This is the second time I’ve posted about a local punk and hardcore show that was captured by Degross Punk Photography, and there’s something about the vividness of Degross’s photographs that I don’t think I’ll ever get over.
Head over to his blog to view his entire set from the recent Earth Crisis headlined gig with Walls of Jericho, Reign Supreme, Unholy, and Blood Stands Still at Station 4 in St. Paul.
It’s true; it really has been almost five years! The wait is soon over friends, so don’t fret. New jazzy prog-tronic goodness will be coming from Tortoise by way of their sixth album Beacons of Ancestorship on June 23rd and they are previewing the new album via Pitchfork with a b/w video for the jazzed out “Prepare Your Coffin” that will make any architecture major giddy. Check it out above.
Also, I encourage you to preview Beacons of Ancestorship at their official site: HERE
Truth be told, May has been a month where Minneapolis has already hosted an almost excessive amount of the unbelievable shows from psychedelically minded metalheads and rockers — the must-see Mastodon/Kylesa/Intronaut bill that ended last month, a stellar Mogwai performance at First Avenue, Thrones desecrating the Triple Rock, and even the expansive progressive death metal of Gojira at Station 4. And now Wolves in the Throne Room and Krallice come to the city for a gig with local favorites Zebulon Pike and Empires? Really, someone needs to thank some booking agents.
Still, even with such a crazy amount of awesome shows going on, the crowds were still strong last Friday (May 15, 2009) for a night of all types of psych-metal (with a heavy emphasis on the black metal). The performances that night were spotless and were definitely just as mind-blowing as I expected they might be, each band immersing the crowd beneath their own monstrous demonstration of ear-splitting blackened, progressive waves of noise. If that sounds enticing, then you really should’ve been there.
Anyway, the Triple Rock was surprisingly pretty packed, so I wasn’t moving around much once I took my spot, but I tried to capture some photos and videos when I could — something rather difficult for a dude with a point-n-shoot and a flash and plumes of fog billowing from the stage throughout Wolves in the Throne Room’s entire otherworldly set.. Either way, enjoy.
VIDEO: Wolves in the Throne Room, Live at the Triple Rock Social Club, 5/15/09
(Wolves in the Throne Room)
(Wolves in the Throne Room)
(Wolves in the Throne Room)
(Wolves in the Throne Room)
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VIDEO: Zebulon Pike, Live at Triple Rock Social Club, 5/15/09
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(Krallice)
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(Empires)
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More blackened photos for you after the jump… Continue reading
Clutch is back with a powerful new track called “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” from their forthcoming Strange Cousins from the West album, and our friends at the MetalSucks 
mansion were kind enough to offer an exclusive premiere. The release is due in stores on July 7th, and if this track is any indication, it looks like Clutch won’t be straying too far from the riff-heavy, groovy prog rock they’ve displayed on some of the exceptional releases they’ve put out this decade. In fact, while it’s hardly a sound that qualifies for the “metal” classification I’ve thrown on them in this post, it seems to marry the wicked boot-stomping heaviness that originally introduced me to Clutch with the swampy classic rock and blues that eventually started to infest their minds more seamlessly than ever. My prediction is that this will be the album to satisfy your summer hard rock craving; I hope Clutch finally get the radio play they deserve with Strange Cousins. Get this one while it’s hot!
LISTEN: Clutch, “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” (from Strange Cousins from the West, available 7/7)
Normally I would write a review for every show that I attend, but this week I’m just too jam-packed with finals and post-final celebrations to get my head right and properly give praise to the un-fucking-believable Gojira show (w/ The Chariot and Car Bomb) that I saw on Monday. However, for any doubters, I just want to set one thing straight – Gojira fucking rules. Period.
The band is on fire, playing a first-ever headlining tour in North America that finally brings their entire exceptional back catalog to virgin ears in the U.S., and they couldn’t have been playing in finer form then they were this week. If you have been waiting to see Gojira, now’s the time.
