Did you ever say something and then realize just how true it actually is? I felt that way a couple weeks ago when I posted the slew of dates for Naam‘s US tour and realized just how excellent a band I think the Brooklyn-based foursome have become and how much I thought their recent European stint would only increase that. The image of the psychedelic righteousness they brought to Desertfest in London fresh in my head as they played material from this year’s Vow (review here), I made my way into Manhattan to see them start the aforementioned US run at the Studio room at Webster Hall, with support from Brooklyn’s Blackout and the perennially adventurous Kayo Dot.

Just over two years ago, I was at the Studio to see Ghost and Sabbath Assembly (review here), and my principal memory of the room was that it was unbelievably, inhumanely hot. One of the hottest shows I’ve ever endured, hands down. And since this past weekend was likewise brutal, I expected to sweat some upon my arrival, but was pleased to find both parking right across the street from the door down into the basement of Webster Hall proper and that once I got inside, the A/C had been turned on. Kayo Dot had already begun their set by the time I got there, but I saw a decent portion of it, a bearded Toby Driver calling out changes to his bandmates across a slew of keyboards, guitars, and eventually, horns.

I deduced it had been probably seven years since the last time I caught a Kayo Dot set — I remember it was The Saint in Asbury Park and everybody beat on a 55-gallon drum — but the group’s underlying methodology remained consistent in a kind of kitchen-sink wash of post-rock/metal noise complemented and contrasted by ambient stretches, vocals peppered here and there but far less consideration paid to audience than to the experiments of the songs themselves. I can dig that. I don’t need a band to dumb down its material for the sake of accessibility if that’s how they think of traditional songwriting, and whether or not that’s at the root of Kayo Dot‘s approach, they come off very self-aware in terms of celebrating their non-traditional aspects, and though they at one point toward the end kicked into an extreme wash of blastbeats and aggressive riffing, they seemed just as glad to dabble in minimalist droning earlier on.

Blackout were much fresher on my mind, having seen them at the St. Vitus bar opening for Kings Destroy and Acid King in February. I was into them then and pleased to find at Webster Hall that the enjoyment wasn’t a fluke. The trio have their heads dug deep into riffy stoner traditionalism, guitarist/vocalist Christian Gordy running Laney tones through an Orange half-stack while bassist Justin Sherrell (also of Bezoar; hey, where’s that new record?) backed him on vocals and matched wits with Taryn Waldman‘s headbanging crash. A few of their cuts I remembered from the last time around, perhaps most notably the stops and starts of the more extended “Seven,” which they recently included on their first demo/sampler, We are Here. While their sound isn’t quite so massive live as it is on that release, they had plenty of volume working in their favor anyway, and though during Kayo Dot‘s quiet stretches it was easy to hear the crowd chatter, Blackout left little space for such things between air-pushing riffs and bombastic plod.

The short version is they’re on their way to being a really good band. Already, they give a more than solid showing of both personality and quality of material on stage, and the songs, while upfront in terms of their structures, are lacking nothing in overall heavy appeal. I had thought it was curious they’d be playing second and Kayo Dot — who’ve been around for a decade and have five records out — would be in the opening slot, but all around, it seemed to be Naam‘s party, and Blackout did well as the centerpiece of the three acts. They quickly won over a boozy crowd, and by the time they were done they seemed to be fully entranced in their own sound, locked into a groove classically stoner metal but fast becoming their own. It was as exciting a lead-in as Naam could have wanted.

About that: I alluded to it just now, but it’s worth reiterating that the mood at the show was less that of a regular gig and more akin to a release party. Of course, Vow came out at the beginning of June, but Naam fresh off one tour and starting another, this was kind of their going-away. They seemed to know a lot of people in the crowd and the crowd in turn seemed well familiar with them. Spirits were universally high and even before Naam took the stage, the positive vibes were palpable. Even when Drunk Dude™ dumped his beer on my feetandthrew his hand in my face to flip off my camera en route to the even-more-inexplicable dickery of space rock moshing, there wasn’t much that was going to bring me down.

