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I Died Trying

REVIEW: Red Moth Records Swarm of Talent Infest Oregon District

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I Died Trying (photo by Mike Ritchie)

I Died Trying (photo by Mike Ritchie)

On Friday, September 20 Red Moth Records took over Blind Bob’s for an evening of nightmarish stylistic mental flossed loud metal, some heavily metaled influenced hard rock and some unique 70’s rock throwback instrumentals. Red Moth mates I Died Trying, Mangrenade, Bearer of Bad News and head honcho Close the Hatch played an entertaining bill of uniquely diversified sound along with Kentucky’s Bad People.

Dayton’s answer to the sound of a mental ward’s subconscious I Died Trying opened the rainy night with two songs, rapturous in sound and nearly impossible for the brain to decipher on first listen. Eerie guitar suspense sends us traveling down an old west road as the sun sets as the strings fight each other to the death and the weather beaten outlaw stands in the dirt ready to kill. Hell’s intercom opens for a three way conference call electric screamfest. Tony Goff’s guitar proves instruments can have souls, playing music to satisfy every personality a person could have. Napalm Death meets Nile with NIN and Godflesh in a barroom brawl adding moments of unnerving tranquility to pleasant insanity. The music’s a challenge for the mind’s ear to interpret but less difficult than trying to make sense of the mind in Goff’s bald, bandana wrapped head. These are The Things We Think and Do Not Say.

Swallowing Swords has a jazzy beginning with Goff playing violin, opening with those creepy insomniac eyelid chords as the mind walks a tight rope between skyscrapers with no balance beam, finishing with some bizarre hooks of 80’s guitar solos. IDT is like punching someone in the face full force with your brain, putting it back in and closing with a bad sewing job.

Bad People (photo by Mike Ritchie)

Bad People (photo by Mike Ritchie)

From Lexington comes the multigenerational influenced loose morals of Bad People, who almost didn’t make it due to mother’s nature’s pissy mood, but nothing stops a dedicated band from a gig. The instrumental foursome took turns giving audience face time playing high energy, solid blues, modern progressive rock with a jam band feel and solid song structure. HQ 1 has a happy jump up and down good hearted feel. Tool meets Sabbath then Soundgarden in the classic 70’s rock arena, keeping the pedals busy with a hard snarled note swagger. They play the majority of their upcoming CD (to be released in October), finishing with HQ 2 blending elements of 60’s psychedelica with Rush and a more technical take on Opeth with some space age rocket ship trip blasting effects from the machines.

Cincinnati drunk rock Mangrenade is as metal as it sounds…for a band that doesn’t play it. They’re a selective punk pastry with influences from Lenny Kravitz to Sabbath with some Rage Against the Machine/Alice in Chains experimentation. Playing three cuts off their newest EP Lions in the Parking Lot and two from January’s More Than A Handful EP. Godless Heathen has the guitar driven Kravitz rock groove. Where Swagger Turns to Stagger is an inebriated dirty street chugger played to collapse with an early Sabbath guitar sound all over the pile of discarded bottles. There’s some peppered C.O.C. in Deep Cut’s Soundgarden of 70’s sound. I’m the One carries some Cobain like shrieking with its rockabilly punk Henry Rollins angry rebellion attitude, taking a breather half through to calm down. Lions in the Parking Lot roar with a Misfits charm, bass groove and whisky wailed vocals. Bassist Ben Morgan is a short haired Steve Vai with glasses. They also might be the first band to inspire an interpretive dance pit on hardwood as select patrons performed gymnastics, ballet moves, summer salts and breakdancing during the set.

Bearer of Bad News (photo by Mike Ritchie)

Bearer of Bad News (photo by Mike Ritchie)

From the spawn left from the urban decay and industrial rot inhabiting downtown Dayton cometh Bearer of Bad News. Covered in diesel, dust and blood red tattoo ink they create raw, abrasive, angry and loud sounds because this is the life they live and the music that’s inspired them. Their sound mutated from the likes of Motorhead and Biohazard with some Chrome Division exhaust inhaled a bit later. On video Brian Brenner’s rasping deep tirades take the form of a muffled straightforward Glen Danzig, live Evan Seinfeld, Cronos, Udo Dirkschneider and Dez Fafara take ripping hold of his vocal chords.

