Abby Huston Archives

VA Shows You Must See This Week: November 21 – November 27

Marilyn Drew Necci | November 21, 2018

Topics: 3 B's Bar And Grill, 7th Grade Girl Fight, Abby Huston, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Ancient Torture Techniques, Appalling, Berkowitz, Blame God, Broadcastatic, Castle OG, Ceremonial Scissors, Colin Phils, Coteries, Don Babylon, Dyrt, Fake Object, Flood The Asylum, Garden Grove Brewing, Halfcast, Hand Out, Hunting Dog, Internecine, Kisner, Kofi Shepsu, Kyle Flanagan, Love Roses, Manson Family Values, McCormack's, Melul, Model Child, moniker, MSD, Nerve, Night Hag, Nu Depth, Process of Suffocation, Richmond Avantgarde Improv Collective (photo by Joey Wharton), Riffhouse Pub, RVA Noise Fest, Satori Daydream, shows you must see, Smoke Signals, Spontaneous Noize Combustion, strange matter, Surfacing, Teenage Cynobyte, The Big Payback, The Camel, The Last Bison, Thieves Of Shiloh, Thirst For The Sea, Toast, Vagabond, Voarm, W I S H, weekend plans, Xenojothsz, Yohimbe

FEATURED SHOW
Friday, November 23, 8 PM
The Big Payback, Weekend Plans @ The Camel – $10 in advance/$12 at the door (order tickets HERE)
Hey Richmond, it’s Christmas time! Well, OK, it’s still the day before Thanksgiving as you read this, but we all know what comes the day after Thanksgiving: Black Friday, the longstanding kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. In these days when stores are playing Christmas carols over the muzak the day after Halloween, it might seem like Black Friday actually lands several weeks into the Christmas shopping season, but none of us can deny that the most ridiculous sales (and the biggest customer mobs) all happen when the stores open the day after Thanksgiving. I mean, the evidence is on YouTube to prove it!

That being said, Richmond’s foremost James Brown tribute act, The Big Payback, are giving all of us a reason to leave the house on Black Friday despite all the crazy shopping crowds. Long after that whole pallet of $20 TVs is gone from the Walmart aisle, they’ll be taking the stage at The Camel to chase your Christmas shopping blues away with a set of powerful funk. Frontman Kelli Strawbridge has quite the reputation for talent, energy, and soul due to his many excellent projects around town (KINGS, Mekong Xpress, Mikrowaves, and the list goes on), and seeing The Big Payback makes clear that he was born to invoke the spirit of James Brown live on stage.

The Godfather Of Soul recorded three different Christmas albums over the course of his career, and we can only hope that Strawbridge and his crack ensemble of talented musicians are willing to bust out “Soulful Christmas” or “Go Power At Christmas Time” for this performance. Even if they just stick to the tried-and-true classics, though, you’ll still get a night full of perfectly-played funk grooves it’s impossible to sit still for. So get on the floor, get your groove on, and sweat those turkey pounds away. Start your Christmas season on the good foot.

Wednesday, November 21, 8:30 PM
Kofi Shepsu Trio @ Vagabond – Free!
It’s the night before Thanksgiving, and the last place you want to be is the party all your old high school friends are throwing down the street from your parents’ house. So hey, why not stay in town for an extra night and come groove on some smooth jazz sounds down at Vagabond? Drummer and bandleader Kofi Shepsu is quite young; he just graduated high school earlier this year. But don’t let his youth fool you — this man definitely knows his way around a kit.

Even with only a brief professional music career behind him, Shepsu has already managed to work with quite a few Richmond jazz heavyweights, including Charles Owens, Andrew Randazzo (of Butcher Brown), and Kevin Eichenberger (of CGI Jesus), among others. This particular session sees him leading a trio featuring the bass talents of veteran RVA jazz musician Michael Hawkins, as well as the piano stylings of Garen Dorsey, who previously played saxophone in the avant-garde jazz-metal project Groam. The results of this collaboration aren’t exactly predictable, but they’re sure to be enjoyable. Certainly more so than hearing about whatever the annoying guy who sat behind you in English class ten years ago has been up to.

