Watch My Bones Bake In The Sun

My previous knowledge of Sonorous Gale goes like this: I bought the Crappy Dracula/Sonorous Gale split 7" a few months ago, but haven't listened to it. Sonorous Gale have also played around here a couple of times over the past year or so-- I mean, they're only from friggin' Buffalo-- but somehow I never went. So, when I trudged on down to the Fucking Discovery Zone in New Haven to see Sonorous Gale last Saturday, it was mostly because the folks who run FDZ are generally way more on top of things than I am (meaning which bands are really good and so forth), and because the songs I had listened to on the Sonorous Gale MySpace only a couple of hours earlier sounded pretty friggin' diesel.

Here's what I found out: Sonorous Gale are like a massive fucking beast, as if they're three times their size when they're playing right in front of you plus when they play it's like grenades are going off under the floor. The drummer slams his kit so hard that two of his cymbals were already cracked when he started, and he blew a fist-sized chunk out of a third cymbal halfway through the set. The bass player, besides being loud as hell, also brought some brilliant anti-patter ("Please, could everybody just move back?", "You'd think we could make one song that doesn't have ten drum solos in it", and "Hi, we're Teeth Mountain" were some of my favorites).

Sonorous Gale have a great-looking new white vinyl LP out on Wrong Foot Recordings (myspace.com/wrongfootrecordings), with maybe only 500 pressed, so I'd recommend that you start hunting down a copy now.




Fellow Project and atrilliongallonsofgas were also on the bill; I can usually be found standing off to the side with my arms folded whenever a twangy folk-punk type band is playing, and since Fellow Project sorta veer into that territory they didn't really sink in with me on the first listen, but later over the weekend I gave their latest CD on Dead Broke Rekerds (a fine label) a shot and it's actually got some fine stuff on it... almost Uncle Tupelo-ish in some parts. I missed out on getting to stand up front for when atrilliongallonsofgas played because I wandered off to get something to eat at Pizza Haven (fairly unspectacular) right before their set-- thus I wasn't at an angle to take better photos-- but their new line-up changes seem to be working out well and they sounded really awesome. Hardly anyone gave a listen to the song I posted from their demo the last time, so I'm posting it again, and maybe some of you will give them another shot. I've seen atrilliongallonsofgas twice now, and both times they were devestating, so if you're into sludgy/grime/doom/thrash stuff at all, now's the time to check them out.


Sonorous Gale -

"To Completion"

"Maytham Manor"

Fellow Project -

"Blow The Fucking Roof Off"

"Hernia Hang On"

atrilliongallonsofgas -

"White Backgrounds"

(these files are now listen-only)

I Want To Throw Punches

As if the Cult Ritual show earlier this month wasn't enough for one week, the July 4th show at the Whitney House just a few days later added the exclamation point with a total punk rock blow-out-- six hours, seven bands, and hardly a dud in the bunch, though I'm not going to speak on Yes Please since I walked in after their set had already ended (or else I've conveniently blocked them from my memory, one or the other).

So by my perspective, New London's atrilliongallonsofgas started things off, and they were seriously heavy-- like "first two Black Sabbath albums" heavy-- and thrashy, too. Fatal Film had mentioned their name to me before I ever saw them, which had me thinking that atrilliongallonsofgas were probably some sort of indie rock band, though they are definitely not. Their songs are shorter than you'd expect for this type of thing and alternate between doom/sludgy parts and fast parts, like Sea of Bones and Iron Hand getting into a fight or something (which in real life would probably be awesome). Their demo cassette has practically the worst sounding dub of any demo I've ever paid for-- the same songs sound much better on their MySpace page-- so maybe it's a good thing that I'm not able to make a rip of it right now (edit: rip is up now, muddafuggas!). Head on over to their MySpace page (atrilliongallons) if you want to check these guys out, and you should definitely try to catch them at a show because their live set is completely punishing.




Sister Kisser were back after their ass-kicking set at Whitney back in May, and even though this time I knew what to expect, I thought they were even better. Their demos (just re-released on cassette by Dead Broke Rekerds) are one thing, but their live set is completely another; the songs are played faster, the two guitars sound even thicker, and everything rocks that much harder. Now, I know that Sister Kisser are totally punk rock (Hot Water Music seems to be the comparison that everyone else reaches for) and I should stop trying to describe them by indie rock/hard rock standards, but when I watch them play it reminds me of two Replacements recordings-- the flat-out version of "Can't Hardly Wait" on "The Shit Hits The Fans" and their hopped-up cover of "Another Girl, Another Planet" on "All For Nothing"-- so if you can picture that in your head and maybe throw some really fast Cheap Trick in there too, that's a start.




This is the one picture I got of Coke Bust; I was able to break through the bodies and get up front just long enough to snap this photo, before the mosh pit closed in on me again and some kid spilled half his beer all over me when he got knocked into from behind. I probably could've gone all Young Republicans/Violent Children on him and slapped the bottle out of his hand, Porcelly-style, but jeez, it'd been practically knocked out of his grip already anyway, plus the sight of two or three open beer cans in a Coke Bust pit is fairly amusing (at least to me it is). Instead, I stepped aside into one of the side hallways of the Whitney House basement for the rest of Coke Bust and Sick Fix, where I could hear everything fine but just couldn't see anything, and gave my camera and shirt a chance to dry out. Oh yeah, I also took a break and went upstairs to the kitchen to clean up, where someone from Al Gore and The Alcoholics (love those guys) started telling me about how much improved they were since the first time I saw them, before he fell over.




Foreign Objects = the harder stuff on "Pink Flag" punked out a bit with female vocals, and it works most of the time. Actually, it's pretty great. I've been listening to the Foreign Objects demo in my car a lot lately, and I gone from thinking that the singer is the worst part of this band to thinking that the singer is the best part, so I guess I need to pay attention a bit more. They've got a 7" out now, too (on the same label that put out the Closet Fairies and Witches With Dicks!), which I bought from them at the show but haven't listened to yet; the two songs I'm posting here from the demo tape aren't my rips, either, but were swiped from the primo I Could Die Tomorrow blog. I couldn't improve upon the files that ICDT posted with my own rips, so I'm leaving them as they are.




I overheard Donn matter-of-factly saying to Lauren before Clusterfuck's set, "We're going to rip this place apart", and that they did. It was Clusterfuck's fourth show in three days-- they'd even played in NYC at ABC No Rio earlier in the day-- and, no shit, this was the best set I've ever seen at Whitney House. I know I might've said that about Sister Kisser back in May, and I'm sure I thought it about Cult Ritual earlier in the week, but Clusterfuck topped them all. The way the place went nuts while Clusterfuck were playing was unreal. Donn had already been planning on conserving his voice by handing off the mic a lot, which he did, especially after they ran out of songs that they knew how to play (I guess it's been a while) and ended up finishing with a cover of 7 Seconds' "Bully" as an encore-- though not before Jeff tried to go all Keith Moon by kicking over his drumset.


Clusterfuck -

"Flagfucker"

"Idle and Immoral"

"God Told Me To Buy Stocks"

"Bully"
(7 Seconds cover)

Foreign Objects -

"Lost Time"

"Fable"

Coke Bust -

"Forced To Live"

Sister Kisser -

"The Money Shot"

atrilliongallonsofgas -

"White Backgrounds"

(all of these files are now listen-only)