Here as at Desertfest, Naam played as a five-piece, with the additional guitars of Jeff Berner alongside those of Ryan Hamilton, who has eased his way into becoming a frontman-type presence for the band while also giving bassist/vocalist John Preston Bundy space on stage to take the fore. I wondered if maybe the band’s stylistic growth since acquiring John Weingarten for keys and backing vocals a few years back couldn’t have accounted for some of that ease, but once they started, it didn’t matter. With a focus rightfully placed on their newest material, they were as I’d hoped they’d be — ridiculously tight, markedly fluid and performing at a level that was only hinted at years ago when they started out as a trio proffering the Kingdom EP.

Highlights included the swarthy “Midnight Glow” and ethereal “Skyscraper” from Vow, and a joyously jammed version of “The Starchild” from 2012’s The Ballad of the Starchild EP (track streamed here) that Hamilton ended with a satisfied “the Starchild!” reminiscent of that time Beastie Boys were on Futurama and any number of other lounge-type pretensions. He was goofing around, of course, but it was indicative of the jovial feel of the show, drummer Eli Pizzuto keeping his aviators on for the duration while driving cuts like “Pardoned Pleasure” and stepping back for the spacier sections of “Beyond,” the grand finale of the newest album. Weingarten took a brief but well-earned solo, and when all five of them were working toward the same sonic destination — i.e. the culmination of that song — I was thankful for the attentiveness of the person working the Studio sound for how excellently balanced Naam sounded, Hamilton‘s vocals coming through those of Berner, Bundy and Weingarten but not so much as to dominate, the resulting stew only furthering the psychedelic churn playing out instrumentally, grounded but not undercut by Pizzuto‘s steady fills.

I was really glad I had taken my own advice and made the drive into the city. As ever, Naam closed out with “Kingdom,” but I was glad when they came back out and delivered the “one more song” the crowd was shouting for. By that time, whatever dance party was taking place upstairs at Webster Hall was well underway. In quiet sections and between songs, you could hear the thumping of electronic bass — 1, 2, 3, 4, all muffled thuds — and people trickled into and out of the Studio room here and there, one guy making the unfortunate mistake of grabbing a girl only to find himself pressed against the merch table as she rightly punched him in his asshole face, another couple comprised of a girl in her early 20s and her boyfriend roughly twice her age making out to the strains of Naam‘s encore, “Icy Row” from their 2009 self-titled debut, before meeting the limits of their (or at very least, her) attention span and going back upstairs. “Icy Row” hit a huge, swirling apex that left none wanting.

Outside, there had been no real break in the heat, but a line of people were making their way upstairs, ropes leading the way and perhaps providing some leverage to those already stumbling. No judgment to pass — I’m too old and too tired to dislike somebody for their taste in music; nine times out of 10 there are better reasons — but I was glad to be coming up from downstairs and only too happy to cut through the line on my way back across the street to the absurdly good parking spot, which I gave up reluctantly to head out of the city and off to some victorious late-night empanadas.

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However long it had been since Acid King hit NYC for a show, it was too long. Probably long enough that the last time they did, it was Manhattan they were playing and not Brooklyn. We’re talking pre-economic collapse, possibly around the time the San Francisco trio (ding ding!) put out their latest album to date, III, on Small Stone in 2005. If that’s the case, and I think it might be, then golly, that’s a long time. That would mean that the last time Acid King came through NYC, neither of the bands who opened for them — Blackout and Kings Destroy — nor the venue they played — the St. Vitus bar — existed yet. Pretty wild.

And Brooklyn was excited to see them, at least judging from the packed house at the sold-out Vitus bar and the people outside who couldn’t get tickets. I had a feeling it might work out like that, and wanting to catch Blackout for not having seen them before, got there early and headed almost immediately to the front of the stage where I’d remain for the duration. It wasn’t long before Blackout went on and recognizing Justin Sherrell of Bezoar (who play the same venue with Samothrace this coming Friday), was surprised to find him handling bass in the trio, which also includes drummer Taryn Waldman and guitarist/vocalist Christian Gordy.

