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Live Review: Black Cobra, Lo-Pan, Lunglust, Hepatagua and Sea of Bones in Cambridge, MA, 09.16.14

Posted in Reviews on September 17th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Black Cobra (Photo by JJ Koczan)

There was a point during Black Cobra‘s set last night at T.T. the Bear’s Place in Cambridge at which I felt like my head had been swallowed by some gargantuan octogod out of a Lovecraft horror. Five bands deep into a five-band Tuesday, it was hard to stand up let alone make any attempt to keep up with Black Cobra‘s intensity, which has been outdoing rockers far more riotous than I for over a decade. They were headlining, playing last, of course, a show that might as well have been billed as a festival, with their tourmates Lo-Pan and local support from LunglustHepatagua and Connecticut’s Sea of Bones. My first time at T.T. the Bear’s was going to give me plenty of opportunity to get to know it.

If you’re looking for it, it’s quite literally next to the Middle East, which I don’t suppose will be much help when they turn that whole complex into condos as they’re allegedly going to do sooner or later, likely working at Boston’s usual we’ll-get-there-in-200-years pace in a continued effort to destroy any sense of culture not directly related either to the higher education of its imported money-spending rich kids or the steadfast working class scoffery of its actual citizens. A whole town dedicated to telling itself to fuck off. It’s a good place to like sports, not a good place to try and open a bar. So it goes.

Despite a few circles around the block for parking, I was early. Sea of Bones were opening, so we’ll start there:

Sea of Bones

Sea of Bones (Photo by JJ Koczan)

I was surprised Sea of Bones would start the show. Not because they’re a huge commercial band or anything, but because the Connecticut-based three-piece are so loud, I know that if I was another opening act on the bill, I wouldn’t want to follow them. Their brutal post-doom emanated from a formidable wall of cabinets as Mammoth in sound as in their brand, the company founded by Sea of Bones guitarist Tom Mucherino given a weighty endorsement by the band’s own tectonic force. The tension in their quiet stretches isn’t to be understated, but when Mucherino, bassist Gary Amedy and drummer Kevin Wigginton all crash in on the material from their 2013 two-disc sophomore outing, The Earth Wants us Dead (review here), all three adding their vocals to the assault, they’re quite frankly one of the heaviest acts I’ve ever seen. I spent the last $10 to my miserable name on the CD of The Earth Wants us Dead, and no regrets. An early laugh for the night was when, after two or three songs, they were informed they had five minutes left and ended the set because none of their material is that short. Right fucking on.

 Hepatagua

Hepatagua (Photo by JJ Koczan)

It was Hepatagua guitarist/vocalist Aaron Gray who reportedly brought the Black Cobra and Lo-Pan tour to town in the first place, and after seeing his duo’s former moniker, Automatic Death Pill, on shows more or less since I moved here, I was glad to finally get to see them play. The band is Gray and drummer Nate Linehan (ex-Anal CuntFistulaFinisher, etc.), and they tapped into various heavy impulses, indulging a thrashy impulse here or there but mostly sticking to a steady groove. Gray‘s vocals leaned aggressive but weren’t necessarily a given as growls, and the chemistry between the two was clear on stage, Automatic Death Pill having gotten their start in 2010, and they seemed most at home in raw sludge. They don’t have anything recorded as yet — rumor is they’ll address that this winter — but it’ll be interesting to find out how or if their material solidifies in the studio or keeps the edge with which they presented it at T.T. the Bear’s. Either way, I sincerely doubt this will be the last time I run into them, and they gave me something to look forward to for the next one.

