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Live Review: Kind and Stone Titan in Massachusetts, 08.29.14

Posted in Reviews on September 2nd, 2014 by JJ Koczan

kind photo by jj koczan

It was the lineup for Kind that drew me off the Fabled Couch of Self-Pity™ and out to Worcester on Friday night. A drummer of unstoppable swing in Elder‘s Matt Couto and a bassist of raw metallic power in Rozamov‘s Tom Corino meeting with a tripping-out Darryl Shepard (Milligram, The Scimitar, so many others) on guitar and vocalist Craig Riggs of Roadsaw topping it off? This gig at Ralph’s Rock Diner was their second show — they’ll go down to New York in October on a weekender alongside The Golden Grass — but still, I knew it was something I wanted to see. Turns out I was right.

Kind (Photo by JJ Koczan)I’ve been hearing about Kind since before they had a name, Darryl mentioning to me somewhere along the line that he and Matt had been jamming. Both were excited about the project, and I was particularly interested when the focus seemed to be on effects, psychedelics and really exploring parts and where they might go. I wasn’t sure how Riggs was going to fit in, but figured it was at least worth showing up to see the band in a formative stage. They shared the bill with Connecticut sludgers Stone Titan, Worcester native death thrashers Xatatax and Maine’s Eastern Spell who dealt out doomly punishment to close the night, and though they’re a new act, I was still somewhat surprised when I rolled into Ralph’s — slowly through that dirt parking lot, always — and found they were going on first.

As advertised, the vibe was psychedelic. Shepard‘s guitar was a jam-leading wash right from the start. Song titles were a mystery, but Riggs had jotted down a lyric sheet as a reminder for certain parts, and there was a lot of line repetition and atmospheric vocalizing from him as well, adding to the melody and liberal soloing from Darryl over the more than solid foundation created by Couto and Corino in the rhythm section, the bass adding a few choice runs of its own to the mix. They were louder than the size of their amps Kind (Photo by JJ Koczan)would have indicated, coming through the Ralph’s P.A. — that place has good sound and a guy running it whose passion is obvious — but even more important to me than the volume was the tone, which was organic and full and made lush at times through an assortment of reverb, wah and loops.

In BlackwolfgoatShepard explores a wide range of effects and drones and experiments, but in actual groups, he’s always been a rock player and a rock songwriter. Even Hackman, which had plenty of far-out moments, was hardly a psychedelic band. For his guitar work specifically, Kind seemed to be the marrying of those two sides — loops, echoes, space leads trailing away endlessly meeting with driving riffs and forward movement. Couto, who at any point you might see him seems like he’s just two sticks away from jamming, set a varied pace throughout their set, tempo changes ultimately playing a role in mood as well as songs came to bigger finishes. For his part, Riggs held back the impulse to sing over everything, which is a trap a less experienced vocalist undoubtedly wouldn’t know to avoid, and gave the music plenty of room to develop and move on its own. Like Shepard, he’s more known for straightforward Stone Titan (Photo by JJ Koczan)work — Roadsaw get down to business, live and on record — but he ran his voice through a range of effects and added to the ambience rather than pulled away from it.

Their last jam particularly started out with a softer echoing guitar line that reminded of YOB, but took a different evolutionary course, almost entirely instrumental by the end so that Riggs stood on the side of the stage with a bottle of beer and watched the trio finish it off in grand style. They were clearly still getting established and getting used to each other on stage — Riggs and Shepard used to play together in Roadsaw, but that was a while ago at this point — but what I was able to see from watching them was that they have a pretty clear idea of how open they want their sound to be and that they’re headed in that direction. When they record, it will be interesting to hear how much these jams turn into songs, and more, how much they don’t.

Three summers ago, I saw Stone Titan in Wallingford, Connecticut, opening a varied five-band a lineup dubbed Fuzz Fest (review here), and though they were young, they left an impression withXatatax (Photo by JJ Koczan) their raw take on sludge groove. At Ralph’s, they showed that the time since last I saw them has been put to use defining a more individual sound. There was still some Eyehategod in there, and they had that whole we-play-sludge-so-we-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-anything attitude down pat, but for the most part, their take was meaner, tighter and more cohesive than it had been. Three more years of playing will do that — at least you’d hope so — but I know they’ve had some road time as well over that time and it showed. I’m not sure they’re done growing, but I was impressed with the progression all the same.

Between each band, I went outside to my car. The Patient Mrs. was away for most of last week on one of her I’m-brilliant-so-I-do-awesome-things field trips, and I had brought the little dog Dio with me to the show, knowing she’d rather stay in the car for a couple hours with me checking in than be home alone. Worcester’s own Xatatax were on next, with SET guitarist/vocalist Mountain Jeff on drums, and I knew I wanted to see that, having run into a couple of their songs once at O’Brien’s in Allston. When the went on, they were aggressive and probably way more death metal than I was looking for, but as crisp and sharp as one would hope, with lots of Slayer in the guitars and some slow/fast tradeoffs that deepened the groove.Eastern Spell (Photo by JJ Koczan)

I wound up staying through Xatatax‘s whole set, but cut out during the five-piece Eastern Spell, who were lethal in a metallic sense but still more geared toward doom than Xatatax. They had multiple split 7″ with Maine countrymen Sylvia for sale — or one with multiple covers, maybe — and made a point of bludgeoning with riffs and metal-born aggro style. Mosh doom, I was calling it by the time I started to think about making my way out of Ralph’s. Like Xatatax, they were viciously tight, I just felt like it was time to go. The room still had plenty of heads left in it after I was left.

A bit of an investigative purpose — I wasn’t going so much to rock out as I was to see what Kind actually sounded like — but a solid evening all the same, and I was relieved to find the couch still waiting for us when the little dog and I returned.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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