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Buncha fucking clowns.

No, seriously, that’s what Plaque Marks were repping: bassist Doug Sabolik sported a rainbow wig while guitarist Gene Woolfolk looked sweet with an oversized jaunty bow atop his head. At the side of the stage, someone – a roadie, perhaps? – had a full-fledged Bozo outfit on. He stood next to a dude in a flamboyant red suit who added trombone to a couple of songs. They came out onto the stage for a few bits, with the red suit guy for some barely-audible-over-the-din horn and Bozo for moral support.

Someone else not in costume came out and juggled while someone else entirely blew up balloon animals because that is what one does when the lines between circus and insane asylum are as blurred that much.

Plaque Marks serve as a new vehicle/side project for some Philly scenesters of note (Fight Amp and Creepoid alumni fill out the lineup). The group’s noise alternates between being bludgeoningly chugging and chuggingly bludgeoning — a perfect way to kick off a night of noise rock royalty.

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Plaque Marks. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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And that’s what The Jesus Lizard is, really. They emerged to spearhead a noise rock renaissance during the height of alt-rock 1990s, Lollpalosers who snookered Capitol Records to subsidize their arts. Sure, they benefited from timing, but they benefited from being timeless more than that.

They still kick off their set with “Puss,” their biggest hit thanks to sharing a split with Nirvana. Within seconds of the churning riff that kicks it off, frontman David Yow is already sitting on the crowd – yes, that is the best way to describe his interaction with an audience that seems to view being sat on by Yow as a rite of passage. Before the song is over, he will be tossed back on the stage, his beer belly distending from underneath his shirt that reads “Fuck Trump” in capital letters.

This would not be an isolated incident. Yow spends as much time off the stage as on it. It’s not simple nihilism at work; when he laid atop the front row repeatedly chanting “Will you bury me?” as “If You Had Lips” creaked to a halt, he showed solidarity with the throng.

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As much as he captivates and capitulates, he isn’t what makes Jesus Lizard worth seeing over 30 years after they crawled out from Austin, ten years since the first reunion shows. It’s cool if he lands on you, sure, but Duane Denison is stoically and rigidly wringing every ounce of distorted staccato skronk from his guitar while Mac McNeilly is locked in with David Wm Sims keeping the chaos in perfect syncopation. “Bloody Mary” and “Blue Shot” alone put them front and center and makes it quite clear they are up there with any extreme music rhythm section you can name).

Anyone who thinks noise rock is all crass, no craft don’t know Jesus Lizard. If that person was at Union Transfer, they got to know the band pretty well. The band churned out visceral gristle for well over 90 minutes culled from the band’s entire discography save for the Blue swansong that I am pretty sure they have disowned entirely. Standouts among the 28 (!) tracks included the film noir police chase “Glamourous,” the fucked up blues of “My Own Urine,” the thrashing “Boilmaker,” and (to this day) watching them cover Chrome and The Dicks is life-affirming.

Helmet got a lot of accolades for jazzy precision and hyper-pretension plus they sold a ton more records, but Jesus Lizard has always been just as controlled, concise, and on-point. They only lacked the ostentation and who needs that anyway? In their prime they were just as accomplished as that classic, scintillating Rollins Band lineup, and the Lizard hasn’t seemed to lose very much from those halcyon days. If anything they’re even smarter now, having learned how to pace themselves throughout long, intense sets. With a dozen songs over two separate encores, that was kind of important.

This was actually the second Philly show since the Jesus Lizard reformed for the second time. The novelty is over. The Jesus Lizard couldn’t rely on nostalgia now, not anymore. Fortunately they don’t have to.

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A few years ago, photographer Paul Hart released Farmed (2009-2015). The book documents the modern era of The Fens, a 400,000-acre stretch along the coastal plain of eastern England. The reclaimed marshland, which has been plundered going back to Roman times, is now barren arable soil punctuated with old monasteries, overhead telephone wires, and the odd wind turbine. Through his black and white landscapes, it’s easy to see how Fen took their name from the region with its natural beauty and footprints of humanity dotting the terrain.

For the past decade, Fen have done their best to replicate the odd serenity to be found in such a place, to be a soundtrack to an organic, agrarian territory with the human spirit subtly yet indelibly implanted. On their latest album The Dead Light, they may have finally succeeded.