I was thinking of Blackout as a new band, but they’ve been kicking around Brooklyn since 2011, so I guess it isn’t a surprise they were as tight as they were, playing a thick, riff-led heavy psych that blended Sleep‘s stoner heyday and classic Melvins stomp with a touch of Rob Crow‘s vocal compression in Goblin Cock and even, when Sherrell joined in, some of Fu Manchu‘s inherent movement to go along with that Naam-style Brooklyny Brooklyness. You know, the kind you get in Brooklyn? Riffs were familiar and steady, well-punctuated by Waldman‘s drums, and straightforward enough that they never really departed from their central groove despite changes in pace and volume and shifts into and out of verses. They didn’t seem so much concerned with breaking new ground, as with bringing something of their own to an established form.

Gordy came across more as a rhythm player than one to kick out a showy solo, but I could see at one point he was just on the verge of breaking out a stoner rock softshoe while riding a particularly funky line. Go for it, man. No way to lose on that one. Blackout‘s last song, “Seven,”  had their most potent start-stop and a memorable one-two shout to go along with it, repeated early and repeated often in a killer jam. They were a cool band and a good fit for the bill, since you could just as easily point to Acid King as an influence for their driving, tone-minded roll. If that left Kings Destroy as the odd men out, they were just fine with that.

The thing I enjoy most about seeing Kings Destroy at this point — and I enjoy a good bit about them and I’ve had plenty of occasions to enjoy it — is watching them demolish people’s expectations. Whether people in the crowd heard them through picking up their And the Rest Will Surely Perish debut (a Maple Forum release) or just from checking out random videos along the way, there’s little that can prepare either for the focused intensity in their performance at this point — not so much a holdover from the members’ NYHC days as an evolution of it — or the free aesthetic range of the newer, post-debut material from their forthcoming second LP. However they manage to do it, Kings Destroy are always catching someone off guard.

I’m hardly an impartial observer, but fun is fun. Despite throwing in weirdo cuts like “Blood of Recompense” and the closing “Turul” from the new album, due out this year on whichever label is bold enough to pick it up, Kings Destroy also went back to their roots, playing both sides of their initial 7″ single with “Old Yeller” and “Medusa.” The blend was right on, and if they had it in mind to play the simpler, more directly riffy material for the heads out to see Acid King, they probably weren’t wrong in doing so. The room was more or less full from what I could tell as they kicked off with “Old Yeller,” and the crowd was already drunk and already rowdy. Or at least a couple dudes were who decided to spread it around after already being led forcefully to but apparently not through the door once during Blackout.

My pick of the Kings Destroy set? Well, I’m a sucker for “The Toe” and a sucker for “The Mountie,” so take your pick. From the start of “Old Yeller” on down, the band showed how far they’ve come, adding a dangerous sense of energy to the older songs. Both cuts from the 7″ also appeared on the album, so “The Mountie” wasn’t alone, but the push was still clearly geared toward the newer stuff, and rightly so. While I love that record as much as you’d think someone would have to in order to decide to put their “label” stamp on it — and if they came to me today with it, I’d still be up for helping to put it out — Kings Destroy 2013 are miles ahead of where Kings Destroy 2010 were, bolstered by road-time in Europe, more songwriting and a greater sense of what influences they want to bring into the band. Their confidence bleeds through everything they do, and they don’t just know they’re kicking your ass on stage, they actually kick your ass too. It had been a couple months since I last saw them (review here), so the refresher was appreciated.

Vocalist Steve Murphy hopped off the stage into the crowd during the quiet ending of “Blood of Recompense” and stood on some kind of box on the side of the stage during part of the oddly progressive “Turul,” marching in isolated place while guitarists Carl Porcaro and Chris Skowronski, bassist Aaron Bumpus and drummer Rob Sefcik locked in the chugging chorus that brought the set to a finish, so even to the presentation of the songs itself, there was a sense of not knowing what the hell might come next.

What was next, however, was Acid King.

And I’ll say this about Acid King: That is a band who are ready to let the riffs do the talking. The case was roughly the same when I last saw them at Roadburn in 2011, but perhaps accentuated all the more for a headlining set in Brooklyn. Still, even without whooping up the crowd, the crowd was in their pocket… and all over the floor of the St. Vitus bar. Moshing during Acid King? Really? The songs have like 30 beats per minute. Q: How do you mosh to that? A: Sauced. I stayed up front the whole show, and for most of Acid King‘s set, my side of the stage didn’t seem to be getting it as bad as the other one, but really, I didn’t expect that kind of thing to happen. It’s fucking stoner rock, not Converge.