Lunglust

lunglust (Photo by JJ Koczan)

A five-piece with Nicholas Wolf and Brad Macomber of The Proselyte (also Phantom Glue in the case of the former) on guitar and bass, respectively, Lunglust played that kind of dark hardcore that’s doom in its tone and metal in its fervor but still ready to toss in a breakdown every now and again. Drummer Reid Calkin had “You’re Shitty” emblazoned on the front of his kick, which didn’t seem very nice, but they were as tight as the style would require and five dudes’ worth of loud, guitarist Eric Lee in the dark on the far right of the stage and vocalist Jeff Sykes periodically stepping out onto the speakers in front of the stage to get further get his point across. No worries there. His t-shirt was the second logo sighting of the night for His Hero is Gone (Sea of Bones‘ Mucherino had a patch), and his disaffection bled into each cupped-mic growl. In terms of their basic sound, they weren’t really my thing, but they quickly showed why they were where they were on the bill and pummeled with speed, efficiency and viciousness, seeming to enjoy the violence every step of the way. I was glad no one in the crowd started throwing punches.

Lo-Pan

Going to see Lo-Pan is a no-brainer. Oh, Lo-Pan‘s coming through town? Do you have feet? Well, you better use those feet to march your ass over to wherever they’re gonna be and enjoy. With the release of Colossus, the hard-touring Columbus, Ohio, unit’s fourth album, impending, it seemed all the more reason to be there. “Regulus” from that album was aired, as well as the expansive “Eastern Seas” and “Vox” (track premiere here), and “Marathon Man” was the highlight of my night. They dipped back to 2011’s Salvador (review here) only once, for “Chichen Itza,” and otherwise the whole set was new material. That was the case for the most part as well when they played the Small Stone showcase next door at the Middle East, but I was glad to be more familiar with the songs this time around. On stage, they were much as ever — ridiculously tight and locked in, guitarist Brian Fristoe in a universe comprised of his own sleek grooves while on the opposite side of the stage bassist Scott Thompson bangs his head like he’s trying to shake it off, up front, drummer Jesse Bartz slams his cymbals so hard they bite through your earplugs and in back, vocalist Jeff Martin offers soul-stirring command. I thought he was going to blow out the P.A. during “Vox,” but no equipment was damaged. Still, it was easy to tell how deep into this tour Lo-Pan were. Not quite halfway through the run with Black Cobra, they had their inside jokes going (Martin shouted the whole set out to Guy Fieri, the crowd “didn’t need to know why”) and road eyes on, barely seeing the place, focused and intent on the work they were doing in it, looking right past, all straightforward drive and momentum build.

Black Cobra

black cobra (Photo by JJ Koczan)

That made them an excellent lead-in for Black Cobra. I had wondered how it might be going from Lo-Pan‘s more heavy rocking style to Black Cobra‘s unadulterated thrash bludgeonry, but what the two bands have in common is they’re both killer live acts. In the case of Black Cobra, they’re now a decade removed from the release of their first EP, and the duo of Jason Landrian (guitar/vocals) and Rafa Martinez (drums) have dedicated most of that time to perfecting their craft on the road. The short version is they sound like it. I’ve already told you I was beat to hell by the time they went on. Black Cobra, on the other hand, were a torrent of adrenaline, Martinez and Landrian pounding out selections from their catalog starting with “One Nine” from 2006’s debut full-length, Bestial, and including highlights from their most recent outing, 2011’s Invernal (review here), like “Avalanche,” the righteously chugging “Corrosion Fields” and overwhelmingly extreme “Obliteration.” Like Lo-Pan before them, they sounded like a band who’s been on tour for about two weeks, dead set on what they want to do and how they want to do it. They’re about due for a new record as well, and I was hoping for some new material, but most of what they played came from Invernal, though they included the title-track from 2009’s Chronomega and closed out with “Five Daggers” from 2007’s Feather and StoneLandrian seeming to take an opportunity between each cut to roar out a primal dominance and encourage the audience to join him in it. They did. No encore at the end, but nothing left to say. The house lights came on quick and those of us still in the room collected our well-demolished consciousnesses and shuffled out. For what it’s worth, Black Cobra looked like they could’ve kept playing with no problem.

