially retarded I am everywhere else."

The Koller brothers weren't the only NYHC legends to take the stage. Singer John Joseph, known for his work with 80s crossover legends the Cro-Mags, opened with his new band Bloodclot, which also features Danny Schuler of Biohazard on drums, among other longtime scene vets. Joseph commands attention, shifting onstage, jittery and spastic, and his banshee yelp remains one of the most unique voices ever to grace hardcore, though at times he appeared winded, uttering only every third word.

More disappointing was Bloodclot's overall sound, indistinguishable from that of much recent, metallic hardcore, down to its cookie-cutter, machine gun styled breakdowns. They played the sound well enough--"Revolution" rocked with a heavy, catchy bounce--but one would hope that an outfit with such a pedigree would do more than emulate bands who grew up on their music. The highlights came at the end of their set with a couple of covers: Bad Brains' "I Against I," and "Life of My Own" and "Hard Times" by the Cro-Mags.

Neurosis w/ Mastodon: January 24, 2008 at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple

There are countless ways for a band to work a crowd. Some artists use witty banter to endear themselves to an audience, or make blatant entreaties for physical and aural reactions. Others wow assemblages with pyrotechnics, laser lights and massive stage shows fit for Broadway musicals. Many metal bands thrash about wildly while they play, in hopes that their own physical exertion will inspire onlookers to jump, dance, mosh—to move. Still others rely on sheer swagger, exuding a level of bravado that demands attention if nothing else. When Neurosis and opener Mastodon took the stage for the first show of a two night stint at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, it quickly became clear that the bands weren’t interested in any of the aforementioned approaches. Art and music—loud, intricate, dissonant—was all they would present.

The concert’s logistics gave the evening a distinguished air. The revered Oakland quintet Neurosis would play two nights in Brooklyn supporting their latest release, Given To The Rising, an album which continues the band’s 20 year evolution from a dirty, doomy, hardcore band into an avante-garde metal outfit. The shows stood alone, not part of any tour, and Neurosis’s hand-picked opener was Mastodon, whose popularity and critical acclaim have made them the darlings of the metal scene in recent years. In case there was any question as to the import of the affair, there were dated, commemorative (and no doubt limited edition) posters on sale for $15. And if the whole evening verged on the side of self-seriousness, well, it can be forgiven; the bands that played are a cut above the vast majority of their peers.

This was a happening and judging by their set list, Mastodon was well aware. They opened with “Hearts Alive,” the longest song the band has ever recorded, a swirling, 13-minute opus that would play as well at Bonnaroo as at Wacken. By the time the song was finished, it felt like they’d performed an entire concert—the stoner metal jams, the thrash riffs, the epic guitar solo were all there. The decision to ease into the performance rather than going straight for the jugular felt like a nod to the headlining act, whose recent output demands patience, building and building until it explodes. Mastodon then launched into “The Wolf Is Loose,” a lean, nasty, hardcore song that quickly jarred the crowd out of the stupor left by the previous tune. The band’s 75-minute set delved deep into their latest album, Blood Mountain, and dusted off rarely-heard cuts from their 2002 full-length debut, Remission. Most of the band’s singles (live show staples) were omitted; they knew they weren’t playing to the Ozzfest crowd.

As Neurosis hit the opening notes of “Given To The Rising,” Dave Edwardson’s bass shook the room, and his monstrous low end continued throbbing for the next hour and a half. The rhythm section, comprised of Edwardson and drummer Jason Roeder, held together the music, which teetered on the edge of disorder all night without ever collapsing. Neurosis’s greatest strength may be their ability to maintain a discernible beat in the midst of some of the densest, heaviest music imaginable.

Guitarists Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till played lumbering, dirgeful riffs, mostly from the latest record, while Noah Landis added layers of texture with samples and keys. Their use of dynamics ensured that the listener never became immune to the band’s crushing heaviness; the muted, melodic bleeps which began “To The Wind” sounded more like indie rock than heavy metal, but that song became one of the creepiest and most brutal of the night.