The basement door closes as the muffed sounds of what’s never talked about is heard from the basement as Black Top Blues starts shoveling basement backroom dirt in your ear and some hard gravel embedded guitar chords down your throat. Don’t look in the corner.

Like the Priest’s slowly deliberate bass pace gives the pit brethren a pit break. The Blame Game blends the Cavalera Conspiracy with some railroad power chords and chain-gang riffs.  Bearer of Bad News carries a hard glove studded wallop and strong underground sound (some of their videos are shot in claustrophobic unfriendly basements). 2012’s Triple Homicide and Involuntary Manslaughter EP’s are available on iTunes or at shows.

 

Close the Hatch (photo by Mike Ritchie)

Close the Hatch (photo by Mike Ritchie)

Red Moth Records artists and founders Close The Hatch came on to deliver the evening’s final abrasive set of cathartic musical misanthropy. Guitars, keyboards, drums and a keytar (yep) bring this moody, broken glass menagerie of concocted sound and abysmal bliss to fruition. Their sound carries that feeling of dark trapped ecstasy right before your face gets ripped off by Cenobite hooks.

A sadists pleasure of growled vocals and face stretching sound of metaphorical noise. Songs about dark dreamscapes in the mind and the last remaining fragments right before waking. Kali starts, going back and forth with its brain erasing sound erosion quickly changing to kinder more gentle chords before repeating a few times. Beyond the Wolves starts with a creepy dripping cave dance along dark buried walls. Right before the stalking intruder meets the fire red narrowed eyes of his demise. Stephen Barton growls out the beast’s fury as he plays chase on guitar.  People have been known to slam-dance into walls at their shows, and themselves. There’s also some surprise classical music played against hell’s roaring guitar choir. The closing 11 minute Wolves plays some clanking off notes reminding you of the sound the wind makes when hitting old strung bottles and cans outside that forgotten cabin no one should go to. We get into sludgier sound as the warned visitor opens the rotted cellar door descending into the bad, dark memories that wait around the corner.  Close the Hatch resembles a chainsaw turning on in the brain.

Scale The Summit At The Spitfire Lounge

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It’s been said that music is the universal language, transcending the spoken word and communication not just on an audible level but conveying emotion, unspoken thoughts, messages and conjuring images and pictures without a single utterance. Saturday night September 15th  at The Spitfire in Vandalia Winding Hollow Productions presented four bands that played the stage to an appreciative crowd with nary a word spoken and all performances were instrumental to the nights supreme musicianship.

Dayton’s very unique bass and drums two man band Shadows In The Hour Glass started the evening proving a great band doesn’t need shredding guitars or vocals to create a powerful sound. Illusions of Serenity opened with its creepy, eerie ambiance making you feel like your walking down a long dark tunnel and you suddenly feel like something’s behind you. Four string finger player Zack Ryan and skins striker Travis Abling display intricate knowledge and proficiency creating dark, deep malevolent musical stories with Ryan’s bass as the main character and Ablings beats as the surrounding plot. The frantic playing gives chase to images of feeling lost or being chased in trippy movie sequences. He creates suspense, melancholy, apprehension, fear and caution playing the strings at walking, running, sprinting speed with Chuck Schuldiner technical prowess. He can also make it gurgle as the atmospheric fog rolls in. When someone hears the term ‘band’ its widely assumed there are at least three instruments involved but Shadows prove that so much can be done with only a duo of sound. The hourglass of time runs waiting for no one while the shadows of people slowly start to fade as time runs away. Shadows was originally a side project by Covered in Scars bassist Ryan and C.I.S. drummer Abling but has become its own identity with elements of technical death metal, jazz and classical with a darker more sinister edge.

Dayton’s next experimentation into noise and sound I Died Trying was ironically the only group that did ‘have something to say’. Between the screaming hidden yells from the darkness of drummer Bret Newland and the frantic yelling/auctioneer-esque lyrics spitting of guitarist Tony Goff  I’m not sure what all was said but the music and pure performance of the show did all the talking. I.D.T. is a uniquely distinguished select taste of heavy music, constant tempo changes, audio samples and any and all types of guitar shredding, chopping, hammering, tweaking techniques. Kind of like watching a multiple car wreck in slow motion. Think Dillinger Escape Plan meets Cattle Decapitation with some Slipknot turn table effects. Imagine hearing all emotions and thoughts from the mind of a schizophrenic at P.A.volume. They attack your brain like a drug. Even though Goff took to the floor to sing a few number it’s not all in your face pandemonium.There’s tastes of Opeth and Godflesh to keep the variety factor interesting. The music is tough, angry, artistic and violent which is good considering Goff has a passing resemblance to MMA fighter Keith Jardine. I Died Trying is a musical hangover that keeps the ears ringing but keeps you out of the bathroom.

It’s a pretty universally regarded given that everyone likes great sax. Well Greensboro North Carolina’s Trioscapes are no different. In fact Walter Fancourt excels at it. Playing in the three man bass, drums, saxophone ‘trio’ they bring an incredibly different, catchy ‘rock’ feel to instruments usually regarded as in the background or more ‘laid back’. They Blast Off and for those who think of the slow, moody, sexy sound ,made popular in numerous mob movies Fancourt’s sound includes that, for a collective minute or two anyway. For the rest of the performance he treats the sleek brass piece like a lead guitar shredding the keys/pedals taking the instrument to its very physical limits. When Adophe Sax invented it in 1846 he wanted to create the most powerful single reed playing instrument there was. Fancourt has taken that vision to the literal pipe blowing edge with his own furious heavy style. With neck muscles bulging he summoned the air from the Woodwind Gods above and played a speed metal version of The Pink Panther theme…. for 30 minutes. Fancourts lip piercing pursuits speeds up, slows down, breathes out some sexy seduction, solos, bends notes, and makes it shriek, scream, wail, caress and cuss. This is classy ballroom/ smokey cocktail lounge music brought into the rock arena. He takes you on a mile a minute saxy conversation then puts you on a rainy street round midnight filled with smog and broken dreams. I’m pretty sure sax’s don’t have toggle switches but he’s found a way to create one. Bassist Dan Briggs thumped his way through the set creating deep Opeth on the Moore imagery. Drummer Matt Lynch kept the pace with perfect time and precession. Not every drummer has the challenge to ‘keep up’ with the sax player. Of the four songs played they closed with ‘their’ version of an Mahavishnu Orchestra song called Celestial Terrestria Commuters.

For those that remember the PBS show The Joy of Painting With Bob Ross know that with each painting it was just him, the paint and the story of what he creates. Houston’s Scale The Summit draw similar comparison. Their unique brand of instrumental rock leaves no room or need for words and they let the music tell the story and take us along for the ride. They deliver strong driving songs weaving long intricate stories. Chris Letchford and Travis Levrier play cascading chords creating lush, vast musical landscapes with scenic soloing. Bassist Mark Michell gives the moody depth and weight holding down the structure while Pat Skeffington pounds out the backbone keeping the story going. Many influences can be heard when it’s just the music. The prog sound of Opeth, unique catch of Tool, wizardry of Steve Vai with the technical style of Death all mixed in weaving and intertwined into their own musical novel style. They create atmosphere, space and time with narrative and hundreds of notes but each is part of the whole plot.

Tonight proved without a doubt that music is indeed the universal language no matter how light, heavy, complex or simple. When you have people in Iced Earth/Tool shirts rocking out to a guy playing saxophone you know you have an audience that’s open minded and appreciates great musicianship and delivery.