I got pulled over on my way home, received a $55 ticket on a back road for my car not being inspected. My car has over 205,000 miles on it. The cop was visibly disappointed I wasn’t drunk, and I was visibly disappointed he existed. Another police vehicle pulled around and sat in a nearby parking lot and I thought about asking Officer McDickhead if he needed backup to tell me my license plate light was out, if maybe he didn’t want to break out the military surplus assault vehicles, but didn’t. He told me have a good night and I grunted at him and rolled up my window. Fucker. Worst part about it is cops are younger than me at this point. Got in somewhere around 2AM.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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Live Review: Gozu, Black Pyramid, Infernal Overdrive and Lunglust in Boston, MA, 03.03.12

Posted in Reviews on March 5th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

Hard to remember which came first, the idea of the weekend getaway with The Patient Mrs. or the idea to drive up to Boston and see Gozu, Infernal Overdrive and the Darryl Shepard-fronted incarnation of Black Pyramid play at Radio in Somerville. The place, reportedly new, looked it, with good lighting and hardwood floors, a brick wall behind the door and Palm beer — who were sponsoring the night somehow, some way (I wish they’d sponsor my life, or at very least this site) — on tap and ready to go. So was I.

Because, you see, the three-beer rule was even more out the window than it had been at Windhand a couple nights earlier. After a quick stop at Armageddon Shop (same store as in Providence, but different locale), I’d begun a long process down downing draught Chimay Blanc, and, well, it’s made by monks. That should pretty much say it all. By the time I walked into Radio following some food and further imbibing at Redbones BBQ with the internet’s own Arzgarth, I was well on my way to a few things, and drunk was one of them.

Fortunately I conducted myself with the usual amount of class and social finesse (ha) and set to work almost immediately on arrival trying to snap some pictures of Lunglust, who were already on stage when I got there. A double-guitar fivesome with standalone vocals, they were an easy pick for being a Boston band — the way Jeff Sykes cups his mic is as much a tradition in New England as hating the Yankees, never mind their two-words-put-together moniker — but their heavy, semi-hardcore approach was tempered with an awareness of doomed groove, and with as much rock as the rest of the night promised, they brought diversity to a bill long on riffs but not necessarily fueled by aggression.

Heavy is heavy, and they were most certainly that. A decent break to change over the gear on stage helped make the transition less awkward for Infernal Overdrive, whose showtime charm is only getting more prevalent the more comfortable they get with their material. It was the CD release show for Last Rays of the Dying Sun (review here), and the band seemed to be in good spirits, whether it was guitarist/vocalist Marc Schleicher raising his rock and roll preacher’s arm up before they even got going or his brother, bassist Keith Schleicher, trying to give me his Shiner Beer t-shirt after I made fun of him for wearing it all the time when I posted their video.

Schleicher kept his shirt — a favorite shirt is hard to find; I couldn’t take it — and showed off his new Captain America-logo bass as Infernal Overdrive got going. The room was ready for the party they brought, but though the times they foster are invariably good, they’ve grown immensely since their demo, and each successive show proves it further. Lead guitarist Rich Miele, who might have been the only dude in the room with a tie, tore through leads as well as he classed up the joint amid a squelch of beardos (the official beardo grouping classification as of right now), grounding the overall chicanery left to the capable hands of drummer Mike Bennett, who made sure that nobody got out of line.

No easy task when Marc‘s put his guitar down for a little off-stage stoner rock softshoe, but Bennett‘s a pro by now and the solo in “Electric Street Cred” was short compared to other times I’ve seen it. Some of Infernal Overdrive‘s best stuff — “The Edge,” “I-95” and so on — was that which brought Keith and Miele in on backing vocals, and that bodes well for their next outing, but that was far from my mind when they closed out with “Duel.” Just right for the occasion, it might win the hard battle for catchiest track on Last Days of the Dying Sun, and was involved in another fight, this one with Black Pyramid‘s “Mercy’s Bane” for being most stuck in my head after the show.

