Nine Inch Nails & Soundgarden Concert Report

Nine Inch Nails with Soundgarden at Molson Amphitheatre July 27

This was a reunion of a pairing that occurred 20 years ago at the much-loved Molson Park. At that concert, in 1994, my mum's boyfriend at the time got a concussion from the intense moshing. In the intervening decades, the crowd has mellowed somewhat but the bands are still as powerful as ever. Electronic improviser Oneohtrix Point Never opened with some heavy drones and beats backed by some very impressive abstract visuals. He replaced the habitually unreliable and now dissolved hip-hop/noise duo Death Grips. OPNs music was fairly compelling but was largely ignored by the hard rock-craving masses.

Soundgarden came out strong, sounding entirely undiminished by time, though they are definitely more of a nostalgia act than Nine Inch Nails since their sound is largely unchanged in the last 20 years. Their set was fairly heavy on songs from 1994s Superunknown, an album that is generally considered their best. "Black Hole Sun", their signature hit, was a little disappointing as it was played a bit slow with the vocals in a lower register. Chris Cornell's distinctive high-pitched wail was in full force elsewhere though, especially on the closing song, 1988s "Beyond the Wheel", a song that I was formerly unfamiliar with but that blew me away. They wisely only played one song from their 2012 solid but unremarkable reunion album King Animal, "A Thousand Days Before". The band sounded typically fantastic, with guitarist Kim Thayil playing busy and intricate guitar lines and replacement drummer Matt Chamberlain fitting in seamlessly.

This is my fourth time seeing Nine Inch Nails and considering they're basically my favourite band, it's hard to be too objective but they definitely put on one of the most all-around impressive shows of any band today. As they have a consistently evolving style and often rearrange older tracks, they avoid seeming like a 90s time capsule. Frontman Trent Reznor began the show solo, with just a sequencer on stage for an excellent rendition of "Copy of A" from last year's amazing Hesitation Marks album. The current version of the band gradually joined in for a set that covered all of their albums, save for 1999s The Fragile.

Their set was heavy on the hits but made room for some fully out-there album tracks like "The Great Destroyer", which climaxed with three minutes of abstract electronics. Their use of visuals was stunning, with abstract computerized patterns that reacted to the music. Trent Reznor is still an amazing frontman, though some of their earlier super-angsty lyrics do sound a little silly sung by a  49 year-old man with arms the size of fire hydrants. Their pacing was perfect, finding a balance between rock and electronic, blunt and abstract. Standard closer "Hurt" provided a pleasingly emotional come down after an intense three hours.

Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks Concert Report

Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks with Dustin Wong at Lee's Palace April 19

An evening with Animal Collective's pseudo-frontman was opened by guitar expressionist Dustin Wong. Dustin played forty minutes of solo, looped electric guitar accompanied by occasional wordless singing. Under a bed of intricate, classical-influenced loops, he unleashed furious riffs and cosmic leads. The crowd stood in rapt attention, letting out screams for particularly impressive guitar lines and the occasional times that Wong stood up to sing.

The audience was pretty pumped to see Avey Tare since the last two Animal Collective shows had been respectively cancelled and performed without his vocals. While this show was dedicated exclusively to the Enter the Slasher House album, there were definitely serious Animal Collective fans in the crowd. The loose b-grade horror-movie concept of the album was visualized with plastic skulls and the occasional rubber mask, both seemingly from the Dollarama Halloween section. Once the lights went out and the projections hit the skulls, the setup created a pleasantly disorienting effect. The band was barely visible for the entirety of the show.

The band's style of performance was far more aggressive but also somewhat more straightforward than Animal Collective. While they stuck mainly to songs on the album, Tare's group extended most of the songs well beyond their recorded limits with the inclusion of spacey keyboard interludes and furious drumming. Tracks like "Duplex Trip" and "That It Won't Grow" drastically surpassed the album versions. While all three of the band members were great, the drummer stood out, playing rhythms both driving and unnatural. Tare's singing, while heavily processed, was as intense as a punk singer, delivering mostly incomprehensible lyrics. By the end of the show, the front of the crowd had become a big, ecstatic mosh pit hanging on every beat and pulsation.

Warpaint Concert Report

Warpaint with Cate Le Bon at Danforth Music Hall March 25

I always enjoy going to the Danforth Music Hall. It's one of the nicest venues in the city with a slightly-inclined floor that affords excellent site lines. Opener Cate Le Bon performed an odd variety of song-oriented psychedelia with a pleasantly Welsh vibe. While the music was fairly simple, the band occasionally veered off into oddball free-jazz jam territory while Cate herself would vocalize what could only be described as aggressive bird calls. Not brilliant but she definitely has potential.

Warpaint's distinctive gothic-psychedelic atmosphere was evident as soon as their lighting came on. They played for the better part of an hour and a half, focusing mainly on the moody electronic grooves of their newly-released, self-titled album. A few tracks from their first album, The Fool, showed off their more rock-oriented sound. They seemed very skillful and comfortable as a band, frequently jamming and locking into extremely tight grooves.

They were very charismatic, with the two singers splitting vocal duties fairly equally as well as regularly interacting with the crowd.. The crowd seemed to love them, especially a group of very drunk people behind us. The highlights were a couple of better known songs: "Love is To Die", a groovy and catchy number from the new record, as well as "Undertow", a melodic rocker from their first record. For the encore, they played the excellent "Elephant" which became a full-on rock epic. Overall, their mix of good songs, beguiling atmosphere, solid musicianship and sonic variety makes them a compelling group.

Between the Buried and Me with Deafheaven Concert Report

Between the Buried and Me with Deafheaven at the Phoenix February 28

Deafheaven

This was only my third proper metal show after seeing Dillinger Escape Plan and later Opeth with Mastodon. I was initially more excited to see Deafheaven since they've gotten tonnes of great reviews and even made the cover of Now magazine in Toronto. Deafheaven play a blend of black metal and shoegaze that is like catnip for music critics. Having extremely long songs, they played only four songs with three brief interludes. I was a bit disappointed because the only song from the awesome Sunbather album that they didn't play was "Vertigo", which is my favorite. They sounded very impressive live though. While their wall of noise was quite similar to the album, the addition of a full band created a bigger, more powerful effect. The song "Sunbather" was particularly stunning. They maintained a solid balance between black metal screaming and melodic, almost sunny guitar lines. The singer had a looming, energetic and vaguely frightening presence that made up for the lack of variety in his vocal delivery. The mixing was successful in that the singing felt like another guitar part, as it should with a band like this. For both bands, the crowd's enthusiasm was hugely invigorating.

Between the Buried and Me

Between the Buried and Me, despite their questionable, Counting Crows-derived name, were definitely the more impressive of the two bands offering a fusion of technical death metal and prog-pop. I recently discovered the distinction between black and death metal. Black metal has higher pitched screaming vocals with fairly steady, consistent rhythms while death metal involves lower-pitched, growling vocals combined with frequent time changes. It was interesting seeing examples of both, with Deafheaven representing the former and Between the Buried and Me the latter. BtBaM (or maybe just BBM?) fairly boldly decided to make their main set consist only of their newest album, The Parallax II: Future Sequence. Luckily, it's a quite good album that represents a wide variety of sounds. As well, this gave the set an amazing flow as the songs segue nicely into one another. The band's technical skill was clearly through the roof, being able to switch from one genre to another at the drop of a hat. The best example of this was "Bloom", which in three minutes captured everything the band is good at. They encored with "Sun of Nothing" from Circles, a triumphant finale and likely their best song.

Bowie in Total 4: The Music is Outside

On to part four (!) of David Bowie's substantial discography where he reunites with some old comrades and tries some new tricks. The 1990s were definitely one of the more interesting periods in Bowie's career as makes more of an effort to follow musical trends while being as iconoclastic as he's ever been. Overall, a good decade where his worst album of the era, 1999's Hours..., is still better than most music put out at the time.

Black Tie, White Noise (1993)

This album serves as a wedding album of sorts for Bowie, who had recently wedded supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, as the first and last songs are "The Wedding" and "The Wedding Song" respectively. Bowie reunited with producer/guitarist Nile Rogers and, as such, I like to imagine this album as the sequel to Let's Dance, with the intervening ten horrible years erased. In fact, I find this record to be much more enjoyable than Let's Dance, and to be a much more successful fusion of Bowie's disparate styles. He dives headfirst into early 90s dance music with greater success than one would expect while contributing an impressive amount of his distinctive saxophone playing. He continues his trend, dating back to Let's Dance, of including cover songs on the album, though of a far superior variety than those on albums previous. A cover of Cream's "I Feel Free" has Bowie reuniting with Ziggy-era guitarist Mick Ronson for a track that fuses dance-funk with a bit of classic rock jamming. His cover of Scott Walker's "Nite Flights" captures the eerie, driving feel of the original while including some Happy Mondays-style production. My favorite tracks are "Jump They Say", a superficially upbeat pop song with unsettling lyrics detailing the disorientation of living with schizophrenia, and "Pallas Athena", a mostly instrumental dance track that foreshadows the material that Bowie would put out later in the decade.

The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)

A soundtrack of sorts to a BBC miniseries of the same name, this album is often ignored but is a surprisingly good low-stakes effort by Bowie. He played most of the instruments himself, making this album the closest to a true solo effort for Bowie. Despite this, the songwriting is very good and the sound of the album, while somewhat dated, is consistently interesting. Many of the tracks are either instrumentals or have minimal, repetitive vocals. The only track I would omit would be the reprise of the title track at the end, featuring a superfluous guitar solo from Lenny Kravitz. My favorite songs are "Sex and the Church", a mostly instrumental mix of dark dance beats and free jazz, as well as "Dead Against It", a poppy track with a backing reminiscent of Neu! and late period Cocteau Twins.

1. Outside (1995)

Easily one of my favorite Bowie albums, this is his longest and strangest. It is a somewhat confusing though detailed concept album about a child murder in a near future of interest drugs and self-mutilation art. This album absolutely must be listened to with the accompanying booklet, which has amazing artwork and detailed narration on the plot and characters. Bowie reunited with Brian Eno, Tin Machine guitarist Reeves Gabrels and his 70s keyboardist Mike Garson to make for one of his best bands. The songs were largely formed from extended jams inspired by the various themes and characters of the album. The album fuses elements of jazz, avant-garde and industrial to create a wholly unique sound, exemplified by lead single, "The Heart's Filthy Lesson". There are a number of spoken-word interludes where Bowie portrays the various characters with surprising skill for a terrifying effect. I don't think it would be fair to pick my favorite songs since the album works so much better as a whole. If you're looking for a challenging and engaging listen, check this album out!

Earthling (1997)

Stylistically, somewhat of a continuation from Outside, this album is simpler and more immediate. As one of the major elements of the album is Bowie's interpretation of Drum and Bass, I thought this album would sound very dated but, surprisingly, it feels as fresh and contemporary as when it came out. Using many of the same musicians as Outside, this album is probably Bowie's loudest and heaviest. Somewhat less successful are the lyrics, which were largely composed using a William Burroughs-influenced cut-up technique. Even the songs where the lyrics and melody fall somewhat flat, such as "The Last Thing You Should Do" and "Looking for Satellites", are still enjoyable due to the strong musicianship and general enthusiasm of the process. To me, the best tracks are "Dead Man Walking", which has both the Drum and Bass influence and a strong lyric and melody, as well as "I'm Afraid of Americans", one of Bowie's better, more provocative singles from this era.

Hours (1999)

After a string of excellent albums, this one proved to be a bit of a let down with impressively ugly cover art. Originating as a soundtrack to the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, these songs lack the coherence or power of his previous few albums. Hours has a quieter, more contemplative mood that contrasts with the heavy, intense material of previous years. I see this album as a somewhat cynical attempt to cash in on the adult contemporary sound that was popular at the time with TV stations like Much More Music and VH1. Lead single "Thursday's Child" perfectly exemplifies this with a middle-of-the-road beat, wispy strings and soft, generic backing vocals. Despite this, the melodies of most of the songs are still strong, certainly way ahead of his 80s material. Also, Reeves Gabrels contributes some solid guitar playing for what would prove to be his last collaboration with Bowie. My picks for this album are "Something in the Air", a fairly adventurous track that involves a sickly funk groove and unhinged, digitally distorted vocals, as well as "If I'm Dreaming My Life", a classic rock epic with great guitar playing and a solid energy. After this comes the far more interesting Heathen and the beginning of the most recent phase of Bowie's career.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Concert Report

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks with Disappears at Lee's Palace Feb 23

Disappears

The opening band, Disappears, were quite different from Malkmus' indie/classic rock. They played a kraut-inflected variety of shoegaze that was both familiar and strange at the same time. The vocal parts were not especially interesting, largely consisting of repetitive chants. On the other hand, the band was consistently challenging with shifting and driving grooves. The lead guitarist had some amazing guitar sounds that at times were reminiscent of Neu!/Harmonia's Michael Rother and at other times sounded like a transmission from an alien society.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

Malkmus and company casually sauntered on stage quite excited about the fact that they were starting five minutes early. They played a somewhat-rambling hour-and-a-half set that was brought down somewhat by a less than exuberant crowd who talked amongst themselves for much of the show.  Despite this, the band seemed to be having fun and were very chatty. Their loose but skillful style of playing was evident throughout but it was a good but not great show.

The set largely consisted of songs from their solid new album Wig Out at Jagbags from which they played ten songs. The songs benefited from the looser, heavier sound of their live incarnation, particularly the singles "Lariat" and "Cinnamon and Lesbians". Unfortunately, the sound mix was a bit muddy and the bass was overemphasized. The songs didn't exactly start or stop, they gradually came together then collapsed. Malkmus has grown into an amazing guitarist and he threw in improvised riffs throughout the set. Their drummer often added backing vocals that reminded me a bit of Bruce Springsteen.

Another highlight with great guitar playing was "Senator", from the Beck-produced Mirror Traffic. They played seven songs from that album and they fit well with the new material. For the encore, the played "Stereo", one of Malkmus' previous band Pavement's better known songs, which got the crowd a bit more excited. They ended the show with a very loose medley/jam while Malkmus left the stage, allowing the band to finish the show on their own. While I saw how they could be a great band, I was left with the feeling that I wasn't seeing them at their best.

 

Wavelength Night 2 Concert Report

Wavelength Festival Night 2 at Adelaide Hall Feb 14

I'm taking a break from my Bowie project to report on some awesome bands. Marnie Stern was originally headlining this night but, due to flight issues, couldn't make it. Since I'd been listening to Marnie Stern all this week, I was pretty disappointed but I decided to check the show out since Wavelength always has something interesting and last year's festival was excellent. It ended up being quite worthwhile.

Matrox

Hail Matrox, our new robot overlords! The first band of the night and probably my favorite, these guys owned the robot rock. I was immediately impressed by the level of commitment in the costumes and presentation of Matrox. The music had elements of Kraftwerk, hardcore techno and some of the funkier Daft Punk songs, but still felt completely unique. My favorite track used TTC announcements like "506 Royal York, call control", to create a synthetic transit soul anthem. Could this replace Kardinal Offishall's "The Anthem" as the official Toronto theme song? Being the first band, they had the smallest crowd but definitely got the biggest response. "DISPERSE!!!.....DISPERSE!!!"

Most People

 

As someone with an occasional musical project titled And More, I appreciate a good ambiguous name. This duo was a last-minute replacement for Marnie Stern but still put on a polished performance. Their sound felt like a more sprawling, experimental take on Unforgettable Fire era U2. They combined strong melodies, plaintive vocals, soaring guitar riffs and occasional pounding drum breaks to a powerful effect.

Weaves

A strange combination of avant-garde and blues, Weaves have a very unusual sound largely held together by an outgoing and charismatic vocalist. The instrumentation was consistently unpredictable, veering from Zepplin-esque blues to atonal, aggressive riffage more reminiscent of no-wave acts like DNA or early Sonic Youth. Their songs often had a wandering structure characteristic of the blues. The only downside is that I think they could really benefit from a physical drummer as the programmed beats seemed stiff compared to the variable bass and guitar. I particularly enjoyed the bass player's intermittent thrashing on his instrument, a level of aggression one rarely sees with bass players.

Odonis Odonis

These guys were one of the bands that I was most excited to see as their sound particularly appeals to my tastes. Having listened to their music online as well as seeing them in person, I find that they are a band in transition. Their earlier material has a heavy Swervedriver influence on their sound and they perform this type of music quite proficiently. Their newer material has a much heavier industrial punk edge to it, and I feel that this sound suits them better and exposes more of their personality as a band. "Are We Friends" effectively demonstrates their newer sound and is one of their most memorable tracks.

DIANA

DIANA are easily the most well-known of all the bands playing this night. Oddly, in researching them, I found that they have a decent profile in Britain. They specialize in hazy, new-wave influenced synth rock. It's a sound that is fairly common in indie circles but they pull it off fairly well with strong melodies and good musicianship. They varied it up a bit with some heavy percussion breakdowns that got the crowd grooving. My favorite DIANA song is probably "Born Again".