Ears still pleasantly buzzing, I'm just in from a powerful triple-header at the Mercury Lounge downtown. The headliner, Red Sparowes, is one of those bands that gets lumped under the heading of "post-metal," which I just learned tonight via an entry at Wikipedia. Before now, we've been using the equally unspecific but somewhat more descriptive term "instru-metal" around the TONY offices...since, um, Wednesday, I think?
The difference between the two terms, it seems, is that post-metal is broad enough to take in both bands that use vocals (Neurosis, a wellspring of this particular scene, as well as Isis and Cult of Luna) and those that don't (Pelican being the most highly touted). Given that particular taxonomy, Red Sparowes is something of a "supergroup," since it was founded by guitarist Josh Graham, who creates the visual effects for Neurosis's live shows, plus Isis guitarists Cliff Meyer and Jeff Caxide. The last mentioned has since left the band, replaced by Andy Arahood; bassist/pedal-steel guitarist Greg Burns and drummer Dave Clifford complete the group's current lineup.
The term "post-metal" also takes into account a blurring of the lines between the heavier wing of post-rock -- Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai and Mono, as opposed to Tortoise or Sigur Rós -- and certain new instrumental metal bands. I mulled this over in a review of a split-LP by Pelican and Mono for Decibel, in which I also likened Mono's contribution to the music of Gavin Bryars. (What would you expect from someone who evoked Bruckner in a Neurosis review?) And, reminded by Wikipedia of the definition of "post-rock" offered by Simon Reynolds, who coined the term -- "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and power chords," I'm also rather startled to note a glancing affinity with certain of the composers that Kyle Gann includes under his "totalist" umbrella, particularly Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham and Lois V. Vierk.
Enough with the deep thinking, or I'll be up all night. Anyway, with Cliff Meyer currently on the road in Isis opening stadium shows for Tool, Red Sparowes conscripted Pelican guitarist Trevor de Brauw for its current tour. At the Mercury Lounge, the band played a dense, hypnotic set largely drawn from its soon to be released second album, Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun (due on September 19 from Neurot, the label run by Neurosis). Prodded by Clifford's solid beats, the group constructed massively heavy yet shimmering walls of guitar tones and overtones. I'd never before quite noticed how loquacious a bassist Burns can be, and his pedal-steel guitar added a sensuous whine to several numbers.
Filling the communicative void that might have been consumed by a gregarious frontman, the band projected video on a backdrop throughout the set, offering images of emotionally blank faces; a caricature of the Statue of Liberty as a wizened, drooping hag; headlight-illuminated automobiles rushing through city streets in time-lapse photography like corpuscles speeding through arteries; and, in a feedback-drenched finale, delapidated buildings imploding into rubble.
In the middle slot tonight was Daughters, a Rhode Island quintet as spastic and noisy as that state's name has recently come to imply (Lightning Bolt, the Load label). On disc, the band's tumultuous blurts and fractured lyrics convey an odd poetry, despite subject matter solidly locked into modes of nihilism, self-loathing and lust. The group's music sounds a lot like that of the Locust or the late Lickgoldensky, and the instrumentalists made their dizzyingly complex parts sound natural. But vocalist Alexis Marshall -- part swaggering Jim "Dandy" Mangrum, part scabarous Gibby Haynes -- verged on incoherence, and seemed most interested in plopping into the front rows of the audience.
Versoma, the opening act, has played only a handful of gigs, yet it, too, has been tagged a supergroup since it includes former Anodyne singer-guitarist Mike Hill, former Lickgoldensky (that name again!) guitarist Jamie Getz, former Orchid bassist Brad Wallace and current Hot Cross drummer Greg Drudy. Despite the presence of two indie-label owners in the group (Hill with Black Box Recordings, Drudy with Level-Plane), the band's initial five-song EP was issued on the Richmond, VA-based Robotic Empire. Having not heard it before the show, I wasn't sure how Hill and Getz would mesh: Anodyne was all about post-Hüsker Dü melodic hardcore, while Lickgoldensky was, as I once described it in TONY, a writhing sack full of angry, snapping ferrets.
Versoma's sound, huge and somewhat indistinct, is not so far removed from Anodyne's end point, but with Getz's frenetic spurts of guitar noise and frantic vocals adding an extra layer. Given how busy Drudy is elsewhere, I don't expect to see the group frequently -- although I could be wrong -- but based on the EP and tonight's live set, I'm convinced that this is already a very important underground band, with the potential for greatness.
This triple bill plays again on Sunday night at Northsix in Brooklyn. And Versoma will also be at Sin-é on September 9, sharing a bill with the enigmatic Kayo Dot, about which I posted here, and Made Out of Babies, whose debut album, Trophy, was number four on my Top Ten list last year. (Continuing to connect the dots in a scene as tightly knit as it is diverse, Kayo Dot's latest also came out on Robotic Empire, while Made Out of Babies's first and forthcoming second releases are both on Neurot.) Hmmm...I'd been nostalgically planning to catch a very different supergroup that night, but my datebook may have changed just now.
Playlist:
César Franck - Symphony in D minor; Ernest Chausson - Symphony in B-flat - Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège / Louis Langrée (Accord)
Anodyne - Lifetime of Gray Skies (Level-Plane)
Lickgoldensky - Lickgoldensky (Level-Plane)
Daughters - Hell Songs (Hydra Head)
Versoma - Life During Wartime (Robotic Empire)
Red Sparowes - Oh Lord, God of Vengeance, Show Yourself! (self-released)
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