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The opening notes of “Witness” have a pronounced David Gilmour feel, which is refreshing in and of itself since most post-metal folk prefer Syd Barrett, if Pink Floyd they must. The track ramps up ever so slowly, building to but never quite reaching a crescendo. That would come later in an album that feels conceptual even if it’s not.

The title track is split into two parts. The first is reminiscent of Angel Rat-era Voivod when they took on psychedelic trappings while still retaining the metallic elements that they cut their teeth on. Whereas the second is more of what Fen is known for — Frank Allain’s cascading riffs and Pete Aplin’s drums, a little heavier and smarter than what might be expected.

Adam Allain provides nimble bass work on “Labyrinthine Echoes,” which along with the increasing aggression gives the song a NWOBM feel though the terse, downtuned atmosphere and his muffled vocals quickly bring Fen back to the present. Those qualities are ultimately what Fen does best, so it’s smart of them to always find their way back to that sound.

There is no shortage of bands straddling the lines between black metal’s atmosphere and post-rock’s rigid repetition. On The Dead Light, Fen does far more than take the best of two genres. Instead, like those great Paul Hart photos, they make the rugged seem picturesque.

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The Dead Light released last Friday via Prophecy Productions.

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Honorable Mentions

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The Lord Weird Slough Feg — “New Organon”

(Cruz del Sur, USA)

Whereupon Mike Scalzi sets the Introduction to Philosophy 101 syllabus to some of the most dramatic, powerful, churning traditional metal since it was just called metal. It’s the strongest Slough Feg release in some time, possibly ever, which is saying a lot.

Bonus: read my interview with Mike Scalzi.

Big|Brave — “A Gaze Among Them”

(Southern Lord Records, USA)

In some ways, A Gaze Among Them is the most accessible album yet from the post-rock trio, I said in my Upcoming Metal Releases blurb. All of it is a vehicle for Robin Wattie’s distinctive, plaintive wail that makes her simultaneously seem vulnerable, yet someone not to be trifled with. She adds a very human element that artsy metal is sorely lacking.

Brutus — “Nest”

(Sargent House, Belgium)

The second album from the band that began life as a Refused cover band lacks the immediacy and overwhelming charm of their debut, but Nest makes up for that with a more sophisticated sound. Fortunately this growth does nothing to mute the band’s penchant for furious pop-infused songcraft while it helps drummer/vocalist Stefanie Mannaerts deliver her most confident performance to date.

The Wraith — “Gloom Ballet”

(Southern Lord Recordings, USA)

The City of Angels has another band that dwells in darkness to call its own. On the debut album from The Wraith, the group take Killing Joke’s death disco blueprint (see “Wing of Night”) and add touches of synth-punk, 1980s New Romanticism, old school goth-rock, and the deathrock that crawled from their adopted city’s streets decades ago. It makes me want to drink absinthe in a punk squat.

Lingua Ignota — “Caligula”

(Profound Lore Recordings, USA)

Her show that I reviewed earlier this year was performance art unlike any show I have ever seen, but all of the drama comes from Caligula. Song titles such as “If the poison won’t take you my dogs will,” sentiments such as “Who will love you if I don’t? Who will fuck you if I won’t,” and bloodcurdling screams during “Do you doubt me Traitor” all add up to an intensity that could kill at 20 paces.

The Coathangers — “Devil You Know”

(Suicide Squeeze, USA)

The sixth album from The Coathangers proves that you can take the band out of the garage but you can’t take the garage out of the band. Sometimes quirky, sometimes heavy, a lot of times making points that need to be made (“Fuck the NRA”), the band kicks ass but have a lot of fun doing it.

Petrol Girls — “Cut & Stitch”

(Full Time Hobby, UK)

An album rooted in the past — the late Polystyrene of X-Ray Spex is sampled and an overall feel of early punk rock’s naive hopefulness abounds — also manages to be completely forward-thinking as well. Vocalist Ren Aldridge transforms the band with her personalized look at the world around her and her place in it. In a perfect world “No Love for a Nation” would be an alternative radio smash across the world.

Zig Zags — “They’ll Never Take Us Alive”

(RidingEasy Records, USA)

Imagine a parallel universe where Cliff Burton didn’t die in that bus crash. In it, he crashes into the room, throws out the therapists, and slams this album down on the table.