And really, it was the whole bill that made me make the trip, but Black Pyramid had an added element of intrigue thanks to it being among the first of their shows to feature new guitarist/vocalist Darryl Shepard. The ex-Hackman and Milligram guitarist — who also put out the album Dronolith from his one-man drone project Blackwolfgoat through The Maple Forum last year and has vinyl of the same album on the way courtesy of Bilocation Records — has been in all my dealings with him and is by all other accounts I’ve heard an exceptionally good guy. Being a fan of his and a fan of the band’s work since the days leading up to the release of their self-titled MeteorCity debut in 2009, four hours in the car seemed a small price to pay, even if I’d be catching them at London Desertfest in April as well.

They did not — seemingly could not — disappoint. The familiar components of be-chapeaued bassist Gein and drummer Clay Neely (interview here) seemed at ease and right at home with Shepard on guitar, and the air was more of excitement than of tension, both on their part and the crowd’s. Older material sounded fresh and from “Mercy’s Bane,” which led off their set to “No Life King,” which closed it, the trio excelled. Shepard came in as a replacement for Andy Beresky, who left after the recording of Black Pyramid‘s recently-released II, and more than filled the shoes vacated. His adaptations of Beresky‘s solos were spot on, and of all the songs they played (the set list is after the jump), the one that sounded the best was “Aphelion,” the first of hopefully many to come from the Shepard/Gein/Neely lineup.

That’s probably to be expected, that the players playing would sound most fluid on the song they wrote, but the cut, which comes from a Transubstans Records split 7″ with Swedish doomers Odyssey, also fit well with Black Pyramid‘s older material, and Shepard‘s vocals were neither trying to match Beresky‘s idiosyncratic phrasing nor purposefully be different. It was a natural shift taking place, and one I was glad to be there to see. Heads banged, claws were thrown, and when they were done, it was like we’d all come through something together and survived. Maybe that was the beer. Whatever. Doom above all.

Ultimately, it was Gozu‘s night. Boston natives, they’d helmed a plundering of Radio the evening before with Motherboar and Livver, among others, and remembering the current of melody at work along with their heavy riffs and upbeat pacing that played out at the Small Stone showcase in Philly back in September of last year, especially in the vocals of guitarist Marc Gaffney, I was excited to hear them on their home turf. Propelled by drummer Barry Spillberg‘s near-frenetic pacing and thickened by Paul Dallaire‘s bass, Gaffney and Doug Sherman‘s guitars were given proper treatment and respect in the mix and the material from their 2011 debut, Locust Season, sounded tight and crisp and engaging.

For a finishing move, they picked Locust Season highlight “Meth Cowboy,” and it was a great way to round out the night, Sherman adding backing vocals to Gaffney‘s even as the riffing toward the end gave new meaning to “post-hardcore.” That record seemed to be well regarded, but I get the feeling Gozu will have more to say stylistically next time around, and I look forward to it. Dallaire adds a lot of character to the lineup, and Sherman and Gaffney work well together and with Spillberg‘s drumming. They’re a better band than people know.

Was it a cab at the end of the night? Yeah, it was. One of several in which I heard processed electronic pop soap operas playing out “mixed live,” as though such a thing could exist on commercial broadcast media. By “mixed live,” I’ll assume you meant “pressed play.” Next to what I’d just seen those four bands lay down, which was created live, there was no comparison… not that I’d have been sober enough to make one anyway.

Because it was Boston after all, someone leaned out of their car to call me “faggitt” as I and The Patient Mrs. walked back to the hotel from making a 7-Eleven stop — not the first time that evening I’d heard the word used; two dudebros at the bar before the show were throwing out hatespeech with the blissful abandon of ignorance even as they groped each other at a level that I’d probably be uncomfortable if it was my wife doing it to me in a public setting — and someone in an Escalade as well seemed to want to start a fight. Sweet, sweet regionalism.

Little did any of the bastards know my victory had already been earned well before they came along to flare their jackets and pretend to pose a challenge. Some nights you win outright.

Extra pics after the jump.

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