Chaos in Tejas Live (Saturday): Metalcore Mohawk
By Michael Toland, June 2, 2013, 1:07pm, Earache!
After a stupefyingly dull set by True Widow, grindcore four Rotten Sound couldn’t help but look good Saturday at Mohawk. Capping its 20th anniversary tour, the Finns alternated rumbling mosh with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed metal. Delivering precision strikes rather than scatterbombs, they cleared the stage of any lingering ennui.
High expectations attended this well-attended but not-sold-out show, as Baroness finally takes its 2012 masterpiece Yellow & Green on the tour it might’ve enjoyed without that harrowing bus accident. Barring the truncation of its set-list due to festival limitations, the Georgia-born quartet delivered on its promise, keeping the energy flowing for more than an hour through its prog-kissed hard rock anthems.
Favoring Y&G, the revamped quartet pumped power into “Take My Bones Away,” “Swollen and Halo” (from Blue Record, its origin signposted by blue lighting cues), and “March to the Sea,” but hit its peak with the sweeping “Cocainium” and the epic “Eula,” the latter’s brooding lyrics cathartic in light of recent events. Baizley said little, letting the music do the talking and guitarist Pete Adams hog the spotlight.
Yet Baroness’ fearless leader did thank the fans for standing by the band during its darkest hour, his sincerity giving the final songs extra grace and clarity. Flowing through rifftastic rockers “The Sweetest Curse,” “Isak” (from Red Album), and “The Gnashing,” Baroness proclaimed its gratitude by reveling in a second chance.
The opposite of Baroness’ progressive elegance, Kill the Client’s grindcore delivered nothing less – or more – than a hurricane of rage inside the club afterward. The Dallas band’s blizzard of one-minute-or-less songs seemed more intent on eardrum destruction than anything else. George Carlin samples and the singer’s pronouncement “This is a Hall & Oates cover” were the only moments of humor in the otherwise vein-popping intensity. Like a lot of grindcore combos, Kill the Client was impressive in its conviction but numbing in execution.
With Sister Faith, Coliseum crossed over from doom-influenced hardcore to post-punk-soaked Nineties alt.rock, but the Louisville, KY., power trio sandblasted its newly nimble grooves with burly grit during the night’s closing set. The band kicked open with the tuneful rancor of “Under the Blood of the Moon,” pushing simmer to boil with the desperately hopeful “Last/Lost.” The band kept faith with Sister, ripping through “Late Night Trains,” “Doing Time,” and blazing single “Black Magic Punks” with a perfect balance of melody and mayhem and dallying with spiritual psychedelia on “Love Under Will.”
Back catalog dips “Interceptor,” “Blind in One Eye,” and “Set It Straight” put the newer songs in context by making the evolution sound organic. The perpetually grim trio let its hair down by inviting Yakuza sax maniac Bruce Lamont to join the band’s bruising pisstake of Eddie Money’s “Shakin’,” recorded for the AV Club and pledged to be performed only this once.
Coliseum brought the early morning to a crashing close with “Defeater,” a nod to its hardcore roots that left the middleweight crowd feeling the exact opposite of defeated.
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