The lineup for the fourth edition of Somergloom, held in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Boston’s neighborhoody fringes, brings together locals and out of towners for a varied three-days later this month. You’ll note Royal Thunder and Big Brave in the top spots, as well as Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath from Cave In and others across a range of styles and moods from the exploratory to the crushing. I’m particularly curious to know what Marc Gaffney from Boston heavy rock forerunners Gozu has in store for a solo set. Acoustic interpretations? Laptop-backed classic soul vocal revue? Spoken word laced with dry sarcasm? Dude could go any number of directions and not miss. I hope somebody gets video.

And as a note to self, Strawberry Coffin seem like a band I should check out. If you’re going to this one, heads up on Oldest Sea as well. They’ve spent a decent portion of the summer on tour at this point and I don’t imagine that’s hurt their on-stage resonance any. Should be a killer time.

Info came down the PR wire:

Somergloom Festival – Aug.22-24, 2024

Get tickets: https://dice.fm/bundles/somergloom-3vdx

Somergloom Festival enters its fourth year, gloomier than ever, on two stages at The Center for the Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA and Event Them in Medford, MA, August 22-24, 2024. Showcasing the richness and diversity of the heavy music scene, the festival centers around music that is introspective, creatively ambitious, and evoking a melancholic quality that we like to call “gloom.” From beautifully haunting dark folk to harrowing doom metal, Somergloom offers festival goers a sampling of sounds from the underground.

Since its inception in 2021 as part of the ONCE Summer Concert Series, Somergloom has grown from a one day show to a multi-day event, bringing in international touring acts to play alongside established and emerging local talent. This year, the festival will feature artists on two stages at Center for the Arts at the Armory.

“It’s important to us to keep Somergloom in Somerville because we have a strong connection to this place,” says festival founder and Somerville-based musician Stephen LoVerme. “Having it at The Center for Arts at the Armory allows us to keep the festival here while working with an organization with a similar goal of nurturing art and culture in the city. It’s a beautiful, historic building that’s full of character, and having multiple venues – the performance hall and the Rooted cafe – allows us to feature more artists.”

“Somergloom has always been about including artists. Local craft, vintage, and other vendors will have the balcony in the main room, as well as the entryway, to show their wares. It’s an opportunity for artists, audio and visual, to show their skills, and we are thrilled to be able to offer it” -JJ Gonson, ONCE owner and Somergloom Executive Producer.

“Somergloom is impressive, joyful, and inspiring. Such gatherings are priceless for developing the soul and identity of regional arts, and in turn, the culture and ideas of the community.” – Indy Shome, Queen Elephantine

VIP, two-day, and single-day passes are now available. VIP pass holders this year will enjoy access to a special pre-party at EventThem in Medford and premium viewing space at Arts at the Armory.

VIP Pre-party Thursday, August 22, Event Them, will feature appearances from Marc Gaffney from Gozu, Oahk and Kira McSpice.

Friday August 23 Center for the Arts at the Armory Montreal’s Big Brave headline, playing their new album A Chaos of Flowers in full. Spiritual Poison, featuring Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man, brings a heavy dose of atmospheric drone to the evening, while Boston deathrockers Final Gasp bring the energy and grim charisma of harcore, goth, and post punk. Also featured: Lesser Glow, Circus Trees and Luci Dead Limb.

Saturday August 24, Center for the Arts at the Armory Atlanta’s Royal Thunder headline back in Boston after a seven-year absence. GIRIH and The Infinity Ring bring brooding post metal and gothic folk respectively. Playing in the Rooted Cafe are Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath of local legends Cave In and psychedelic doom rockers Strawberry Coffin.

Thursday, August 22, EventThem, Medford, MA
Marc Gaffney of Gozu
Kira McSpice
Oahk

Friday, August 23, Center for the Arts at the Armory, Somerville, MA
Big Brave
Final Gasp
Spiritual Poison
Lesser Glow
Circus Trees
Luci Dead Limb

Saturday, August 24, Center for the Arts at the Armory, Somerville, MA
Royal Thunder
Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath of Cave In
Girih
Oldest Sea
The Infinity Ring
Strawberry Coffin

https://www.facebook.com/somergloom
https://www.instagram.com/somergloom
https://somergloom.bandcamp.com/merch
https://somergloom.com/

Oldest Sea, “Sacred Destruction” official video

The bill pushed the envelope of ridiculous. As part of their ongoing reunion, Wisconsin sludgers Bongzilla have been on tour since late February with nomadic thrashers Black Cobra and only-slightly-less-nomadic heavy rockers Lo-Pan. They met up with New York’s Kings Destroy — freshly back from their Australian run with Radio Moscow — at SXSW last month, and have continued along the Eastern Seaboard since. Friday night was a sold-out show at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, and Saturday was ONCE Ballroom in Somerville, Massachusetts, for a show that was put on by Grayskull Booking and presented in part by this site.

