Triac, Mutilation Rites, and Druglord
Friday, March 25 at Mainstream
On Friday, March 25th, I walked to the recently-opened bar Mainstream, conveniently located on the corner of Allen and Main–a block from my house–for their first ever punk/metal show. Triac, an awesome grindcore band from Baltimore, was headlining. Also on the bill were equally sweet black metalers Mutilation Rites, and local doomheads Druglord. I was a bit skeptical about the realities of an extreme music show in a place that’s the size of a living room, but isn’t actually someone’s living room. As I walked up, the building was literally shaking with the force of the music. The crowd was packed pretty tightly as well, but this just added to the intensity, and none of the nice glass lampshades got broken or anything.
Triac, Mutilation Rites, and Druglord
Friday, March 25 at Mainstream
On Friday, March 25th, I walked to the recently-opened bar Mainstream, conveniently located on the corner of Allen and Main–a block from my house–for their first ever punk/metal show. Triac, an awesome grindcore band from Baltimore, was headlining. Also on the bill were equally sweet black metalers Mutilation Rites, and local doomheads Druglord. I was a bit skeptical about the realities of an extreme music show in a place that’s the size of a living room, but isn’t actually someone’s living room. As I walked up, the building was literally shaking with the force of the music. The crowd was packed pretty tightly as well, but this just added to the intensity, and none of the nice glass lampshades got broken or anything.
Druglord, the local openers, describe themselves as “punk doom metal” on their Facebook, and claim to be old-school 80s punks playing doom. This is pretty accurate; all three members are a bit older then the average local metalhead, and the slow, crushing grooves they churn out have a melodic, punkish vibe to them that keep them from falling into the boring, repetitive doom category. I’m not the biggest fan of sticking a painfully slow band in with a couple of intense ones for “variety,” but Druglord played well nonetheless, sticking around afterward to support the other bands and hand out stickers.
Next up was Mutilation Rites from Brooklyn, whom I had heard good things about, but had only checked out briefly online. Their intense blend of crushing doom and Dark Funeral-style fast black metal created a cyclone effect in the club. The sound system was not great, and it was kind of hard to pick out the vocals or hear the individual instruments, but they killed all the same. In a time where a lot of metal is generic sounding and watered down to sell records, it’s awesome to hear such a passionate, extreme metal band that didn’t necessarily bend to any genre pressure. Definitely check this band out. They are fairly new, and I expect great things from them in the next couple of years.
Triac, the headliners, were the main band I had come out to see. I have always had a warm spot in my heart for Triac because of their musical friendship with Pig Destroyer, my favorite band. I consider their LP Dead House Dreaming to be one of the catchiest and most listenable tech-grind albums ever made. Sadly, the band has gone through a ton of lineup changes over the years, and sound pretty different from the way they started out. According to their Facebook page, in addition to taking the music in a rawer, less technical direction, they have decided to go for “more of a noise rock sound.” Their new singer, Noel Danger, is long-haired and leerish, reminiscent of Alexis Marshall from Daughters, and their music was a lot more discordant and un-structured than on their old LP. Their energy was great, however, and the lack of audible vocals or great sound made it impossible to judge them fairly.
Despite the crowded, frantic nature of the show, I think it was a success, and I hope they continue to have metal and punk shows at Mainstream. My only complaint about the night was that the show ended up starting later than 8:00pm and basically overlapping with the show at the Triple, even though the two shows were advertised as a “Doubleshredder.” Still, mad props to Mark Osborne for setting up awesome shows; here’s to making Mainstream the new Nara Sushi.
