After spending the better part of the last month hobbling around on a bum right ankle, it was finally time for me to get the fuck out. Between work and that injury, which has endured in one degree or another since the beginning of the year, I don’t think I could even tell you how many shows I’ve missed in 2015, but this was at least my chance to end the year on a positive note, with Kind headlining a gig at Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain that I’d come to think of essentially as the office party for Boston heavy rock and roll. The place was packed, from before Leather Lung got started as the first of the three support acts, through sets by Summoner and Worshipper, and the spirit of the evening was clearly celebratory. It’s the holidays. People were looking for a good time.

And they’d have one. Leather Lung gave the four-band night a sludgy start at about quarter to 10. Outright in their weedianism in a kind of “Hey check us out isn’t pot awesome?” sense, their sound ultimately fell flat with me. I’ll say immediately I was in a minority of about one in that regard, but with a sort of proto-rap-rock flow from their singer’s rhythmic screams, all I could think about was early Incubus or 311 crossed with Eyehategod-style aggro sludge, and the combo left me cold. So far as I know they have one 2014 EP out called Reap What You Sow — they may or may not have aired “Green Bitch” from it — and I don’t want to rag on a local band just getting their feet under them, so I won’t. Again, the crowd was into it.

It’s been a little more than a year since I last saw Summoner live (review here). Not much has changed — though vocalist/bassist Chris Johnson said from the stage that they had a new record in the works. Where they might be in that process, I couldn’t say, but the bulk of what they played came from their two full-lengths, 2013’s Atlantian and 2012’s Phoenix, both of which drew on heavy and progressive influences, plotted dual-guitar leads from AJ Peters and Joe Richner and the foundation of Scott Smith‘s swings and builds on drums. Their material careens and turns on a dime, is atmospheric and heavy and melodic and propulsive, and their dynamic has been honed to a continually impressive degree. I don’t know how often they rehearse, but they sure sound rehearsed.

“Winged Hessians” and “Into the Abyss” fed one into the next to leadoff their comfortable but still engrossing set, and the peaks built on peaks of “Let the Light In” from Phoenix provided an apex before Atlantian‘s shuffling “Horns of War” closed out. I’d expect their next outing, whenever it might arrive, to follow the thread from those two records in Summoner‘s thought-out approach. Nothing they do seems to be an accident, and the fact that there’s consciousness at work behind it only makes their scope more impressive. They remain underrated, and were an upbeat lead-in for relative newcomers Worshipper, who’ve found near-immediate success, taking home a Boston Music Award for Best Metal Somethingorother. Fair enough.

My first time seeing the band, but I’ve dug both their two-song singles, so was eager to hear those cuts and whatever else might be on offer live. With a two-guitar assault that was at times Thin Lizzy and at times Iron Maiden/slow-Slayer, Worshipper very nearly stole the night, and considering they don’t have a record out yet and considering who the headliners were, that’s saying something. Their singles — all four tracks of which were aired, “High Above the Clouds” opening, “Black Corridor” closing, with “Step Behind” and “Place Beyond the Light” appearing early on — have told only about one-sixth of the full story of their breadth, and fronted confidently by guitarist/vocalist John Brookhouse with on-point backing harmonies by bassist Bob Maloney, they found a niche for themselves between early metal, heavy and hard rock, adding just a touch of doom to the rolling progression of “Another Yesterday” but going into a more classic form for the shorter, penultimate “Julia.”

Guitarist Alejandro Necochea both took his own leads and held down riffs while Brookhouse did likewise, and drummer Dave Jarvis seemed to throw his whole body into the kit to pull off such swing. They played a nine-song set with poise that defied their being such a new band, and showcased a breadth that made me understand quickly why people seem to be getting so fervently behind what they do. I’ll look forward to hearing what comes out of their next studio session — my sense is they should skip the EP, go right for the album — but their potential and their awareness of what they wanted to be as a band bled into each piece they played. They looked like a group coming into the realization that they could be something special together, and it was exciting to watch.

Like I said, they very nearly stole the night, but it was ultimately Kind‘s evening. The headlining four-piece’s recently-issued Rocket Science (review here) is among the year’s best, debut or not, and opening with “German for Lucy,” they played a good portion of it. From the charmingly-titled “Pastrami Blaster” through the swinging “Fast Number One,” through the expansive “Hordeolum,” the hook-laced “Grogan” and the space-jamming “The Angry Undertaker,” Kind took Midway Cafe on a run that brought out the best from the four players onstage — guitarist Darryl Shepard (Milligram, Hackman, etc.), vocalist Craig Riggs (Roadsaw), bassist Tom Corino (Rozamov) and drummer Matt Couto (Elder) — without being adherent to the past work of any of them.

True to the record, the material live had a balance between up-front heavy rock riffing and more spacious psychedelia, whether from Couto working synth in addition to drums or Riggs running his vocals through a range of effects, and the combination of his singing being high in the venue mix and the propulsion provided by Couto worked particularly well compared even to other times I’ve seen them play. As Corino threw his bass behind his newly-shorn head and put a foot up on the stage monitor and Couto kept his head down to ride the grooves through between Shepard‘s riffs and leads, it became apparent just how quickly Kind have come together as a band. Of course the eternal fear with a side-project of any sort or other is that it’ll be left to rot while various main outfits take priority, but I remain hopeful that Kind continue to move forward from Rocket Science and embark on a progression of their own. It is an avenue worth pursuing for all involved.