It was my first time at ONCE Ballroom, but I’d like to extend personal gratitude to whoever decided to leave the lights on while the bands played. The P.A. was formidable, and it was a night that would push its limits, and the layout like the kind of place you might rent for a wedding reception. That’s not a dig on it — actually the room was quite nice — it’s just the first thing that came to my oh-so-domestic mind. There was a dance floor in front of the stage and carpeted floor space all around, bar to the side and another bar upstairs in kind of a lounge with a pool table Addams Family pinball machine and so on. To the best of my knowledge, they haven’t been doing shows there long, which explains how the carpet wasn’t completely disgusting or otherwise gone, but for the most part, the evening ran smoothly.

Here’s how it went down:

Lo-Pan

I don’t know how many shows the Ohio four-piece have done with Black Cobra over the years, and in fact I doubt it’s a figure even they could quote at this point, but to understate it, I’d say they’re well past the range of “several.” It had been nearly a full 12 months since last time I saw them, which was at Roadburn 2015 (review here). To be blunt, they were missed. I was particularly interested to see a year later how guitarist Adrian Zambrano had continued to fit in the band after joining late in 2014 the lineup with vocalist Jeff Martin, bassist Scott Thompson and drummer Jesse Bartz, who was positioned, as ever, at the front of the stage. Most of what they played was new, and in terms of where they’re at in progressing from the high-impact delivery of their 2014 fourth album, Colossus (review here), they seemed not at all to have taken a step back, but to have integrated Zambrano‘s energy into their own. And the guitarist had plenty to integrate, stepping up to lead songs with riffs or space out just a bit in two quieter cuts. They reportedly have some new recordings in the can, which I’m dying to hear, and the last song of their set, “Pathfinder,” might be the best thing I’ve ever heard them play. I’d never heard the song before but was taken in completely by its flow, by Martin‘s out-of-this-world vocals, by Bartz‘s signature crashes, the swing in Thompson‘s bass and the dynamic volume switches in Zambrano‘s guitar. They’ve been on the road for a month, so I figured they’d be tight, but Lo-Pan served voluminous reminder of their place among the US’ finest heavy rock acts. Keeping my fingers crossed it’s not another year until I see them again.

Kings Destroy

Another case of been-too-long. Kings Destroy are very nearly a year out from the release of their self-titled third full-length (review here), and the last time I caught them was at the release show (review here) for it, which, yeah, is too damn long for my preferences. They played a six-song set, and the change in vibe from Lo-Pan was immediate. Each of the bands on this tour offers something different from the others, but I hadn’t really considered how smoothly the acts — especially the first three, but Bongzilla as well — would flow between them, Lo-Pan starting off with a charged-fuzz boot to the ass, Kings Destroy turning that more aggressive, Black Cobra hitting with unmatched intensity, and finally, Bongzilla finishing out with a mass of tone. For being disparate in their sound, Kings Destroy followed Lo-Pan well. They had a fill-in bassist in Mike Moebius (also producer for Pilgrim, Kings Destroy, The Munsens and others) holding down Aaron Bumpus‘ usual spot next to drummer Rob Sefcik and guitarist Chris Skowronski, and while Skowronski didn’t run across the stage to kick fellow guitarist Carl Porcaro, so I can’t call it the most raucous Kings Destroy set I’ve ever seen, they showed themselves plainly to be ready to move forward from the last record. This tour hasn’t been quite back to back with the aforementioned Australian stint, but close enough to it that when it’s over I wouldn’t be surprised if they hunkered down for a while and set to finishing material for their fourth LP. Whatever their plans, it was great to bang my head again to “Mr. O” and “Smokey Robinson,” to groove on the catchy creeper vibes of “The Mountie” and to hear vocalist Steve Murphy‘s changed cadence in the hook of “Blood of Recompense,” which finished out. I’m hardly impartial on the subject, but I’ve really missed these guys.

