At Spaceland, June 7
Somehow the stars were aligned on Thursday at Spaceland. Ordinarily, enduring three-plus hours by three bands of the hardcore/metal-thrash variety would have been another one of those numbing nightmares that’d have one stumbling into the night in desperate search of fresh air, silently vowing to give up all music forever and ensconce in a monastery, to reassess life and study accounting.
But, as I say, Mercury was in retrograde, or perhaps it was the particular confluence of weather, the economy, nutrition, society’s creeping-retreating malaise seeping into the audience and bands’ attitudes, well, events this night had the peculiar effect of making me want MORE. First of all, on a technical note, during Mouth of the Architect’s hugely enjoyable set of epically doomy Sabbath/Isis hybrids, I noticed again the enormous gains achieved in recent times re the compressing and filtering of heavy music – there was a time when the young Ohio band’s massive bass rumblings, twin guitar caterwauling, bellowing voice and scarring synth screech would’ve worn out the ear within 10 minutes. But close attention has been paid to the band’s sound in that regard (and big praise to the house sound man this night for getting great levels and mixes for all the bands).
The seriously underrated – or perhaps just taken for granted by now – 400 Blows followed with a spectacular, no exaggeration, performance of their odd-timed angular-acrobatic riffereeni; the band makes do with one guy in shades yelling, joking and shakin’ fist; another guy supplies all monster high and low end on a mere one guitar, accompanied by an incredibly exciting drummer who flails with awesome power and precision and a crucially nuanced, intuitive feel for the band’s skittery, sculptured jumble over a metal/punk landscape. 400 Blows have been called “Beefheartian,” blah blah blah, whatever, they tower above all other L.A. bands in audacious invention and explosive onstage thrills.
New York’s veteran thrashcore trio Unsane topped this bill with a set that started loud, real, real loud, and sort of hideous, way intentionally so. They’re not a bunch of pansies, they don’t give a damn about nice melodies or pleasing harmonies or any of that girly kinda stuff. No, this was one long, ugly smear of tuff, angry noise, propelled by another punk drummer who secretly admires Gene Krupa, and a backward-baseball-hatted geek on crappy old Fender guitars with no pansy-ass effects besides ultra-distortion. Between songs, they were a friendly, good-humored buncha yobbos, in perhaps not so strange juxtaposition with their harshly politicized music and lyrics – which, come to think, nary a word of which could be deciphered amid the impending apocalypse of their instrumental din. That, of course, was entirely beside the point – you should’ve seen the tattooed muscle boys twitch and jerk in animal response.
– John Payne
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