Tragedy, Parasytic, Windhand, and Balaclava
Wednesday, June 1 at Strange Matter
For me, Tragedy’s appearance in Richmond on Wednesday, June 1st, marked the official beginning of Richmond Summer. The un-air conditioned atmosphere of Strange Matter brought many back to the days of the Nanci Raygun and Twisters. Despite the oppressive heat, and the fact that Tragedy were en route from Maryland Deathfest to Chaos in Tejas on an exhaustive tour, the energy of the show was surprisingly upbeat, and ended with an awesome performance from one of hardcore’s most well-respected bands.
Tragedy, Parasytic, Windhand, and Balaclava
Wednesday, June 1 at Strange Matter
For me, Tragedy’s appearance in Richmond on Wednesday, June 1st, marked the official beginning of Richmond Summer. The un-air conditioned atmosphere of Strange Matter brought many back to the days of the Nanci Raygun and Twisters. Despite the oppressive heat, and the fact that Tragedy were en route from Maryland Deathfest to Chaos in Tejas on an exhaustive tour, the energy of the show was surprisingly upbeat, and ended with an awesome performance from one of hardcore’s most well-respected bands.
Balaclava, the only band of the night I wasn’t familiar with, played first. They describe themselves on Myspace simply as punk/metal, but they really play a sludgy, stoner brand of crust punk slightly reminiscent of Dystopia. Initially I really dug their sound; recently released songs like “This City” are extremely heart-felt and heavy, and their sound is appealing. After a while, though, the songs started to blend together. I think Balaclava have a lot of promise, but need something to set them apart from other bands trying to play melodic, sludgy punk. The guitar work is good and the band is solid, but they would do well to cut their songs a little shorter and focus on making each one unique.
Next up was Richmond’s Windhand, the heavy doom outfit fronted by my longtime friend Dorthea Cotrell, who’s distorted, Janis Joplin-esque vocals add a haunting quality to music that would otherwise not stand out on it’s own. The band’s musicianship is tight, but the simple, droning riffs wouldn’t work as well without the infusion of Cotrell’s vocals. When I lived with her two years ago, the band was just starting out, and it’s awesome how much they have accomplished and the following they have gathered in that amount of time. “Winter Son” is by far their most amazing song, and probably my favorite song right now by a local artist. It’s pure catchy doom and definite Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard worship, and I was stoked when the band finally played it at the end of their set. Windhand provided an agonizingly slow soundtrack to the extreme heat that definitely fueled Strange Matter’ beer sales, and kept the crowd from running home to the safety of air conditioning and places that smelled like something other than B.O.
Parasytic took the stage right before Tragedy, steering the show in a slightly more punk and upbeat direction. I have never been a huge Parasytic fan, although I think they have really good live energy and a great image and following. They are great at playing crusty, metal-laced d-beat, but none of their songs really seem to stand out from each other or from other songs in their genre. Their playing has gotten a lot tighter since I first saw them a couple years ago, though, and some of their more recent songs, namely the song “T.V. Drug,”are undeniably catchy and head-bangable. Their set was sweaty, hard-hitting, and charged with energy, but a lot of people in the crowd seemed to be wilting from the heat at this point, ready for the grand finale that most people had undoubtedly come out for.
My first thought when Tragedy took the stage was how brow-beaten they all look. Unlike some bands who just seem awkward in their old age, the idea of a bunch of bitter old men still wearing tight black pants playing the kind of music Tragedy play and writing the kind of lyrics they write just seems perfect. The brutal, melodic sadness of their riffs and lyrics seemed to transform the room the second they began playing, and the crowd transformed from a sweaty mass of despondent kids hung over from a weekend of partying to a sweaty, writhing mass of banging heads and raised fists. They played an amazing mix of some new stuff and mostly old stuff, my favorite being “The Point of No Return,” the first track off of their debut, self-titled album. I was desperately hoping they would play “The Intolerable Weight,” my favorite song from the same album, but no such luck. Still, getting to hear the stunning guitar riffs that first got me to accept a little bit of punk into my love for metal, and getting to yell “they won’t have to burn the books when no one reads them anyway,” was cathartic enough, and made the show completely worth it. I was a little heartbroken when the band visibly showed how annoyed they were with the heat, and asked the crowd how we could stand it, but I can’t blame them too much with the amount of playing out they were doing. And hey, they’re grumpy old men now, so it’s to be expected.
