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Trap Them, Full of Hell, I am Become Death, and Ascend Descend at The Middle East

It had been a little over a year since I last caught Trap Them at Deathwish Fest. While their frequency of shows has declined, their ferocity certainly hasn’t. They ripped through a set of material from across their catalog that surely left many kids in the crowd with plenty of bruises the next day. Surprisingly Ryan wasn’t bleeding by the end, though it wasn’t as if he didn’t try. The Full of Hell crew made their return to The Middle East known with their trademark screeching wall of noise and grinding hardcore. I am Become Death ripped a quick set with original singer, Kyle, back in action from California and Ascend Descend opened the show with their first live performance. Members of Lung Lust, I am Become Death, American Nightmare/Chrome Over Brass, blasted out smartly written hardcore featuring Boston area Artist and Illustrator, Michelle Dugan on vocals. Definitely keep an eye on them!

Links

Trap Them

Full of Hell

I am Become Death

Neurosis, Sumac, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, and The Body at The Paradise

Few things in heavy music compare to seeing Neurosis play live. Gone are the days of live the band paired with haunting visuals projected behind them, encompassing all your senses, crushing you with light and sound like a mountain being placed onto your body. Neurosis now exist as a scalpel. Honed, cold, and specific, making all the right cuts, leaving no fat or excess bloat behind on the table. For a band that could pad a set to upwards of three hours, they picked only the sharpest blades from their arsenal, and ended the show on a note where the crowd wanted more but may have physically been unable to withstand any additional punishment.

Sumac, warmed up after their set in Providence the week before and a short solo run, were functioning like a machine. Weaving their tight and busy parts together effortlessly between letting the spacier parts wash over the awed crowd. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, true to their pedigree, are a doom via grunge behemoth that garnered plenty of head banging with their plodding riffs. They served a as great foil to The Body’s skittery and shrieking opening set.

Links

Neurosis

Sumac

Brothers of the Sonic Cloth

Creepoid and Marriages at Great Scott

The blasts of light provided by Creepoids bombastic heavy grunge meets drifting shoegaze gave way to the Marriages waves of dark melody as the two bands crushed Allston last week. Creepoid bring together antagonizing volume and best-of quality grungy hooks under pinned by calm, almost sweet, sections of washy shoegaze. Their new record, Cemetery Highrise Slum, is definitely one to check out. Marriages, one of the gems of the increasingly great Sargent House Records roster, lulled the crowd down from the calamity of Creepoid’s finale. Singer Emma Ruth Rundle’s whispers melted into her intricate guitar work, suspended over looping synth parts that interlocked with the pulsing rhythm section. All in all a fantastic show!

Links

Creepoid

False and Thou at ABC No Rio Saturday Matinee

So, the morning before the Sumac show, I made the trip down to New York to catch False and Thou at ABC No Rio. The mind melting heat of the room created a thick and crushing vibe fitting for False, who just put out a new LP on gileadmedia. Thou played a quick set of 4 songs, Blew (Nirvana), Ode to Physical Pain, Smoke Pigs, and Into the Void (Sabbath) before hitting the road to make it to DC for an evening show.

Links

False

Sumac, Wormwood, Fucking Invincible, and Demon Brother at Machines with Magnets

Sumac kicked off a short warm up tour in Providence on the way to join up with the Neurosis tour that will be back through on Saturday. New-ish Doomriders side project, Wormwood, along with Fucking Invincible and Demon Brother opened things up.

Demon Brother is a fairly new project from the Western Mass punks Meghan, Will, and Matt, of Ampere, Vaccine, and thousands of other bands, and Andrew, who has done Confines, Failures, and Blank Stare. They’re a plodding, screeching, wall of sound, and I highly recommend checking them out.

Links

Demon Brother

Fucking Invincible

Wormwood

mewithoutYou, Foxing, Field Mouse at The Sinclair

While I was lucky enough to catch mewithoutYou’s in-store appearance in San Francisco some weeks ago, the homies at runforcoverrecords hooked up a spot at the tour’s finale at The Sinclair in Cambridge. Both Field Mouse and Foxing were news to me, but were both quite good. Field Mouse in particular had a few transcendent moments of “The Cure via Denali” that blew me away, especially on the song “Two Ships”. Foxing sit further outside my listening sphere, offering a very, some times overly, earnest emo by way of the pretty, twinkly, touchstones from the late 00s. They struck me as very much a band to see live. mewithoutYou pounded through a later material set with out much downtime, going between the quieter songs of the previous few albums and the paced smoulder of the newer Pale Horses tracks with a few bangers from the past thrown in. A highlight was the pre-encore closer of “In a sweater poorly knit” featuring members from all the bands and crew. Fellow photographer and tru road dawg Carly Hoskins kicked it on flute for this song!

Links

Field Mouse

Foxing

Fucking Invincible, Death Injection, V-Sect, Savage Blind God, Deathface at Psychic Reading Room AS220

The Providence dogs came out for a quick freakfest at Psychic Readings. Aside from some standard Providence time issues, the active length of music of this gig was just north of 45 minutes. What more could you want for a Sunday night show? Fucking Invincible played some new, mosh heavy, songs from a forth coming release, Death Injection brought the generalized misanthropy down from Boston, V-sect jumped on last minute for some longhair divebombing, and a couple of newer PVD local yokels, Savage Blind God and Deathface, opened things up.

Links

Fucking Invincible

Death Injection

Spun out in the Philadelphia suburbs with Nothing

Full of Hell x The Body

924 Gilman