Friday, November 23, 6 PM
RVA Noise Fest: The Finale, feat. Yohimbe, Dyrt, Fake Object, Xenojothsz, Teenage Cynobyte, Kyle Flanagan, Hunting Dog, Kisner, Melul, Ceremonial Scissors, Broadcastatic, Nu Depth, Coteries, Richmond Avantgarde Improv Collective (photo by Joey Wharton), Thieves Of Shiloh, Internecine, Surfacing, and more? @ Strange Matter – $5
Some of the worst news to reach the ears of the Richmond music scene in quite some time broke last week: Strange Matter, which has indubitably been one of the top venues for live music in Richmond over the past decade, would be closing down before the end of 2018. Since the word got out, a variety of different scenes within the local music community have expressed their sorrow over this awful turn of events by putting together one last hurrah for all the local groups within their particular music world. Friday marks the first of these events to hit the calendar — and certainly not the last.

Richmond has long been a hub for experimental noise production, and annual celebrations like RVA Noise Fest were always a great opportunity for the many creative projects within that scene to grab the attention of the community at large — often with damaged beats, harsh noise, and skronking improvisational wildness. Now they’re all coming together to do it one final time. Over a dozen noise acts, from local stalwarts like Coteries and Fake Object to returning former residents like Nu Depth, will all take the stage and blast the loyal Strange Matter denizens with massive walls of sonic chaos. They’ll your mind clean of all thoughts relating to holiday carols and gift shopping, creating an army of shambling noise zombies ready to take over the world. Or at least, we can hope they will.

Saturday, November 24, 4 PM
Nerve, Love Roses, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Smoke Signals, Thirst For The Sea, 7th Grade Girl Fight, Satori Daydream, Flood The Asylum @ 3 B’s Bar and Grill – $10 or $7 plus donation
It’s not often that I’d send you 90 minutes to the northwest of the city for a Saturday afternoon show, but these aren’t normal times. It’s a holiday weekend, you’ve got plenty of time on your hands, and this is a sincerely fascinating bill that will offer you a chance to catch up with all the bands you’ve missed from smaller cities and towns around the state (as well as a couple of DC-area projects). Plus, it’s for a good cause — these bands are coming together to feed the hungry and donate toys to underprivileged kids, which is always a good thing to do, right?

So who are the bands you’re going to hear as part of this trip up 64 West? Well, there’s the dark, raging hardcore of Maryland’s Nerve. There’s the driving emotional post-hardcore of Charlottesville’s Smoke Signals. There’s the rockin’ indie-garage of fellow Charlottesvillains 7th Grade Girl Fight. There’s the brutality of Fredericksburg deathcore mosh warriors Flood The Asylum. There’s the goofy, speedy punk of NoVA’s Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. And there’s more, including RVA faves Love Roses. Plus, it all takes place in a scenic central VA town, inside a bar that clearly used to be a Pizza Hut. How fun is that? Fire up the GPS app on your phone and get there!

Sunday, November 25, 6 PM
Hand Out, W I S H, Manson Family Values @ Garden Grove Brewing – Free!
We’re all gonna have to get back to work on Monday, which is never fun after a long weekend, but of course you can soften the blow with some excellent live music. On Sunday evening, Garden Grove will present all comers with a set from Hand Out, a relative newcomer from New Orleans who apparently have some history in that city (members previously played in NOLA bands Modern Language and Variants). Here in RVA, all we have to reckon with is Hand Out’s debut EP, recorded earlier this year before the quartet had filled out its lineup.

Not that you can tell from listening to it — Blood & Water has a full, powerful sound that channels the work of groups like Balance And Composure and You Blew It. If heartfelt, hard-rockin’ emocore is your cup of tea, this band’s gonna make you want to go back for refills. They’re joined on the bill by local newcomers W I S H (they write it with those spaces on purpose), whose recently released two-song EP finds them tapping into the spirit of prime 90s shoegaze from the US. The Swirlies and the Lilys come immediately to mind, not that that’ll mean much to my younger readers. Loud guitars, hazy vocals, and ethereal melodies should appeal to everyone, though. And honestly, if you don’t love the moniker picked by openers Manson Family Values enough to give them a shot based on name alone, I don’t even know what to tell you.

Monday, November 26, 6 PM
Colin Phils (photo by Mags Design), Castle OG, Model Child, Don Babylon, Moniker, Halfcast @ Strange Matter – $10
These farewell-to-Strange-Matter shows are gonna come hot and heavy over the next few weeks, y’all, but don’t get too jaded to ’em, because in only a few short weeks, the club we’ve loved for a decade now will be gone forever. The best advice I could possibly give you is to treat them like Pokemon and catch ’em all. This one in particular will be rewarding for fans of interestingly complex underground rock sounds; the fact that it’s headlined by the one and only Colin Phils only makes that even more clear. This South Korea-via-Richmond group impressed the hometown crowd with their strong split LP with Houdan The Mystic.