I’ll admit that by the time they got around to “The Angry Undertaker,” I was in considerable discomfort. The crowd had thinned out somewhat by the time I made my way to a bar chair to get off my feet, between shout-outs to the New England Patriots — lest we forget we’re in Boston — and the liberal imbibing all around, clearly the party was still going. Fair enough. It was decided from the stage that everyone was going to Tom‘s house after the show to keep drinking, and that may well have happened, but I split out quickly when Kind were finished, with a sore foot, an hour drive and general social inadequacy for motivation. It was a dark and swervy night on the ride home (even sober, one tends to drift that late), but I felt glad to have made it. I don’t know if this one makes up for everything I didn’t get to see in 2015, but at least it wasn’t another one to go on that list.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

Read more »

According to the Google, that arbiter of all things directional, it’s about 26 hours by car from Lawton, Oklahoma, to Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty-seven if you take I-81. OK residents Grel and Oberon had been touring their way to the East Coast, playing in Lawton, in Kansas City, Chicago, Columbus and even another show in Western MA, and their run — dubbed the “Star Stuff” tour — would continue to Philadelphia and on to Richmond, Virginia where both play Stoner Hands of Doom XIII, their slots on that fest being the impetus behind the string of shows in the first place. Since I wasn’t going to be able to see them in Richmond, and since I dug Grel‘s 2012 EP, The Red Sun God (review here), what with their having come all that way, it seemed the least I could do to show up. So I did.

Local support at Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain — cool room, decently lit when they had the lights on, divided, bar in the middle, decent beer selection and a pug that showed up halfway through and was awesome to see until someone served it a Guinness; sorry, that shit’s not funny — came from Bion and Titanis, who opened and closed the gig respectively. It was a night of young acts. Not a full stack to be found. For a while there, I was the oldest person in the room not working at the bar, which is always a dubious distinction, and while each band showed they had growth in progress and still to undertake, it also wound up being a varied and enjoyable bill. Four single-word monikered bands with vastly different influences, starting with Bion.

It was easy enough to hear prog and extreme metal influences in Bion‘s set, guitarist/vocalist Charlie occasionally locked into a section of blackened squibblies en route to his next impressive solo. Both he and bassist Phil handled vocal duties, while drummer Jesse busted out shots of double-kick that served to presage some of what Oberon would shortly have on offer. Their lone EP to date, Hive Mind, is somewhat similarly minded in its will toward progressive heaviness, and I take it as an encouraging sign that the vocals sounded better live than they do on the studio recording. Bodes well for ambition to coincide with their stylistic intricacy. At one point, Phil said they only played one of the songs “for exercise.” They hardly seemed to break a sweat.

With the keyboard of vocalist Seth prominently displayed front and center on the stage, the five-piece Grel made an immediately different impression. A double-guitar outfit, they nonetheless rested heavily on the swing of their rhythm section, bassist Brandon and drummer Dustin, to convey the weight of their material, while six-stringers Ryan and Bentley seemed to come most to the fore with the Red Fang cover, “Prehistoric Dog.” Not unexpectedly. Elsewhere in their set, the Southern rocking EP opener, “Lady,” an engaging 12-bar blues that let Seth show off some surprising Midwestern classic rocker soul and “Astro Cannibalism” showcased a band who even as I was watching them were refining their approach. I’ve yet to tire of watching young bands do this, particularly those with enough belief in what they do to take it on the road. Grel were refreshing both in the reality of what they were playing and in the whole concept behind it. They’ll come off this tour a better band they they went on it, and I imagine they’ll be a riot by the time they hit Virginia on Saturday.

One might say the same for Oberon, but the application is somewhat different. Focused more on the instrumental side of their sound, with the catchiest song being “Phobos” from their thematically constructed Through Space We Ride EP, Oberon came across as more technical and progressive, and more metal in their influences certainly than Grel, but still far less tonally metallic than they presented on those recorded tracks. I got shades of Pelican in the early going, and though guitarist/vocalist DJ Bryant — joined in the band by guitarist Jeremy Wingard, bassist Adam Smith (not to be confused with the Adam Smith who plays in Ohio space rockers EYE) and drummer Logan Wood — had some technical trouble with his guitar and that derailed a bit of their momentum, they still found room to push through a reworking of Survivor‘s “Eye of the Tiger” that proved effective and managed to skirt the irony one might expect to encounter with such fare. A post-rock verse in the theme from Rocky III? Some Wednesday nights take you to unexpected places.

Oberon recovered from their technical troubles to finish strong, but unfortunately, Titanis wouldn’t be so lucky. The four-piece had made a mid-week weekender of playing in Northampton with Grel and Oberon the night before, but when guitarist Niko Galanis broke not one, but two strings within the first two songs and the band tried to keep moving with a Melvins cover with Galanis just on vocals alongside guitarist Brett Miller, bassist David Willoughby and drummer Pat O’Neill. That was going well enough until as he ran off stage to get a replacement guitar, Galanis caught on Willoughby‘s bass cable and tore it right out, breaking it off. Show over.

It was plenty late by then, after one in the morning. The word in my head for the circumstance of the night’s ending was “unceremonious,” but “unfortunate” works just as well. Titanis barely got to leave an impression. Like Oberon, they played mostly in the dark — for some reason, the first two bands had lights on and the last two didn’t — and before they could really get any momentum going, it was over. Maybe next time. My understanding was that the night before in Northampton had also been rough going. Hopefully not enough so to discourage Titanis from what seem to otherwise be worthy pursuits in their craft.

I ducked out on the quick. If you’d have told me that it would be 50 degrees at night in November in Boston, I probably would’ve told you to fuck off or at very least made some obnoxious Game of Thrones reference about southerners and how “winter is coming,” but the walk down the block to my car was barely brisk. I got in at about quarter to two and did my best to crash out right away, only to fail spectacularly. So it goes. A drag-ass Thursday well earned.

Extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

Read more »