Enjoy the photos and videos that I captured throughout the night! I’m seriously surprised I thought to capture anything worthwhile – I’m not gonna lie; I was enthusiastically going apeshit like my 14 year old self at my first Spineshank show the whole time..
VIDEO: Gojira, “Flying Whales (excerpt)” (live at Station 4, 05/11/09)
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(Gojira)
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VIDEO: The Chariot, live at Station 4, 05/11/09
(The Chariot)
(The Chariot)
(Car Bomb)
Like usual, I highly recommend that our main page readers click the “read more” link to view the rest of the media from the show. I’ve posted many more photos and a video of “The Art of Dying” that I think captures the power of the night pretty well. Enjoy! Continue reading
Last week, the Swedish post-rock/shoegazers in Logh released a very interesting new music video with some dreamy psychedelic animations that bring the song “Death To My Hometown” from their North album 
to even greater heights for its release on the iTunes exclusive Death to My Hometown EP. The playful, lighthearted vibe of the video by Kenny Lindström contrasts amazingly with the gentle, reserved delivery of vocalist Mattias Fribeg; the like best post-rock, sometimes this band sounds the heaviest and most alive with feeling in the quietest moments. This video definitely realizes the potential of these amazing nuiances with brilliant explosion of joyous color that compliment the weight of the introspective reflection and accentuate it. I highly recommend heading over to iTunes to grab these new songs soon. The link to buy is listed below!
1. Death To My Hometown (from North, 2007)
2. Forest Eyes RBG Version (Previously Unreleased)
3. Left Foot Breaking (Previously Unreleased)
4. White As Snow (Previously Unreleased)
DIG DEEPER: Buy Death to My Hometown – Official Website – Myspace
Famed Scottish post-rock quintet Mogwai were in Minneapolis to play First Avenue this Sunday, May 10th, and we were there to witness the maddening bliss. Though the band were kind enough to devote ample time to songs from each phase of their illustrious career, they focused on their recent album The Hawk Is Howling, injecting each song they touched with live intensity and jazz-like freeform emotional energy that no other post-rock band can match so confidently.
Not surprisingly, the performance was a vocally quiet one, with Barry only stepping out from behind the keyboards for unaffected vocals on one song and little on stage banter other than a ‘thank you’ here and there. Instead, ‘Gwai played to their strengths by delivering a set that boldly emphasized the aural extremes at which they excel. For me, the most engrossing moments of the set were both the most reserved and the most bombastic. Whether it was the reserved cadence of “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead”, the epic buildup of “Killing All the Flies”, or the oppressive heaviness of “We’re No Here”, each song was alive with an other-worldly, surging energy that true musicians live to create, and the crowd was receptively feeding off it every second of the night.
Additionally, it was Stuart’s birthday that night, and the band was in notably high spirits throughout their performance; sometimes maybe even a little bit too much so, as there were some miscommunications that resulted in a light-hearted, alcohol induced fumble or two (namely when they veered off the planned setlist without letting Dominic know what key they were changing into). Nevertheless, the crowd was in such good of a mood to finally see the band after their late cancellation last September that any mishaps were quickly forgiven. In fact, the adoring applause enticed the band to return to the stage for two whole encores before Stuart received a ceremonial birthday pranking and the lights came on to send us on our way back out for a post-concert brew.
The fuzzy, lo-fi psychedelic Canadian indie rockers in Women did an excellent job building anticipation for the headliners. Never having seen them before, I was very impressed with the way in which they were able to transform a simple little ditty into an explosive psychedelic brain melter within a matter of seconds. With their jagged rhythms and pounding beats, they inject something very fresh and different into the lo-fi sound that I’ve been hearing proliferate through the indie scene in the last two years. Truth-be-told, the only band that I’ve seen capable of similar feats is our local boys in Vampire Hands, and from my point of view a comparison to Vampire Hands is just about the best compliment you can give to a modern experimental indie rock band.
As always, we were fortunate to capture a slew of exclusive Mind Inversion media at the show. Among the goodies we collected are 3 live videos from Mogwai’s set, 1 live video of Women, and too many photos to count right now. It’s all below!
VIDEO: Mogwai, “We’re No Here” (live at First Avenue, 05/10/09)
(Mogwai)
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(Mogwai)
VIDEO: Women, Live at First Avenue in Minneapolis, MN, 05/10/09
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VIDEO: Mogwai, “I Know You Are But What Am I?” (live at First Avenue, 05/10/09)
Epic a/v content after the jump! I’ve still got another video excerpt of “Like Herod” from the first encore (which I’ll give a C on visuals, but a B+ on audio) and tons of photos… Continue reading
The Mississippi river basins modern folk vagabond William Elliot Whitmore recently 
made a trip over the pond to show his literary and musical vocal talents to the British population, and the results that were captured on film are stunning. Whitmore’s powerful, old-time oration skills are truly a wonder in this day-and-age, and in this video performance for his “Old Devils” he sounds spectacular.
The last time I had the fortune to see Whitmore play live, he was sandwiched between the chaotic grind of local metal band Ambassador Gun and the expansive post-rock of Red Sparowes. Though the bill was quite an unlikely one for Whitmore, he handily won over any doubters with the passion of his exceptional performance and some sensibilities that could easily appeal to any fan of socially aware Midwestern music. It’s great that his career seems to be picking up steam on a global scale, because music this authentic, emotional, and beautiful needs to be honored the world over. Check out “Old Devils” live on Jools Holland below:
The Chariot is a band that seems to have gotten the short end of the stick during the last few years. Mostly because he left Norma Jean right before they really started to go downhill, I don’t think Josh Scogin’s The Chariot has ever really gotten the kudos they deserve for the freeform, peerless, raucous punk-n-metal noise that they create. Somehow the crappiness of latter NJ releases unfortunately tended to overshadow the consistenly awesome output that Scogin’s new band contrbuted to the music world, but hopefully some of that will start to change. Landing on the music map somewhere among an array of bands such as Converge, Lightning Bolt, Meshuggah, Sonic Youth, and Drive Like Jehu, I believe The Chariot are a band who have earned the right to be mentioned among the hardcore genre’s modern luminaries for their commitment to purely original and exciting underground punk rock.
The band just released their new album Wars and Rumors of Wars, and I’m hoping that this will finally be the one to grant them their justified notoriety as one of hardcore and metals most independently minded collectives. For a preview, watch their visually stunning new video for “Daggers” below and get a sense of the controlled, epic, experimental chaos that the The Chariot creates. …And local residents take note: tomorrow they’ll be in St. Paul for a show with equally exceptional modern tech/death metal bands Gojira and Car Bomb; don’t miss it!
Back after only a month-long absence, Northern Outpost has now uploaded the first episode of their summer season online, and for this week’s episode they’re visited by the renowned local indie/ambient/post-whatever troupe Halloween, Alaska at the Owl Recording Studio in Uptown. Still, change is noticeable, with their snowy winter lake intros now replaced by a much more inviting image of our fair city of Minneapolis in the springtime. I don’t think they have done a better job with their choice to kick things off. Halloween, Alaska just released some fantastic songs of jazzy, ambient indie rock via their new album Champagne Downtown, and the intimate confines of the Owl Recoridng Studio are the perfect place to witness the chemistry of the band. After a short interview where they discuss their new album, the originality of the local music scene, and the dedicated people that support the scene, the band gets into a moving rendition of one of the most somber and reflective pieces from the new release, “Be A Man”. It’s a great demonstration of the interesting minds and enormous talent that are just brimming out of this city, and it’s an episode that you don’t want to miss. ..makes me proud to be Minnesotan!
Look forward to the future, as well. In two weeks, the next episode will be added and will feature beloved singer-songer Lucy Michele with the Velvet Lapelles as the profiled band!
MIND INVERSION 