Since then, they’ve plentifully proven their mettle (not metal, though, these guys are more math-rock) in quite a few live performances around town. Give them a chance to prove it to you on Monday night at Strange Matter, and you’re sure to come away impressed. Castle OG (the initials stand for “Of Genre,” and I have still never figured out if this is a high-fantasy reference or what) have been making some waves of their own lately. They’ve got a killer indie-pop sound complete with autotuned vocals and some really catchy synth parts, as showcased on their “No Trick” single from last year. And then of course there are a ton of other great local bands who are somewhere on the rock spectrum, from guitar-slinging faves Don Babylon to the unassuming alt-rock of Moniker. There are at least two more bands on this bill, and word is more will be added, so for only ten bucks, you really can’t go wrong. Drink in that Smatter ambiance while you can.

Tuesday, November 27, 8 PM
Blame God (photo by Danny DeRusso Photography), Ancient Torture Techniques, Berkowitz, MSD, Spontaneous Noize Combustion @ McCormack’s – $8
Things may be getting dire where the lower Fan’s music scene is concerned (Flora’s also scheduled for the chopping block), but down on the grimy streets of Shockoe Bottom, the Between 2 Beers crew is still keeping the metal flame burning at McCormack’s. It’s a heartening sign of hope for the future, especially when this particular show is headlined by the excellently named New York group Blame God. Their 2017 EP Strategically Confined is a balls-out slab of hardcore rage and biker-metal power, all rolled up together into five songs of pure hate. These guys are going to blow minds and explode heads when they hit the McCormack’s stage, so come prepared.

And expect the unrelenting onslaught to start the second the first band takes the stage at this show. Hailing from Roanoke, the openers in question are known as Spontaneous Noize Combustion and their flavor of blurry, blown-out D-beat is full of harsh feedback and harsher screams. It only gets more hectic from there: MSD bring the grinding death metal to destroy your eardrums. Berkowitz, a new group formed from the ashes of Throne of Botis and Murder, might not be for sensitive souls, but will definitely satisfy your appetite for brutal death grind madness. And Ancient Torture Techniques, the power-violence trio that once upon a time did a split with long-gone Richmond ragers Street Pizza, appear to be fully back from the dead and ready to rip your face off. Sounds like a great time, huh? After all, a little dismemberment is just what anyone should expect from a top-level metal show.

Bonus Hampton Roads Picks:

Friday, November 23, 7 PM
The Last Bison, Abby Huston @ Toast – $18 (order tickets HERE)
In a time when bands taking inspiration from mega-selling “indie” folk groups like The Lumineers and Of Monsters And Men are pretty thick on the ground, it can be tough to find anyone talented messing around with those kinds of sounds. Fortunately, The Last Bison have been around for a while, and built up quite the track record for themselves. No insincere johnny-come-latelies they; new album Suda is their sixth release since 2012, and shows some intriguing growth since 2015’s Dorado. The Last Bison initially structured their sound around instruments like acoustic guitar, banjo, and mandolin, but on their new album, it appears their “mountain-top chamber music” have evolved into a strange sort of off-kilter synth-pop sound.

And that’s a pretty good thing, on the whole — mainly because this trio is incredibly talented, writing irresistible melodies and catchy choruses that stand alongside the best of them. Granted, tunes like “Gold” — which has an almost Modest Mouse-like bounce — are far from the folky acoustic charm of early hits like “Switzerland,” but you wouldn’t want a band to stagnate, would you? And rest assured, if you loved their melodies before, the new album will by no means run you off. So head to Toast this Friday night, and let The Last Bison show you what they’ve been up to for the last few years. By the end of the night, you’re liable to forget ever having known the Lumineers existed.

Saturday, November 24, 8 PM
Process of Suffocation, Appalling, Voarm, Night Hag @ Riffhouse Pub – $8
Process of Suffocation, Memphis’s mysterious masters of death metal, come to Norfolk this Saturday night, and all of you better get ready to bang your head. This group’s blackened sound lands somewhere between the chaotic rage of early Possessed and the relentless rumble of NYC legends Internal Bleeding. It can be heard in all its fine fury on 2015’s Caos Y Destruccion 666, but the group’s released nothing in the three years since. By now they’re bound to have built up a backlog of new stuff, and anyone heading out to this show can look forward to some fresh cuts from the slaughter.