“This,” he says with a scowl, “is what we need to get back to.”

One month later, Metallica emerges with the best album they’ve made in years.

Neptune Power Federation — “Memoirs Of A Rat Queen”

(Cruz del Sur, Australia)

Not many bands have the audacity to ape Queen, let alone make that fact so obvious it’s in the title of their damn album, but not many bands are The Neptune Power Federation. Glammy riffs skyrocket from left to right in your speakers and emerging from them are the ghosts of Bowie and Marc Bolan. It’s grandiose and glittery and a hell of a lot of fun.

Chelsea Wolfe — “Birth of Violence”

(Sargent House, USA)

Although this album is a throwback to Wolfe’s coffeehouse dark folk genesis, a conscious effort to back away from the more metallic heft of her last couple of records, in every way it’s even heavier. Birth of Violence is sparse, allowing the listener to fill in the expanses, as she reclaims not only her past but her present and future as well.

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Less than a month after swinging through town with Obituary, Midnight was the sole support for classic stoner doom outfit Electric Wizard. Anyone who thought the band might have changed their approach in front of a vastly different crowd likely didn’t think things through. Midnight plays the same no matter who is headlining. The Cleveland group panders to no one and caters to anyone who appreciates a mixture of Venom’s low-fi bludgeoning and the Mentors’ low-budget theatrics.

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Midnight. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

Midnight

Midnight. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

Midnight

Midnight. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Midnight. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

Midnight

Midnight. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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“You think I’m intelligent,” bassist/vocalist Jamie “Athenar” Walters rhetorically asked. “I’m from Cleveland.” This was likely not a stolen slogan from the city’s tourism board.

The boys thrashed and burned for 45 unrelenting minutes of sloppy solos, simple rhythms, and an unbridled celebration of everything Midnight feel qualifies as metal. Whether they converted or scared any doom metallers probably didn’t matter as long as there was beer backstage.

Then, it felt like maybe the cavernous Fillmore main stage was a bit ambitious for Electric Wizard. The last time they came through in 2015 they played the Union Transfer which is about half the size, plus High on Fire played the night before and Tool the night before that, which is a lot of expensive heavy lethargy for consecutive weekdays. This show wasn’t sold out, but the room looked respectable which was a testament to Philly fans supporting the scene as well as a band that comes by infrequently enough that they’re not to be missed when they do.

That, and Electric Wizard is quite good.

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1970s Satan-ploitation films aired behind the band, the grainy footage filtered through a haze of psychedelic swirls and pot smoke from sneaky hessians. It really tied the room together, these freaky images, the contact buzz, the smell of stale beer in the venue’s dark corners, and a band that is the audio embodiment of all of that plus some harder recreationals that were smartly left in the car.

It’s a stereotype that the classic doom bands are too stoned to move and Electric Wizard do nothing to contradict convention. Liz Buckingham lurched on her side of the stage to the rhythm of her sludgy riffs; Haz Wheaton flanked the other side, his pick furiously flailing against his bass; Jus Oborn balanced them out in the middle. Simon Poole didn’t venture far but that’s par for the course for drummers. They banged their heads constantly, ensuring nobody ever quite saw their faces, but did so in place without wandering more than a few feet in either direction.

This was also a perfect (albeit likely unintentionally so) metaphor for music which lacks dynamism by design. It’s just goddamn heavy.

Electric Wizard defines doom and redefines nothing and is quite happy doing so. The variety between the dirty grime of “Black Masses,” the nihilistic blues of “Return Trip,” and the menacing Sabbathian spires and pyres of “Incense for the Damned” and “Satanic Rites of Drugula” are incremental and infinitesimal, yet also incredibly profound. “Funeralopolis,” with folk-styled picking that gets obliterated by the meatiest of riffs played this evening (which is no mean feat), closed the set.

Then Electric Wizard shuffled off the stage. No encore. They made their point pretty clear and what more was there to say?

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Now that this tour has rolled through Philly, it has been revealed that Midnight — along with Gatecreeper and Necrot who also just played Philly with Exhumed — have been added to the upcoming Philly edition of Decibel Fest (with Mayhem, Converge, Napalm Death, Pig Destroyer, Abbath, Satan, and more).

