A Night of Old-School Pizza and Black Metal
Behold…the Arctopus, by コーヒーぶっかけ男
[Pete heroically steps in for Anna this week. Expect more from him in the future. –J]
I decided to check out the Behold…the Arctopus show at Silent Barn Friday night with a few friends. As it was a pretty long bill, we had planned on showing up around the conclusion of the opening band’s set, hopefully just in time to catch Animal. Thinking we could achieve this goal if we arrived at around 9:30, we headed up to Ridgewood and grabbed a slice at Henry’s Pizza on Myrtle (ever notice how the most nondescript pizza joints have the most amazing slices? I don’t have the data to prove it, but I believe it is a direct correlation.)
We arrived more or less at the hour we had planned, but the first band, Maw, was still setting up. Turns out it was a good thing our fashionably-late entrance didn’t work out, however. If it had, we would have missed out on an impressive set of some tight instrumental thrash metal. It’s always great to discover a new band, and after the set I grabbed the band’s 6-song CD-R for only a couple dollars.
Animal, up next, played an intensely complex brand of high-speed free-rock in the vein of Tera Melos, Don Caballero, or Hella. Remarkably (especially once you hear their sound) they are a two-man outfit, consisting of only a guitarist and drummer. They spent a lot of time in what appeared to be free-form improvisation, which I largely enjoyed; though the constant noodling bordered on tiresome at times. Dead Child was a change of pace from the first two bands, playing a relatively straightforward style of riff-based heavy metal. A bit of a throwback. (Think Master of Reality-era Sabbath.)
Krallice was by far the act that impressed me the most. Made up of members of Behold… the Arctopus and Orthrelm, they hit the crowd with a constant stream of fast black metal /screamo, full of tense melodies and sparse on vocals. I’m dying to get ahold of these guys’ debut when it comes out in July. By the time Behold… hit the stage I was a bit worn out, so my mental notes are a bit lacking, but I will say these guys are clearly masters of their instruments. They play some insanely technical stuff with what appears to be such incredible ease. All in all, a great show.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Dead Child got added to the bill earlier that day, they were supposed to play Lit but decided they would enjoy themselves more at SB (plus they got to sleep there before the show started). DC includes David Pajo, who is also a member of Slint (also Papa M, Zwan, Tortoise, etc).
i wish i’d seen Maw now. we saw from Animal on, they were definitely a lil tedious, but it’s still amazing. did you stay for BTA?
April 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
yeah, maw was great, i’ve been listening to their demo too, and i’m definately into it. real thrashy and not overly techy. i stayed for about half of bta’s set. at that point i was just so wiped out from the day, and the large amount of instrumental rock/metal that was already on the bill kind of watered things down and lessened their impact. bta are some unbelievable players though.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
joe and john’s on myrtle @ george st is the best pizza in the neighborhood.