But I’m old, and the generation has shifted, so if Acid King inspire enough devotion in a Saturday night Brooklyn crowd despite not having put out a new album in eight years to result in moshing at their show, well, that bit of “this is fun because I’m wasted” goonery and “let me cover you in my shirtless man-sweat” latent homoeroticism I guess is the price to pay for seeing the three-piece in the flesh. It’s a small one in the long run as compares to actually watching Acid King play (though I can’t help but wonder if the girl on the other side of the stage who kept getting grabbed on by Dipshit McGee would argue), who arrived on the stage with as little sense of fucking around as they’d soon bring to their set, which covered mostly III songs and classics from 1999’s genre landmark Busse Woods but left room for new material as well in the form of “Coming Down from Outer Space,” “Red River” and a third yet untitled.

Yeah, that’s right, new Acid King. They’ve been kicking around “Red River” for a while — also happens to be the name of the street in Austin, Texas, where I first saw them in 2004, half-passed out sitting on the upstairs balcony at Room 710 while they headlined the Small Stone showcase at SXSW — but everything’s relative. Really, they could’ve played just about anything and I don’t think anyone would have complained. The place was just excited to see they were there, and the band — guitarist/vocalist Lori S., drummer Joey Osbourne and bassist Mark Lamb — were well into it as well, not thrashing around or anything but ensuring the delivery of the tightest set possible of some of heavy rock’s most underrated riffage.

If you were so inclined, you could probably write a dissertation on Lori‘s guitar tone. Under the red lights at the St. Vitus, she led the band through the fuzz of “Busse Woods” and “2 Wheel Nation” like it was a guided tour, Lamb’s own low end providing a fitting answer back, resulting in a consuming wave of groove that was, I shit you not, right up there with the heaviest sounds I’ve ever heard come through that Vitus P.A. It was clear immediately that it would be a great set, and as they nestled into the pocket of riff after riff, not overly animated but not still-life-with-fuzz either, Acid King reminded Brooklyn of just what it had been missing in the time since they last stopped through.

When the crowd got unruly between songs, shouting requests or nonsensicalities like, “You’re in Brooklyn now,” as though they (1:) didn’t know or (2:) were concerned they’d set up their gear in Queens instead, Lori simply hit her foot pedal on for the next song and all the rest disappeared in a hum of feedback, Osbourne smiling behind. “Silent Circle” was a highlight, but “Electric Machine” — which followed the unnamed new song and “Coming Down from Outer Space” — made the whole set for me personally. That’s a song I’m lucky I get through a day without it showing up stuck in my head at some point anyway. To be that close to it was something special.

Their regular set wrapped with III closer “Sunshine and Sorrow,” on which I’d apparently never properly appreciated Osbourne‘s drum fills, as Lori put her guitar down and adjourned to the side of the stage — nowhere else to go — to watch Lamb and Osbourne finish off the song and nod on the groove. They couldn’t leave before the encore, so after a minute or so, they launched into an encore of “Teen Dusthead” and the extended, hypnotic “War of the Mind,” finishing huge, sick and unpretentiously righteous as they’d started. It was a monument to riff-paganism equal parts huge and awe-inspiring, and I felt dazed when they were done.

Consciousness returned on the slow march out enough to get me to my car and back to Jersey, whereupon I crashed out so thoroughly that three days later I’ve yet really to come fully awake. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. One thing’s for sure: If Acid King came to the East Coast for the first time in more than half a decade — one show, not even touring — it probably wasn’t without a reason, and if they were testing the waters for a new album prior to recording, the interest and the fanbase is definitely there. Acid King were welcomed to the St. Vitus like the stoner royalty they are, and though I might stand in back next time around, my only hope after this show is that there is one.

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To be perfectly honest, I don’t really even have a good excuse for posting this flyer, I’m just psyched for the show. On Saturday, Feb. 23, Acid King will return to the East Coast for the first time in I don’t even know how long it’s been, and Maple Forum alums and all-around excellent human beings Kings Destroy have signed on to support along with Blackout on the three-band bill. I guess at that point, I don’t need an excuse. It’s just awesome. All hail crushing February: