Boris, Thrones, Growing and Crooked Hook at the Wallingford ALH

6/2/06 - Crooked Hook, Growing, Thrones, Boris


So, it seems that minimalist, "ambient" drone-metal has hit the big time. Sunn O))) got a write-up in David Byrne's blog and Boris played the illustrious Wallingford American Legion Hall. Illustrious means crap-shack, right? That place was like somebody's un-air-conditioned basement filled with 200 sweating teenage boys with long hair.
Locals Crooked Hook played first. I figured out their secret. They play one slow boring riff repeatedly until you can't stand it anymore, then they play a somewhat faster riff and everybody starts bopping their heads. It's not that the faster riff is necessarily good, it's just a relief. It happens in every song; it's actually pretty funny if you're waiting for it. Stoner rock, indeed.
Growing was next. It was two guys playing guitar through various effects units. But, really though, it was two guys fiddling with their knobs for half an hour. They didn't even seem to be playing together. It was as if neither was aware of what the other was doing. The guy on the left got some nice sounds, but I couldn't even figure out how what the guy on the right was playing translated into what I heard. I guess it was all about the loopers.
Thrones was my favorite thing that night. It was one guy but he introduced himself in the plural. He has old-school sludge-rock cred on account of he was in Earth and the Melvins. He played bass through a variety of effects pedals so it didn't really sound like a bass in the end. He also had a drum machine and vocal effects. He represents the best this genre has to offer. It's aggressive and exploratory without being self-indulgent or boring and it's all hung on a famework of actual songs.
Boris seemed to be two completely different bands welded together. They had their fast punky stuff and they had their slow droning stuff. Somehow, they try to stick them together. The kids really dug the fast stuff, but I though it got repetitive after a while. The droning stuff was interesting, but after the fast stuff it sucked the energy out of the room. The drummer was a hell of a showman, though. He was jumping around and banging on that gong with as much energy at the end of the show as he did at the beginning. Oh, and they're Japanese, which is very important.

http://www.myspace.com/crookedhook
http://www.growingsound.com/
http://www.southernlord.com/thrones/
http://www.myspace.com/borisheavyrocks http://www.inoxia-rec.com/boris/

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/05/53106_heavy_the.html

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