They can also look forward to a triple thrash threat of VA bands backing them up, including two RVA all-stars. Appalling will thrill the Tidewater area with their talented take on thrash metal, which interjects both significant melodic flavor and a great deal of old-school deathrage. Then there’s the straight-up Scandinavian-style black metal of Voarm, who’ve made quite an impression on the Richmond scene over the past couple of years and are more than prepared to the same to Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach’s own Night Hag, who demonstrated their ability to come up with excellent titles on this year’s Insemination Rites Of The Succubus, split the difference between lumbering death metal and brutal, powerful doom, like some strange Frankenstein’s monster made of parts from Autopsy and Noothgrush. Epic.

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Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers–this week’s column has obviously already been written): [email protected] [and yeah, there’s plenty more of my writing to read over at GayRVA — come say hey.]

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

RVA Shows You Must See This Week: May 16 – May 22

Marilyn Drew Necci | May 16, 2018

Topics: Abby Huston, American, American Pleasure Club, Appalling, Black Iris, Clever Girls, DJ OINuBi, Downhaul, Elephant Micah, Elizabeth Owens & The Live Bats, Empath, Fried Egg, gallery 5, Horse Culture, Iceage, Jason Molina, Keilan Creech, Lace, PILLORIAN, Restroy, shows you must see, Slump, Songs: Molina, Special Explosion, strange matter, The Camel, True Body, Voice Of Saturn, Yeni Nostalji

FEATURED SHOW
Saturday, May 19, 7 PM
Iceage, Empath, True Body @ The Camel – $13 in advance/$15 at the door (order tickets HERE)
Oh wow, Iceage is back! This mostly-teenage Danish group grabbed a good bit of attention back at the beginning of the decade with their gothic take on hardcore, and I for one was a big fan (which you’ll remember if you’ve been reading this site’s music coverage for a good long time — here’s a refresher for you newbies). Their 2014 third album, Plowing Into The Field Of Love, was a bit of a difficult transition, broadening their horizons in a manner that was somewhat awkward. But after four years, they have finally released another album, and Beyondless simultaneously pushes further into unclassifiable vaguely-postpunk weirdness and confirms that Iceage’s ability to cast a morose, nihilistic mood with their music remains undiminished.

So what will their live performances be like now? Will frontman Elias Ronnenfelt’s baleful stare and terse air of simultaneous aggression and detachment remain intact? There’s only one sure way to find out, and that’s by heading down to The Camel this Saturday night. In past performances here in Richmond, Iceage’s stage presence was energetic in an almost threatening manner, with the band always evoking a faint air of menace that matched their dark approach to hardcore sounds. These days, they’re far beyond the dark UK crust vibes of their earliest material, but fans of Antisect and Amebix will probably still find a good bit to enjoy in their live performance.

Indeed, if the openers on this bill are any indication, it seems that some aspects of the hardcore scene from the earlier part of this decade have found themselves growing in a similar direction to that of Iceage. Philadelphia’s Empath brings us a blown-out lo-fi pop sound that trades the occasional horn flourishes of the new Iceage album (believe it or not, it works!) for a fuzzy synth sound, which lies overtop of a dark, bashing take on indie-pop. Meanwhile, local post-hardcore group True Body has moved in an almost gothic-cabaret direction with their most recent single, “Over It,” and feature the sort of dramatic vocals that any fan of Elias Ronnenfelt — or, for that matter, Ian Curtis — is sure to appreciate. Wear your best all-black outfit to this one.

Wednesday, May 16, 8 PM
Lace, Fried Egg, Slump, Horse Culture @ Strange Matter – $8
From one band with a spooky, atmospheric take on hardcore to another — Lace is coming to Strange Matter tonight, and if this Texas band don’t actually have too much in common musically with Iceage, their dark, foreboding vibe and background in hardcore aggression certainly matches. Recent LP The Human Condition is a refreshing, excellent take on modern hardcore, integrating chaotic touches with gothic drama and postpunk experimentation to simultaneously bring to mind Dead And Gone, Swing Kids, and Ex-Cult. Whether you’re into garage rock wildness, hardcore fury, or the pure spirit of experimentation that keeps bands from falling into genre-based predictability, you’re going to find a lot to like about Lace.

The VA-based openers on this bill all descend from the venerable lineage of American hardcore, but all have different takes on the form. Fried Egg are raging hardcore rippers with a noise-rock edge, like Pissed Jeans doing Negative Approach covers — or vice versa. Slump (who apparently already dropped the “-oids” from last time I wrote about them) push things in a stretched-out, psychedelic direction with their lengthy post-hardcore space-noise epics. Horse Culture are full on sludge-noise, pounding and howling at a dirge-like pace and a volume that will cave your head in. This show will definitely not get predictable, and it will definitely not be quiet. Get stoked.

Thursday, May 17, 7:30 PM
Restroy, Voice Of Saturn @ Black Iris – $6-10
The increased presence of jazz in this column lately might lead some to think I am getting old — and you wouldn’t be wrong! But honestly, if you love a wide variety of music, you probably should be paying attention to jazz, and not just dusty old records you find in thrift stores, either! (Not that those aren’t often really good, but still.) New and intriguing things have been happening in the local jazz world recently, and Black Iris has been taking a big role in helping the word get out — which is an awesome and welcome contribution to the local scene, so keep it up, y’all!

This week, Black Iris is bringing us a performance from Restroy, a shifting ensemble led by Virginia bassist Christopher Dammann, which integrates acoustic jazz improvisation with electronic textures and experimental noise to create a surprising new hybrid which still beats with the unkillable heart of jazz tradition. Restroy for this performance finds Dammann teaming up with drummer extraordinaire Scott Clark — who we told you about in last week’s jazz-at-Black-Iris coverage — and a quartet of electronic musicians who will also add textures of piano, trumpet, and cello to the mix. The result will be hard to predict, tough to pin down, and impossible to forget. The evening will begin with a performance by mysterious local electronic combo The Voice Of Saturn, and will only get more intriguing from there. Don’t miss it.

Friday, May 18, 8 PM
Yeni Nostalji, DJ OINuBi, Keilan Creech @ Gallery 5 – $8 (order tickets HERE)
Yeni Nostalji’s record release show at Gallery 5 is guaranteed to be unlike anything else you’ll see this week. For one thing, Yeni Nostalji’s music is of a type that doesn’t exactly come through town on a weekly basis. Yeni Nostalji is a group that brings Turkish and American musicians together to create a hybrid pop sound equally influenced by Leonard Cohen and Dolly Parton and by European pop radio sounds of decades past. American-born vocalist Christina Gleixner fell in love with the sounds of Turkish music via singer Tanju Okan, and decided to sing in Turkish in Yeni Nostalji as a tribute to the inspiration she found in Turkish music. This soon led her to collaborations with musicians from around the globe, and the result is Yeni Nostalji’s self-titled debut album.

At Gallery 5 this Friday night, the group celebrates the release of this album on Philadelphia label Ropeadope — which RVA music heads may remember from their links with local label Jellowstone. It is unique in that it is likely the first album released by an American label with entirely Turkish lyrics. But it’s also unique in that it brings the deep, smooth sounds of Yeni Nostalji to life. That same thing will take place on the Gallery 5 stage this Friday night, and you should really be there; this group’s alluring, romantic sound will make you feel like you’ve just stepped into a European nightclub from half a century ago. It’s not something you’re likely to encounter again anytime soon, and honestly, you’d be a fool to miss it.

Saturday, May 19, 5 PM
Clever Girls, Elizabeth Owens & The Live Bats, Abby Huston @ Strange Matter – $8 in advance/$10 day of show (order tickets HERE)
This Saturday matinee gig is looking like a real treat, first and foremost because it’ll bring Vermont’s Clever Girls to town. Their 2017 EP, Loose Tooth, is a killer example of a sound I haven’t gotten tired of yet, and doubt I’ll ever lose my taste for. Their jangly guitars and energetic tempos combine with the killer vocal melodies of singer Diane Jean to ensure that these songs lodge in the pleasure centers of your brain and do not let go. Plus, they’ve got that same hint of midwestern twang that comes through in the work of fellow killers Hop Along, and that’s never a bad thing. Best of all, they aren’t yet another band using the word “girls” in their name but featuring only male members! Granted, only their vocalist is a woman, but still, I’ll take it. Progress!

We have two pretty great local acts opening this one up, too. Elizabeth Owens and their band, the Live Bats, have been generating a bit of buzz around the local scene recently, and their quietly beautiful music manages to simultaneously charm and unsettle with a vaguely ominous atmosphere that never fully dissipates. Recent EP Growing Pain has a lot to recommend it, from its glittering acoustic guitar melodies to the empathic lyrics bringing a caring emotional focus to open discussion of mental illness. Abby Huston is new to me, but the melodies present on recent EP Rich are a sure winner, offering a perfect enticement to get more familiar with what she brings to the table. Show up on time for this one.

