[Sweet Cobra]

[Sweet Cobra]

If you needed any evidence that the modern metal scene is in the midst of an love affair with doom and sludge, you probably should’ve headed down to the Triple Rock Social Club on Sunday night. Three Chicago bands graced the stage throughout the evening, all of them bowing to the altar of the hand of Black Sabbath in their own special way.

[Sweet Cobra]

[Sweet Cobra]

[Sweet Cobra]

Sweet Cobra started the night off with a bang, and their hard-charging rhythms and searing guitar licks put to bed any notion that sludge needs to be played slow. The band’s frenetic jams were stitched together from a patchwork of sounds the owed as much to chaotic punk such as Discharge as they did to the ominous dirge of band like Sleep. Backed by a slamming percussion section, the riffs were huge and the focused performance warranted and resulted in the only visible crowd movement of the night.

[Sweet Cobra]

[Sweet Cobra]

[Sweet Cobra]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

MINSK embrace metal of a much more suffocating variety. Though doom metal is meant to be an unfriendly sounding beast, the eerie mirage of sound that these Relapse dudes conjured from their instruments on Sunday was spectacularly evil. Much of the credit for the group’s incredible aura must go to drummer Tony Wyioming, whose masterfully orchestrated rhythms gave the epic crush a fittingly apocalyptic backdrop. Though slow and lumbering, the sound was far from easy listening; instead the raging cascade of distorted guitar, the throbbing bass, and the ritualistic pounding of the drums seemed to lend themselves much better as the soundtrack to a mind slowing slipping into the depths of utter madness. Experiencing the show from up front was truthfully a very disquieting experience, and frankly, they scared the shit out of me.

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

[MINSK]

Pelican were the main attraction for the night, and this was their first date on the road to support their brand new album What We All Come To Need. I’ve seen the band three times since falling in love with their beautiful Australasia album a number of years ago, and after witnessing everything from their side-stage gig at Taste of Chaos with Deftones in 2006 to their supporting slot with Mono a few years ago, I was pretty psyched to see them playing to their own crowd for the first time in a long while. However, what began as anticipation slowly turned to mere indifference; I couldn’t tell what exactly, but it was clear that the set was missing a certain spark. Larry Herweg pounded his kit with more punch than I’ve seen yet, Trevor and Laurent commanded one hell of a head-throbbing chug from both sides of the stage, and Bryan Herweg was locked into an unwavering groove; but no matter how hard I tried, I just didn’t fall in love like I expected.

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

I dunno. Perhaps I just wasn’t well acquainted enough with the new stuff. Truthfully, “Sirius” was the only pre-City of Echoes track that I was able to identify, and considering it didn’t appear until the very end, I spent the better part of an hour awkwardly bobbing my head along to a set that, though definitely heavy and skillfully played, was utterly boring and uninspired to my ears. Sorry Pelican, I’ve loved most of what I’ve heard over the years, but the performance definitely need to have some more spice.

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

[Pelican]

Though my expectations were admittedly underwhelmed in some respects, I couldn’t help but appreciate what a diverse palate of doom had been delivered that night. Each band that performed was cut from the same cloth, but they each executed their craft in a much different way and indicated that as long as there are cities full of musicians playing doom, the genre will continue to expand in ways like we’ve never seen—for better or worse.

[Review and videos by Ryan Buege, photos by Adam Bubolz.]

Pelican Setlist:

01. Embedding the Moss (mp3)
02. Dead Between the Walls (mp3)
03. The Creeper (mp3)
04. Ephemeral (mp3)
05. GW (mp3)
06. An Inch Above Sand (mp3)
07. Strung Up From the Sky (mp3)
08. Glimmer (mp3)
09. Sirius (mp3)

[All audio comes courtesy of Empty's Tapes. ET is constantly updated and is the finest source for quality taping in the Twin Cities. The site should definitely be on your radar...]

Pelican: Official | MySpace | Wikipedia
MINSK: Official | MySpace | Wikipedia
Sweet Cobra: MySpace