Black Cobra

What can you do when Black Cobra take the stage other than bow to their utter supremacy? I don’t know. The San Fran (now) twosome of guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian and drummer Rafa Martinez hit the 15-year mark in 2016, a decade since their first album, Bestial, was released, and their assault has only gotten more and more vicious. Their newly-issued Season of Mist debut, Imperium Simulacra (review here), made its primary impression — or at least a complementary one to their omnipresent fury — in an expansion of their capacity for atmosphere, in Landrian‘s willingness to drone out in contrast to the thrashing riffery that has become the band’s signature, and I was pleased to find them bring that sensibility to the stage as well. I’m not going to take away from the joy of watching Martinez blast the hell out of an all-out cut like “Obsolete,” slamming his floor tom in place of a double-kick, or the unmitigated tension of “Challenger Deep,” but to hear them hit the brakes even momentarily to ride out a rolling groove or to have Landrian create an excruciating soundscape of drone before the next wave of the attack was launched made the experience of watching them that much richer. They are a live band and always have been, and anyone who has heard their records but not seen them only has half the story, but the fact that the growth that was so clearly signaled on the record showed up so plainly on stage as well is emblematic of their all-around progression. I won’t say it’s a question of maturity, since I’d argue Black Cobra hit that stride with 2011’s Invernal, but perhaps of how they’re putting that maturity to use, deepening their approach. It’s a thrill to watch Black Cobra break the rules they’ve set for themselves, and one hopes that the explorations of Imperium Simulacra are a sign of things to come.

Bongzilla

I’ve been wracking my brains for the last couple weeks trying to remember if I’d seen Bongzilla before and I’ve finally decided that the answer is no, because if I had caught them at some point during their initial run, which ended after their 2005 album, Amerijuanican, on Relapse, I’d remember it. The ultra-weedian four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Muleboy, guitarist Spanky, bassist Cooter Brown and drummer Magma stacked their amps high — everything was high — and were loud enough in their early going that, I think in their third song, the power cut out. Not like they blew an amp, like they blew a fuse. It was an unexpected break in the set, during which the band encouraged everyone to go out and smoke weed — because weed — but seemed somehow fitting for the band’s legacy of over-the-top, crusty-as-hell sludge that the room simply couldn’t take it. I learned later they’d plugged a bunch of their amps into a single surge protector, and I guess that’d do it if that’s how it happened, but they got everything back up and running sooner or later and the crowd was right back into the set as they had been all along, the reefer-obsessed anti-hits rolling out in a slow-motion barrage of consuming tonal density. On a couple levels, one knew what to expect going into the show — Bongzilla have never been in danger of being subtle — but those expectations were delivered on thoroughly, and with the response they’ve gotten all along on this tour, and the one before it, and the one before that, I had to wonder how long it might be before they embark on a new record to follow-up on the series of reissues that Relapse and Hydro-Phonic have done over the past years. Wouldn’t want to make any hasty predictions or anything, but I bet whenever they do come out with a fifth record, it’ll have a song or two about weed on it. No complaints. In life, you gotta follow where your passion takes you.

—

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading, and once again, thanks to Grayskull Booking for having me as a presenter on this show. Check out their Thee Facebooks for more dates coming up.

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Holy crap that’s a stacked bill. Show is this Saturday, April 2, at the all-caps ONCE Ballroom in Somerville, Massachusetts, and it’s a stop on the second full-US reunion run from Wisconsin sludge megastoners Bongzilla. They hit Massachusetts for the second time since getting back together, having rolled through nearby Allston with Spirit Caravan, Dirty Streets and local destroyers Rozamov supporting last fall. The lineup this time — Bongzilla, Black Cobra, Kings Destroy and Lo-Pan — brings together four acts who each deliver a different take on heaviness, and four acts whose reputation for killing it should at this point precede them.

This tour began more than a month ago, on Feb. 28, with a hometown Madison, WI, show for Bongzilla, and has continued forth since. They covered the West Coast with Against the Grain before a stop at Heavy Metal Parking Lot 3 at SXSW found that band and New York’s Kings Destroy swapping out, and head east with the promise of locked-in furies and massive tones to come, Black Cobra raging in support of their new album, Imperium Simulacra (review here), as both Lo-Pan and Kings Destroy herald new material from yet-unannounced next albums. Simply put, it’s the kind of gig you’d much rather be at than not be at.

Deep thanks to Grayskull Booking for having me involved and giving me the chance to talk about it, as well as, you know, for putting it on. And just so we’re all on the up and up, the tour is sponsored by Cvlt Nation and I’m not trying to bite a piece off anyone’s contractual anything. Show info follows:

The Obelisk Presents:
BONGZILLA
BLACK COBRA
KINGS DESTROY
LO-PAN

April 2nd, 2016
ONCE Ballroom
156 Highland Ave
Somerville, MA

18+ Doors at 7:30pm, show starts at 8:30pm
$18 adv – $22 dos

Tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2478127

Bongzilla at ONCE Ballroom teaser

Event page on Thee Facebooks

Grayskull Booking

Bongzilla on Bandcamp

Black Cobra website

Kings Destroy website

Lo-Pan website

New Jersey natives Pharaoh will round out a Philly-Baltimore-D.C. weekender tonight with a set in Montclair, in my beloved Garden State, alongside the formidable likes of Dutchguts, Ilsa and Seven Sisters of Sleep. I’m late in posting the news below about their forthcoming full-length debut, Negative Everything, but I figured better that than never. It’s been five years almost to the day since I reviewed the trio’s The Demonstration 2009 demo, and though they’ve had a couple singles out since then, I’m looking forward to finding out where the last half-decade has taken their sound. Time flies. Also birds.

A389 will have Negative Everything out in the coming months, as the PR wire informs:

PHARAOH: New Jersey Trio Completes Tracking Of New LP For A389

Following two 7″ releases released through A389, Somerville, New Jersey-based trio, PHARAOH, has completed the tracking on their debut LP for the label.

PHARAOH’s hardcore-influenced sludge reverberation can be traced to legendary acts like Bloodlet, Neurosis, Grief and Starkweather, the band demonstrating their craft through a bruising, slow-motion dirge of through monolithic amplification. Through regional touring and multiple recordings, including their 2010-released I Murderer 7″ and 2012-released This House Is Doomed 7″, the past few years have earned the band a respectable cult status in line with the likes of A389 labelmates Ilsa and Seven Sisters Of Sleep.

Now for 2014, PHARAOH’s debut LP, Negative Everything, is being finalized for release. With nearly fifty minutes of new material, Negative Everything takes the band’s intoxicating low-end tunes to new levels of musicianship with more swirling lead guitar mayhem and thunderous rhythms. The album was tracked and produced by the band and mastered by Will Putney at Machine Shop. Upon receiving the final masters, A389 will confirm a late Summer release date for the LP.

Negative Everything Track Listing:
1. Recease
2. The Slasher
3. Degenerator
4. Spared
5. Dusted
6. Bartholomew
7. Crying Mother
8. Drag

PHARAOH will raid Philly for a show tonight, Friday, May 16th, followed by shows in Baltimore and Washington DC the next two nights before joining Seven Sisters Of Sleep, Ilsa and others in Montclair, New Jersey this Monday, May 19th. Additional tour actions will be scheduled as the release of Negative Everything closes in.

PHARAOH Live:
5/19/2014 The Batcave – Montclair, NJ w/ Seven Sisters Of Sleep, Ilsa, Dutchguts, Thera Roya

https://www.facebook.com/pharaohNJ
http://www.a389records.com
http://a389recordings.bandcamp.com
http://a389.tumblr.com
http://www.facebook.com/a389recordings
http://www.twitter.com/a389recordings

Pharaoh, Live at A389 10th Anniversary, Jan. 16, 2014

It was my first time seeing a show downstairs at Radio in Somerville, though if one has been to the place at all, chances are the small basement stage has at least been walked past en route to the bathrooms, which are also down there. Decor is some string lights, a New England Patriots throw rug and a Futurama poster on the wall, a small P.A., a table and a couple chairs, and the vibe is low-key, perfect for a mostly-acoustic night like this one, though Nature Films, who were about to get started when I arrived, were plugged in. An indie trio from Upstate New York, they were joined in the evening’s lineup by Tastefulnudes, which is Keith Pierce and Jess Collins of Mellow Bravo, Mike Cummings of Backwoods Payback on his first solo tour, and Black Thai frontman Jim Healey performing his own solo material with Joe McMahon on bass, who has worked with Healey for his studio output as well as played with his own jazz trio and numerous others.

Still, a mostly subdued night, and plugged though Nature Films were, earplugs were not required to get a sampling of their semi-jangly and unpretentious tongue-in-cheekery. They probably could’ve easily fallen into hip pretense, but nothing’s going to help steer clear of that trap quite like a song about getting a bad blowjob. Pierce, whose own very-much-on-display sense of humor worked in a similar vein, would make for a fitting follow-up as Tastefulnudes (also written stylized in all caps, as if to underscore their intent to grab attention) found him and Collins teamed with Dana Fisher as a guitar/vocals, piano/vocals and cello three-piece. For his part, the charismatic Mellow Bravo frontman could hardly wait for the set to start, and he strapped on his acoustic guitar and walked around the room more or less singing what he saw before actually plugging into the P.A. and belting out somewhat less riotous takes on Mellow Bravo tunes like “Just Like Water Would” and “Prairie Dog,” starting off with the especially memorable “Señorita” from Mellow Bravo‘s self-titled debut (review here), the melody of which proved all the more resonant with the sparser arrangement.

And maybe that was part of it, but throughout the Tastefulnudes, Mike Cummings and Jim Healey sets, there were a couple times where I had to kind of pull back and say, “Holy shit these people are talented.” Watching Pierce hold an acoustic guitar and burp into the mic, it was hard not to think of Jack Black‘s glory days in Tenacious D, but let that also stand for his vocal range. He and Collins make an exceptional pairing vocally, her piano adding depth all the while and her stage presence an anchor all the more alongside his with just Fisher‘s cello filling out the sound as opposed to the two guitars, bass and drums of Mellow Bravo. It was a loose kind of night, mostly laughs among the friends in the crowd, but on a sheer performance level, they not only showed the chemistry at the root of their louder outfit, but explored a range that a full band simply couldn’t while keeping to an intimate feel suited to the course of the evening. They made it easy to get on board, burps and all.

With few amps and no drums to move once Nature Films had finished, the show moved pretty quickly along. Once Cummings was plugged into the P.A. and had a chair on stage, he was more or less ready to go. People were chatting in the back, and others coming and going, and where Tastefulnudes were quieter than Mellow Bravo, they were still fairly raucous in comparison to Cummings, who was up there alone with his guitar, minimal in his arrangements and playing more generally subdued songs. No cover, to think of it another way, and though he’s new to the style of performing and he said as much from the stage — somewhat strange to think of him as being “sheepish” after seeing Backwoods Payback the several times I have, but he was closer to it than not, and I suppose Backwoods has a certain humility underlying the volume — he did well with the rawer context and made it plain to see that he’s genuine in wanting to try his hand as a troubadour. Hell, the fact that he’s touring by himself speaks volumes in that regard.

I’d checked out Healey‘s 2010 solo outing, Dreams of Odessa, before and 2012’s Live at O’Brien’s Pub, but neither really does justice to the richness of his voice live, though the quality of his songcraft shines through and songs like “Something from Nothing,” “The Sky is Falling” and “No Place to Be,” which closed here as it did at the recoded O’Brien’s gig were only bolstered by the complementary performance of McMahon, who was not only incredibly smooth on bass, adding a bit of funk to the more upbeat “The Sky is Falling,” but harmonized on vocals as well, making the gorgeous melody of “Some of Me” all the more potent. The recent “Tomorrow’s Gone” Healey noted was written in the wake of his father’s passing, and the freshness of the wound was clear in his playing the song, which preceded “Whole Lot of Nothing” and “World War Eight,” both of which shared a kind of reflective downerism, once again made all the more palpable through the chemistry between Healey and McMahon on stage.

Earlier I said that I hadn’t needed earplugs, and that’s true, but the only time I even considered I might was listening to Healey move air with his voice. It’s not that he was too loud through the speakers. I don’t think the situation would’ve been any different had the P.A. been shut off. The guy has lungs for weeks and the more I see him play, the more evident the depth of his talent becomes. There was still about half an hour of show time left when they were done, and though a 29-minute bass solo was teased — and with the tone McMahon was able to get out of his instrument, I probably wouldn’t have complained in sitting through it — but instead the extra time was passed sitting around the table in the basement, shooting the shit on a range of subjects from George Clinton doing drugs on stage to dudes making a living on retainer for Miley Cyrus.

I guess music was the center of it, so fair enough, but it was a cool sit and laugh with Healey, McMahon, Cummings, Pierce, Collins, Black Thai guitarist Scott O’Dowd who’d come out for the show, Fisher and one or two others who checked in en route to or from the bar, and it made a fitting end to a mellow night, preceding a drive home in the increasingly chilly New England autumn air.

You’ll find a couple extra pics after the jump, and a video of Cummings doing “Maybe Time.” Thanks for reading.

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The Patient Mrs. decided at the last minute to tag along to the Friday night show at Radio in Somerville. I knew she wouldn’t last too long, but frankly, it had been a long week and I wasn’t sure how long I’d last either. All I knew was it had been way too long since the last time I saw Cortez. They were playing second on a four-band bill with Brooklyn’s Pants Exploder opening, and Jack Burton vs. David Lo Pan and Automatic Death Pill third and fourth, respectively. I didn’t know too much about the latter, but had heard good thing about Jack Burton vs. David Lo Pan, so thought if I got to see even a little of their time, I could probably mark it  a win. I didn’t, but I’ll mark it a win anyway, since it was a low-key, no-bullshit way to spend a couple hours and, really, there’s only so many evenings you can stay home and watch Donnie Yen movies on Netflix, no matter how furious his fists might be.

We rolled into Radio having found parking on the next block our second time around (not bad) and the show was a couple minutes from starting. It wasn’t crowded, but there were people there who weren’t in the bands, so I’ve definitely seen emptier. Radio‘s red lights and red walls, wood floor, small, low stage give an immediate sense of warmth. It’s out of the way enough to be off Somerville’s main drag, but still right in the thick of things. The more I go there, the more I like it. Pants Exploder went on with little ceremony and reminded right off what it is in their sound that earns them their name. I saw them almost a year ago at The Grand Victory in Brooklyn and they only sounded thicker this time around. A guitar, bass and drums trio, they didn’t need much space, but they worked quickly and efficiently to blast through ultra-heavy tones in the newer school vein — thinking post-Torche bomb-rumble, no less able to move when they want to do so — but with shouty vocals from guitarist Grady Walker that gave an almost post-metal feel. I asked later on if they had any CDs. Indeed, no dice. Maybe next year.

My green khakis remained as intact as they were when I got there, but Pants Exploder impressed all the same. I could tell there’d been some development in their sound over the last year, which is what you want for a new band, and they seemed to be coming into their own in a stage presence light on frills in a punkish kind of way but tight and engaged all the same. Bassist Jason LaFarge and drummer Robin Fowler looked content to be as locked in as they were, and while Walker was hardly fronting the trio in the sense of whooping up the crowd and showing off, I don’t think it would’ve worked with their sound if he had been. They may yet get to a level of heft that poses a threat to trousers — somehow I think that would require more amps — but they showed promise all the same and gave Cortez a plenty-high standard of volume to reach.

Cortez, however, are pros. Between sets, I ran out to the car, where The Patient Mrs. had resigned herself, and we took the little dog Dio — who also came along for the trip — for a walk up and down the block. When I got back in, Cortez were just about to kick off their set with “Johnny” from their 2012 self-titled (next time I see them I need to buy that CD; only reason I didn’t was I thought I already had it), which is up there among the catchiest heavy rock songs I’ve heard in the last five years. Just a perfect hook and every time I’ve been fortunate enough to see him do it, vocalist Matt Harrington absolutely nails it, this one included. A surprise that underscored how many moons had passed since last I caught Cortez came in the form of second guitarist Alasdair Swan. I knew Cortez was a five-piece in the long, long ago, but hadn’t realized they’d brought in someone else to play guitar alongside Scott O’Dowd, bassist Jay Furlo and drummer Jeremy Hemond. Like I say, it’d been too long.

So although they were coming from somewhere entirely more rocking than Pants Exploder, who probably belong to this or that expanded definition of stoner metal, Cortez had no trouble providing a voluminous onslaught of their own, and as they move past the songs on the self-titled, some of which were several years old when they were recorded, they’re only developing more of a sonic personality. Last time I saw O’Dowd play, it was with Black Thai, and it seems like as that band has gotten darker and heavier, Cortez have been freed up to boogie a little bit. New song “Vanishing Point” had more than a touch of classic rock shuffle and I was glad to hear that emerge in their sound among their many comfortable mid-paced grooves. Harrington said from the stage they were getting ready to record this week, and it turns out they’ll be at Mad Oak Studios with Benny Grotto, so I’ll look forward to what comes out of that

By the time they closed out with “Wormwood,” The Patient Mrs. had gone out again, and between that and the dog being in the car — you’re just going to have to trust me when I say the dog would rather be in the car than left at home, and being nighttime and October, I wasn’t at all concerned about sunshine or overheating — I knew my chances of seeing Jack Burton vs. David Lo Pan were just about nil. Needless to say, they join Planetoid, Cult 45, Phantom Glue and The Proselyte on my gotta-see list. I imagine our paths will cross sooner or later, and in the meantime,The Patient Mrs.’ company on the ride back to the south shore was worth whatever the tradeoff was going to be.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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The woman tending the bar at P.A.’s Lounge in Somerville when I — accompanied by The Patient Mrs. in her second rare public appearance in a week (she had also come to Truckfighters in Brooklyn) — was quick to call it “thirsty Thursday” upon our arrival. I’m fairly certain that’s code for “buy a drink,” but I tip my hat to the marketing nonetheless. It was my first time at the bar, essentially a townie kind of place, but with a more than decent beer selection and a dimly lit stage on the open side of the room in what I suspect was at one point an adjacent business before they took the wall down. It was early yet. Shrew, about whom I won’t pretend to know the first thing, were slated to open the show, but had dropped off, leaving Keefshovel, Balam and Olde Growth on the bill, which was obviously plenty enough to get me out to it.

I was particularly interested to see Keefshovel after the Elder show last week, as the two bands share drummer Matt Couto‘s ear-ringing crash, though they set it to different contexts between them. A double-guitar four-piece, Keefshovel dug into straightforward, sludgy grooves. Guitars ran through Sovtek and Sunn to come out in thick, bowel-troubling tones that only gained mass when taken in kind with the bass, and though the riffs they played were steadily familiar, they were delivered with conviction enough to be the band’s own; screams and shouts from either side of the stage arising periodically, though they seemed to have plenty of longer instrumental stretches as well. I don’t know how long Keefshovel have been playing together, but they reportedly have a tape release in the works and they’ve playing out a few more times over the next month or so, so I doubt this first time seeing them will be the last they’re heard from, and that suits me. They seemed to be still feeling out where they wanted to be musically, but were on their way.

Imported from Rhode Island, Balam had no scruples about their doomly aesthetic. With a standalone singer in Alexander Carellas who seemed to be following the what-would-Bobby–Liebling-do model of frontmanship (hopefully in everything other than his choices of narcotics), Balam started off in rocking form and at one point sounded enough like early-Soundgarden-via-Roadsaw as to make me wonder if Boston’s long-established rock scene was beginning to influence a subsequent generation of acts, but the five-piece turned gradually to more trad-doom material, to which Carellas‘ voice was perfectly suited in a classic metal kind of way, nodding at Pagan Altar and Witchfinder General and however many other NWOBHM obscurities while guitarists Zack Wilding and Jonathan Janis led a riffy charge that at times seemed to be culling a Cathedral influence into its churn of varying tempo downerisms. They were an easy band to dig.

One new song that went unnamed seemed particularly promising, but “Soul Scour” from their 2012 demo — which they had for sale on CD and tape at the merch table; I figured better to buy both to be safe and explained same to the sweet, ever-rolling eyes of The Patient Mrs. — provided a grim ending through an effective blend of stoner riffs and doomed plod, the groove anchored by bassist Nick Arruda and drummer Zigmond Coffey, culminating in a change to a faster progression for an amply energetic finish. The room hadn’t been packed by any means, but by the time Balam were about halfway through, there was a good crowd that had rolled in, and Olde Growth took stage after a break to play a set also comprised in good proportion of new material. Well, sort of.

When bassist/vocalist Stephen LoVerme announced onstage a song or two in that he and drummer Ryan Berry‘s next project would be an album of Neil Young covers, he got a chuckle from the audience. Then they played three in a row, including a thickened punk-noise take on “Heart of Gold.” Berry confirmed afterwards as well that yes, that’s really their plan. In the time since their 2010 self-titled got picked up for issue via MeteorCity in 2011 (review here), the two have clearly grown melodically, which the subsequent Owl EP (radio add here) — initially released on tape as the Tour EP 2012 — as well as LoVerme‘s increased comfort in singing clean live demonstrates, but to take on Neil Young for what will reportedly be a mix of deep cuts and hits is a bold move for them. No word on what the timing or plan for the release is, but it’s a fascinating prospect that will no doubt turn the head of anyone who heard the self-titled and thought all there was to them was low-end crush, High on Fire influence and songs about Lord of the Rings. Maybe that’s the idea.

That’s not to say that even the rawest moments of that self-titled don’t have an enduring appeal. They certainly do. But there’s a creative progression underway with Olde Growth that was palpable even in the darkness at P.A.’s Lounge and as interesting as a record of Neil Young covers is in terms of seeing the band as being willing to take risks in the name of doing what they want to do as artists, I’ll be even more interested to hear how doing that affects their next batch of original material, whenever that might surface — what kinds of atmospheres they might discover and how the already-dynamic chemistry between LoVerme and Berry might continue to develop. At this point, they’re already a better band than people know. Closing out with “Tears of Blood,” Olde Growth gave a last-minute reminder of their ability to craft a potent hook as well as bludgeon with noisy bass riffs and drum crash — Berry‘s fills seeming especially cathartic — and while they still clearly feel they have growing to do, I take their lack of compromise as a sign of an overarching awareness of where they want to be and how they want to get there. It had been a rough couple days. They were encouraging to watch.

People seemed to be hanging out afterwards to take fuller advantage of the opportunity to quench their Thursday thirst. All the better for them. I had to work in the morning, so The Patient Mrs. and I headed out after a few quick goodnights to make the drive back to the South Shore for some high grade crashing out. No regrets on any front.

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True, I probably should’ve been looking over housing rentals and formulating a plan for what apartments to see the next day — since that’s why I was in Boston a week and a half ahead of moving to Massachusetts anyway — but on the other, far less responsible hand, The Brought Low. The NYC trio were coming up to play Radio in Somerville with local-types Planetoid, The Scimitar and Hey Zeus also on the bill, and well, if I’m going to be living somewhere, there’s no time like the present to start getting my ass out to shows. What at its most convenient is a four-hour drive had taken more than six, my car’s air conditioner cutting out on the way. I’d been up since five in the morning. It was time to rock and roll.

I’ve been to Radio a few times now — I think every time I’ve been there a band on Small Stone has played, usually Gozu — and it’s a cool room. I had to remind myself that Boston’s a rocker town with a rocker crowd, so the place would probably be packed, and by the time Hey Zeus were finished, indeed it was. Last time I saw the native outfit was their first show, in January. It was one of the coldest nights of the winter. Go figure that I should run into them again as the heat index pushed its way past 110. A band for all seasons, they apparently are.

Opening up, I thought it was a pretty ballsy move for them to throw in a “Space Truckin'” cover halfway through, but they absolutely nailed it, vocalist Bice Nathan channeling his inner Ian Gillan to hit the screaming pre-chorus “Yeah!” high notes on the ultra-catchy Deep Purple classic. Ballsy as it was, they’d double-down by closing out a set otherwise comprised of driving original material with a take on “Speed King” from In Rock. It was almost like the set had a side A and side B and each closed out with a Deep Purple song. Not a bad way to go out, come to think of it.

Between Nathan‘s expert fronting the band, guitarist Pete Knipfing‘s red-hot Southern-style classic rock leads and the groove held down by the rhythm section of bassist Ken Cmar and drummer Todd Bowman, Hey Zeus were as tight as you could possibly ask them to be, varying their pacing somewhere between mid-moving stonerly lumber and the grown-up punk that has fueled so much of Boston’s heavy rock over the years. I dug it last time, I dug it this time, but more importantly, I’ll look forward to digging it next time. Feeling more metallic from their very start, The Scimitar followed in plundering fashion.

Guitarist/vocalist Darryl Shepard (see also Blackwolfgoat, Hackman, Roadsaw, and the League of Excellent Human Beings) announced from the stage that it was just The Scimitar‘s second Boston show. The trio, made up of Shepard, his Black Pyramid bandmate Dave Gein and drummer Brian Banfield, more or less functioned as an extension of that band’s marauding musical ideology, walking a line between thrashing metal and doom that Shepard‘s riffs navigated with ease. Some parts reminded me of Black Pyramid‘s 2013 outing, Adversarial (review here), but in cuts like “World Unreal” and “Forever and Ever and Ever” — based on The Shining and being played for the first time — there began to shine an individual personality for The Scimitar that will inevitably win out.

Gein and Shepard, recently back from a European tour in support of Adversarial with Black Pyramid, were dead on from the start, which gave Banfield a task in locking in with the two of them, but the drummer handled it well, the trio sounding solid if formative in their chemistry and like they were only going to get filthier sounding as time went on. I wondered if crusty battle doom was a thing, or if it could be, and as if either to answer or to shake me out of my bout of overthinking, they ran through “Void Traveler” on their way to closing out with the Motörhead cover “Metropolis,” giving a suitably grooving treatment to the mid-paced swagger of the original, which appeared on the 1979 landmark, Overkill. Needless to say, beer was spilled.

Dressed up in elaborate and professional-looking alien costumes — one guy actually looked so much like Nightcrawler from the X-Men that I thought that’s what he was going for at first — as they walked around Radio loading in and hanging out, Planetoid were playing last, which meant The Brought Low went on third after The Scimitar. There was a moment right before they took the stage that I could feel myself hit the wall. I stifled yawns and kept myself standing upright, but wow, I was ready to be done. The Brought Low, who were viewing this show as something of a makeup from having to cancel on the Small Stone Boston showcase last fall owing to the post-Hurricane Sandy gas shortage, hadn’t even started yet. I’d only seen two bands!

Proud to report that I didn’t split before The Brought Low‘s set was finished. The trio — Ben Smith (guitar/vocals), Bob Russell (bass/vocals) and Nick Heller (drums) — were on my hypothetical list of stuff to see before no longer living in the New York area, so even though it wound up being in Boston rather than their hometown I caught them in, I wasn’t about to complain. Their on the cusp of 15 years together and lived up to the high standard the sets I’ve seen them play have set, Smith and Heller both having grown out their hair some since I last encountered the band in Fall 2011. In that time, they haven’t put out anything new — their last offering was a three-song EP on Coextinction Recordings (stream and track-by-track here) — but even “What I Found” from their 2001 self-titled debut sounded fresh among newer songs like “Army of Soldiers” and “Black River” from the aforementioned three-tracker.

“Black River” in particular made for an exciting shift just past the halfway mark in the set as Russell took the fore vocally with Smith backing, where the band’s usual process works the other way around, their chemistry and unique blend of country twang and rocking city grit underscored by the swing in Heller‘s drums, perhaps most prevalent of all in the slower “My Favorite Waste of Time” from 2010’s Third Record (review here), which was also a highlight. I don’t know how many times I’ve called The Brought Low the best rock band in New York, but I’m still right. Whether it was “Old Century” or “The Kelly Rose,” the only thing they left me wanting was more The Brought Low. Beat to hell though I was, I’d have stayed if they went on twice as long.

As it was, they didn’t go much further than 40 minutes. An encore after “Blues for Cubby” rounded out and I said a few quick goodnights and made my way back to the hotel, feeling guilty for not catching Planetoid but assuming this wouldn’t be my last opportunity to do so. The next day I got up and went and found a place to live.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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