Sunday, May 20, 8 PM
Songs: Molina – A Memorial Electric Co., Elephant Micah @ Strange Matter – $15 (order tickets HERE)
It was a really sad thing when Jason Molina died so young, at only 39 years of age, in 2013. The singer-songwriter, who made incredible music under the names Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. as well as under his given name, delved into a deep well of emotional darkness that many related to, including myself. That darkness, which he was given to suppressing with alcohol, ultimately claimed him. However, during his abbreviated life, he brought us some incredible music, which combined folk, country, and loud rock n’ roll to produce quite a few classic albums, including Songs: Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain (2002) and Magnolia Electric Co.’s What Comes After The Blues (2005). In recent years, members of both of his backing bands have been working to keep Molina’s memory alive with semi-regular performances under the name Songs: Molina – A Memorial Electric Co.

That ensemble comes to Richmond this Sunday night, and whether you have memories of Molina’s legendary Virginia shows — at VCU with The Mountain Goats in 2003, on the steps of the Harrisonburg courthouse during MacRock many years ago — or you never had the pleasure of seeing him perform, this show has something to offer you. Elephant Micah leader Joe O’Connell will be joining the group to provide vocals and guitar in place of their departed frontman, and the show will begin with a separate set from Elephant Micah. Molina may be gone, but his music will live on for a long time to come.

Monday, May 21, 8 PM
American Pleasure Club, Special Explosion, Downhaul @ Strange Matter – $12 in advance/$15 day of show (order tickets HERE)
American Pleasure Club is the latest name under which singer-songwriter Sam Ray and his backing band are performing, and while it’s certainly not the best name ever, it’s certainly better than their old name — Teen Suicide, which really might be the WORST band name ever. So hey, every little bit helps, right? Ray, who has also recorded under the names Joy Void and Ricky Eat Acid, among others, has a lot going on in his music, moving from grungy alt-rock tunes like “This Is Heaven & I’d Die For It” to strange screwed-n-chopped underwater R&B songs like “Let’s Move To The Desert” in relatively short stretches of time on A Whole Fucking Lifetime Of This, American Pleasure Club’s new LP.

How’s all this going to transfer to the live setting? You might well ask, but it seems safe to assume that the guitars will be making the trip, and they will be dishing out some rockin’ songs to get your feet moving at least at some points during the set. It might also get weird at other points, though, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. Seattle’s Special Explosion are on tour with American Pleasure Club, and they offer a fitting counterpoint to that band’s melange of unexpected genre juxtapositions on recent release To Infinity. They show equal facility with dance beats, twinkly emo-gaze guitars, and ethereal yet unforgettable vocal melodies. Locals Downhaul kick things off with some relatively straightforward emo-pop, but like the touring bands, they’re neither predictable nor forgettable, so arrive at the designated hour for best results from this show.

Tuesday, May 22, 8 PM
Pillorian, Appalling, American @ Strange Matter – $10 (order tickets HERE)
Black metal started out as a ferocious, blood-spattered beast of a genre, but once it had been around for a while, musicians around the world started recognizing the various possibilities the genre offered, and taking off in exploratory directions that were often quite surprising. Pillorian follows in the footsteps of one of those groundbreaking black metal acts, Agalloch, who explored the potential enriching elements that folk melodies and atmospheres brought to black metal. Former Agalloch frontman John Haughm formed Pillorian in the wake of Agalloch’s breakup, and the group’s debut LP, Obsidian Arc, saw the group ably continuing Agalloch’s legacy.

Part of the reason Haughm started Pillorian was to tour more often, and since the release of their first LP last year, they’ve remained on the road, touring the world and hitting the festival circuit. Now they’re heading to our little town of Richmond, which is only logical because as we all know, this place is metal as fuck. Openers Appalling and American offer a taste of what homegrown musicians are doing with the black metal template; the former takes it in a dark, crusty direction sure to appeal just as much to fans of dirty US hardcore bands like Tragedy as it will to the dyed-in-the-wool kvltists. Meanwhile, American — who kinda pulled a ninja move with such a generic-yet-unusual name — take things in more of an epic, rage-heavy direction on last year’s Violate And Control, a dark, pounding listen that’s sure to translate into serious brutality in the live setting. This one’s a headbanger’s paradise, so don’t sleep on it.

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Email me if you’ve got any tips for me about upcoming shows (that take place after the week this column covers–this week’s column has obviously already been written): [email protected] [and yeah, in case you’re wondering, more awesomeness from my cracked and bleeding fingertips is available at GayRVA — come say hey.]

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond