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Intronaut And Made Out Of Babies Show Reviews
Posted by Trevor Danger on August 8, 2008
I’m extremely hungover (practically still drunk) at work, but here’s some reasons why there have been no posts this week:
- DivShare, my picture storage site of choice, updated or did some shit and half of the old pic links don’t work. So, I’ve been going through EVERY FUCKING POST to make sure the links are up to date.
- Still waiting on SDCC Recap #2.
- Trent read a book, but hasn’t posted a review.
- I’m drunk.
That being said, I saw two awesome shows over the past week or so: Intronaut/Behold The Arctopus/Mouth Of The Architect and Pigs/Made Out Of Babies.
Let it be said that Intronaut have a fan for life in me, given that they drove from FUCKING LOS ANGELES to START their nationwide tour in Columbus. That’s right. Over 2,000 miles and a shit-ton of gas money to rock their Ohio fans. Too bad most of the audience weren’t as appreciative as I.
Local act Lo-Pan started the show at 10pm, and their brand of melodic hard rock was a good intro for the night. If you’re a fan of most of the shit the Blitz used to play, you’d really dig these guys. The lead singer is one of the biggest motherfuckers I’ve ever seen; like, “John Popper from Blues Traveler circa 1996″ big. His voice is fucking beautiful, though, in a soulful/Chris Cornell kind of way. The tunes were groovy and laid-back, but unfortunately nothing earth-shatteringly original.
Behold The Arctopus, on the other hand, are nothing if NOT original. Guitarist, drummer, and bassist (on a twelve-string bass, no less) playing spazz-metal in time signatures I’ve never heard of. There’s not getting into a rhythm with these guys: just as you think you’ve figured it out, they go and change it. No vocals, which probably would’ve taken away from the incredible musicianship, but one can only watch this kind of shit for so long before getting bored. Again, the technical expertise these dudes showed is admirably awesome; it’s just the music that was grating. Well, maybe to me: there were these two longhairs who seemed to know EVERY start-and-stop moment, raising their hands like they were at a revival or something. Really really REALLY funny to watch.
Intronaut, as usual, we fucking brilliant. They played a LOT of material from their upcoming album Prehistoricisms, but unfortunately didn’t have any advance copies for sale at the merch booth. Without knowing the songs, it was a bit difficult to get into, but the album sounds like a big step up for this young band: continuing the sludgy post-metal of their past while letting their prog tendencies take more of a spotlight. The closer had guitarist Dave Timnick doing double-duty: beating the shit out of a set of marching band drums alongside drummer Danny Walker, THEN running back over to his guitar to rock out at key moments. A sweet fucking finale, indeed. My only gripe: the ONLY audience response being a couple of hecklers yelling out for “Slayer!” and “Pantera!”.
Really, guys? I can understand aging drunken metalheads screaming that shit at Ozzfest, but at a hipster bar like Ravari Room? Come on…
Mouth of the Architect took forever to get set up, playing their first note around 1am. By that time, my buddy Screff was passing out and I was fucking beat. We made it through the opening song and headed out. From what I heard, they sound as good as they do on CD: sprawling post-metal in the vein of Neurosis and Cult Of Luna. I picked up all three of their CDs (even though I have burned copies already), so no one can bitch at me for piracy. I’ll support the shit out of your band if you’re good and come close enough to Columbus for me to give you money. Further proof: As we were leaving, I gave Intronaut the rest of my cash ($12) for gas money in sincere thanks for their cross-country haul.
Thursday night’s Made Out Of Babies/Pigs show was another long night for me. I had a work Happy Hour gathering that stretched from 5pm until 10pm, which then dovetailed into drinking at my lil’ bro’s apartment prior to the show. For some goddamn reason, my brother thought it would be bright to shoot ass-brand vodka prior to leaving. I, for some goddamn reason, agreed. We rolled into the Ravari Room at around 11pm and grabbed a seat at the bar.
It was definitely a Thursday night show, as the bar was practically empty. After chugging a couple of PBR’s for courage, I bought MOOB’s latest CD and managed to grab a pic with lead singer Julie Christmas:
Holy shit, is she tiny. I’d read that in a lot of interviews/articles, but it doesn’t truly hit you until you see her live. How that much intensity exists in a frame that small is beyond me.
I’m not sure who the opening band was, but they played the kind of noise-rock that Unsane has been doing (better) for years. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Pigs took the stage (coincidentally featuring Dave Curran from Unsane) and rocked an interesting crossover strain of noise- and post-metal: crunchy at times, meandering at others. Again, the Unsane vibe was prevalent but acceptable given Curran’s background.
Made Out Of Babies took the stage with “Cooker” from The Ruiner, Julie’s voice all distorted and creepy thanks to a warped vocoder. Even without a big crowd to draw from, Christmas prowled the stage like a pro, stepping up on the amps to deliver her signature mix of Bjork-ish yelps and gut-punching growls. THe band sounded incredible, and they thankfully kept their set full of more recent material (I have yet to get their older albums, and they didn’t have any for sale at the merch booth). Even though I had to take a half-day on Friday, it was totally worth the EIGHT FUCKING DOLLARS to experience this band live. They even played “Invisible Ink”, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite all-time songs.
Here’s two pics of MOOB’s live show. Not bad for zooming in from the back of the room, but shitty nevertheless:
Side note: a random metal blog I read, MetalMartyr, linked to an old post with the AC Slater/Slayer pic. Awesome to know people are randomly discovering the site.