Neurosis did utilize visuals (courtesy of sixth member Josh Graham) in the form of a screen that played repeating, black and white video clips; the disjointed imagery included shadowy figures, crashing waves, distraught human faces. The band parallels Tool both in its artistry and challenging music, and its penchant for abstract, creepy videos. Never superceding the music, this visual art complemented the songs all the way through closer “The Doorway,” off 1999’s Times of Grace. During “The Doorway,” the band made a calculated descent into the chaos it had been toying with all night, and the slow, sinister music reached its natural conclusion: a droning, impenetrable wall of pure noise, lasting close to five minutes. Once the audience was locked in a trance, the show ended on a final, brief note, and the band walked offstage without uttering a word. In fact, neither band addressed the audience at any point. They didn’t need to.

review: Memphis May Fire--s/t

“Touch me… I tremble. Hold me… I sigh. Kiss me… I melt. Ask me… Why?” Good question. Why would anyone listen to this crap? Memphis May Fire’s self-titled EP isn’t quite that cornball all the way through, but singer Chase Robbins’ lyrics and delivery quickly kill any momentum his band builds with its Southern influenced metalcore. The singer relies on the overused sing/scream dichotomy, and his generic shrieks feel positively forced next to his sickeningly sweet emo warbling. The rest of the band serves up their metalcore admirably enough, with a few strong rock riffs and a bit of twang, but by failing to add anything novel, they come off sounding like a poor man’s Every Time I Die, lacking that band’s charm and humor. It’s difficult to imagine Memphis May Fire’s appeal extending beyond adolescent scene girls, and guys who share the band’s fashion penchant for foppish bangs.

Memphis May Fire
s/t
Trustkill

review: Primordial--To The Nameless Dead

On their sixth album, Primordial explores the perils of nationalism and war. The verdict is (surprise!) our world’s about to come crashing down, and the record’s tone is appropriately cold, dark, and bleak. But who knew the decimation of society could be so boring? Despite solid production and musicianship, To the Nameless Dead drones on incessantly, sulkily, and above all, monotonously. With tracks this long (half are over eight minutes), not to mention the album’s lyrical themes, one might expect the songs to have an epic feel. And yet, most lack the peaks and valleys requisite for any great journey, featuring largely uniform instrumentation. Die hard fans of melodic death metal, with the patience to play the disc again and again, may latch onto the folksy rhythms of “Heathen Tribes” or the raw power of “As Rome Burns.” But the lack of depth and variety present here seems destined to keep Primordial confined to the underground metal scenes of Europe and their Irish homeland.

Primordial
To The Nameless Dead
Metal Blade

review: Dillinger Escape Plan--Ire Works

For nearly 10 years, the Dillinger Escape Plan have been darlings of the metal and hardcore scenes due to their unorthodox combination of spastic tempo changes, dizzying time signatures, and highly technical riffs. In 2002, Irony Is A Dead Scene added a touch of melody to the band’s established formula of shrieked vocals, and 2004’s Miss Machine saw the band toying with more traditional song structures (a repeating chorus, for instance) on tracks like “Unretrofied.” Their latest release, the spectacular Ire Works, takes a bigger leap forward, but it’s also a natural progression in that the band continues to introduce elements of pop music into their brand of extreme metal.

Album openers “Fix Your Face” and “Lurch” are fairly straightforward, meaning they’re entirely dissonant and abrasive, chock full of guitarist Benjamin Weinman’s trademark choppy riffs. But when singer Greg Puciato launches into a falsetto on “Black Bubblegum,” followed by a chorus that’s straight power pop, it becomes clear these guys aren’t interested in repeating themselves. On “Milk Lizard,” trumpet crescendos blare over a dirty, simple guitar riff, creating an infectious (Dare I say danceable?) tune that grooves in a way the band’s earlier work always resisted.

Ire Works makes use of a greater range of instrumentation, from violin and viola, to piano and programming. “Dead as History” feature electronic blips and whirs that give way to somber keys and finally a huge, sweeping chorus. A pair of brief instrumentals round out the album; anything but throwaways, these tracks succeed in creating a nervous, creepy vibe.

None of which is to say the Dillinger Escape Plan have lost their edge. These songs are still packed with jazzy breakdowns and thunderous, manic drumming. And Puciato certainly hasn’t forgotten how to scream his ass off. Rather, the inclusion of pop and electronic elements ensures that when the band does crank the volume up to 11, the effect is that much more intense. This record will only reinforce the band’s esteem in the metal community, and fans of progressive music at large would do well to check out Ire Works.

Dillinger Escape Plan
Ire Works
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