After receiving several injuries over the previous weekend, the herald was dispatched to the Cobalt this Tuesday evening, where, with only a few days’ rest and his aging body barely starting to heal, he shall be put to the test.
Despite this, the herald anticipates a delicious evening in which he can briefly satiate His unquenchable appetite again.
APE WAR
On a night when I have high anticipation for some good-face screaming, there is no better start than this quintet. They go fucking hard every time and leave it all up there in a furious whirlwind of intensity; there is nothing to compare to an APE WAR offering.
The lead singer has a deep guttural growl and a wicked scream and is an absolute beast of a human who spends most of their time stalking the pit area, looking for somewhere to expel all their energy.
Their screaming intensity matched the thunderous music behind them, led by massive and constant drums creating beautiful foundations throughout with so much smashy smashy to flail around to.
The guitars were all delicious distortion. Deep, heavy chugging, or fast and loud, you could still discern the various instruments weaving together into a thick, pummeling sound to punish our earholes.
The crowd was small to start this Tuesday evening, giving me a rare chance to flail to one of my favorites with only a handful on the floor with me. By the end, the crowd had thickened, but they were saving themselves for later in the night.
DIRGE
Following was the first offering in a while from this quartet -occasional quintet- that blasted their way through a short but intense set of grindy metal where probably twenty-five songs made up this, maybe, twenty-minute set.
It was one after the other of hard blasting noise straight into the earholes, with those drums so constant that it became almost a hum, albeit a very loud and deep one. When that double bass went to work, flailing insanity ensued.
The lead singer had a killer, piercing, and prominent scream. A lot of passion poured off them as they gave it all to keep above the cacophony of sound surrounding them. A fifth person would hop on stage for a few songs and lay into the other mic with an even deeper scream, complimenting each other wonderfully.
There was very little crowd interaction, instead choosing to go from song to song with barely a breather in between. Despite this constant stream of high-energy intensity, with the crowd even thicker by now, engagement was still kept to the core handful who were flailing to the first offering plus a couple more.
JISEI
Presenting their fourth offering, this singer-guitar duo, accompanied by pre-recorded drums, unleashed a blistering set in the grindcore vein. At their previous offering, the recorded drums gave them technical issues, but this round, they were seamless, giving them great momentum.
As always, the lead singer, armed with one of the city’s best voices, maintained shrieks and deep growls with impressive skill. Their ability to move their voice around easily is nothing short of brilliant. Engaging and always energetic, they prowl that stage like a caged animal and bring such a wicked intensity.
The guitarist, who allows the lead singer to do all the moving, has a beautifully killer tone—all deep and distorted—and plays off the drums perfectly, creating a fast, hard base for the lead singer to just lose it over. They work well together, creating a massive sound with only the two.
They made a great crack at the previous bands, saying it was cute they had real drummers. Their dad’s band used one of those. Got a great response from the crowd.
There were definitely more people engaged on this one, though not by much. There are still a great number of people observing, which is perplexing to me, three offerings deep. I know it’s a Tuesday night, but these are not soft rock bands leveling that room.
He was pleased with tonight’s offerings.