Thankfully for the majority of shows I have been to this year, the brutal winter weather has been no match for the brutal live music scene. Although O’Brien’s barely holds 100 people, the joint was sold out on this frigid, windy night. The placed was packed and people were keeping warm with a pint or three for this Friday night. Lots of local luminaries were out in force, naturally. One of the cooler people in the scene is Michelle Dugan, who makes gorgeous silk screen print posters and other kinds of design work for local and national bands. Hit her up if you need some fresh designs. Nice to even see some of the hipster metal elite of Boston, supporting a local artist, as I saw several people leave with their own posters. O’Brien’s is one of those places that is really small, but feels homey and cool to take in a show. Low lights, cold brews, decent sound, and good metal playing in between bands is always a recipe for a fun time.
Sadly I missed seeing The Modern Voice while BS-ing with the door guy about getting in, which bummed me out a bit. Luckily for me Lunglust was coming on next. One of the best up-and-coming bands of the Boston scene, Lungust is the kind of band you never want to miss, with their brutal, crusty hardcore influenced metal. They have yet to let me down. Front man Jeffrey Sykes spits venom on the mic with his manic performance and spent most of the set in the crowd in front of the stage. With a lineup is now bolstered by the rhythm section from The Proselyte, they are super tight now and better than before. They have a new record coming out this year, so we will be keeping an ear out for that too. Definitely a group you want to listen to when your usual KEN Mode or Trap Them fix runs out.
Vaporizer, hailing from Vermont, is a band I had heard a lot about, but never had seen live until tonight. They seemed to had the stage presence of ten guys with their ton of gear, packing onto the stage that is small for a four piece band, let alone five. They played an amalgam of doomy sludge with cool, weird occasional flourishes of proggyness, thanks to the vocalist Dan getting down on bended knee to make love/hate to his synthesizer. The crowd was definitely into these guys and they performed well,. Some of their tunes meander on a bit for my taste with some extras codas as the culprit. However, they definitely have the goods talent-wise. From what I could tell, the majority of their songs are about weed and mysticism, weed mysticism, and did I mention songs about weed? They had a lot of confidence as a unit too. So many bands look like they don’t care, so it’s cool (and sad) that bands that give a shit about performing live these days make themselves stand out a lot.
Lord Dying set up their own gear with a quick-fast, like the tireless professional road dogs that they are. Out on the road supporting their release Summon The Faithless (Relapse) which has seen them open up regularly for their hometown Portland bromein in Red Fang on several tours, as well as many other bands in just a few years time. Tearing into a short set of songs from that release, the crowd was hella into it and many were singing along which was cool to hear. The band rocks out with none of the pretense of some of their stoner rock loving brethren, which makes them heavier and cooler than most. I also noticed their live versions of their songs are a lot tougher sounding, making me think their next album is going to be a real killer if they can capture this live feeling with these new songs. They played their jams like ‘Dream of Mercy’, ‘What is Not….Is” and ‘Greed Is Your Horse” to the loud approval of the crowd. In addition to their massively heavy title track, they also played a new song, that I missed the name of, but it was balls out hard. When they announced their closer ‘In a Frightful State of Gnawed Dismemberment’, there was an audible groan from the fans, as well as the usual “one more song” chant. Nonetheless, these workman like dudes, came, conquered and left as quick as they came in. Well done!
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Words: Keith (Keefy) Chachkes
Photos: Echoes In The Well