The Electric Wizard / Midnight tour ends Friday (11/22) in MA.

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Built from Chaos lived up to their name with a set that seemed to teeter on and off the ledge due to technical difficulties and likely a lack of seasoning. The local foursome had more dead air than a college radio deejay, but made up for it with enthusiasm.

The band calls themselves melodic death metal, but vocalist Julian Yeager rarely evinced a convincing growl. He spent more time scowling or actually singing. As a result the band came off more like groove metal, with occasional flourishes of musicianship. At times it sounded disjointed, like all four members bring slightly different influences and they try to find a happy medium. When it works, such as on the bass-chugging metalcore “Voices,” it shows promise, which is all you can hope for.

Iron Kingdom knows battles of all kinds: figurative ones they triumphantly recount in their lyrics as well as literal ones that come about from self-releasing four albums over eight years and doing shoestring DIY tours throughout North America. This lead to weekday shows supporting local bands that play alongside inflatable sharks in the corners of upstairs bars like The Tusk.

There was no stage and they brought their own lights (which frankly were better than in some venues that actually have a stage), and they absolutely killed it.

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Iron Kingdom is all iron and not a drop of irony, a true throwback to the exact moment when North American bands started to emulate Iron Maiden and Saxon but before the nexus of thrash. This shines through in a presentation that draws so perfectly on trad-metal trappings it’s like someone popped open a time capsule from 1981 and they stumbled out.

Bassist Leighton Holmes thrust his axe into the air more often than he held it. Megan Merrick and Chris Osterman traded off guitar solos with such a vintage flair they really should note in the lyrics who did ’em like just like Tipton and Downing on those perfect Priest records. Chris Sonea did an actual arena-metal drum solo to boot. And each of them hammed it up, mugging for camera phones, truly embodying what metal used to be when metalheads filled muscle cars with feathered roach clips and feathered hair and they mugged for actual cameras.

Being a supporter of the arts, I picked up the band’s catalogue at the show and it was apparent that it took a while for them to reach this point (maybe the new addition of Merrick was the catalyst — she really seems to bring the best out of Osterman — though more likely it took a while for him to really learn how to use that great voice). Their latest release On the Hunt may be the sleeper trad metal album of the year. Fortunately, the band played most of it.

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It’s been a long time since metal galloped. It’s been almost as long since a frontman like Osterman came around. There’s an obvious Biff Byford comparison to be made, though on the likes of “White Wolf” and “Road Warriors” you hear the range of a young Axl Rose, if he had an appetite for a different kind of destruction.

It’s actually a good time to harken back to the good times; there are a few other bands riding the revival. Haunt seems the brightest light, Cauldron add rockin’ with Dokken to their NWOBHM brew, Eternal Champion and Sanhedrin make it pretty easy to ditch Dio holograms for flesh and blood. They all admirably take it to ten, but Iron Kingdom goes all the way to 11.

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Warbringer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

Warbringer 1

Warbringer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Warbringer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Warbringer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Warbringer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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Enforcer. Photo credit: Brian O'Neill

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If something seems like déjà vu, that’s not because two bands trade in well-trod tropes — at least that’s not the only reason. In early 2016, Enforcer and Warbringer ran a co-headlining North American tour with Cauldron in tow. Obviously, the experience was positive enough that, three years later, they’re willing to share stages and rages together again. They even shared a member, Chase Becker — Warbringer’s six-stringer handled bass duties for Enforcer.

Warbringer harkens back to the days when our West Coast was churning out quality thrash from both ends of California. You hear latter period Slayer, especially with the slower grinding solos at the end of “Demonic Ecstasy,” alongside a slew of frantic moments akin to Dark Angel’s aural assault. It’s a safe bet that they listened to underrated riff-masters Forbidden a time or three in their formative years as evidenced on “Hunter-Seeker” and the churning thrash workout “Living in a Whirlwind.” This band gets it.

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The reverence carried over to the sparse but enthusiastic battle-vest-encrusted crowd that received a lot of encouragement to form circle pits from heshed-out vocalist John Kevill (rhymes with “devil,” fuck yeah) who kept ‘em counterclockwise like they’re supposed to go. “Firepower Kills” was the only new track they performed from their latest album, due out next year. If this ripper of a song is any indication, the forthcoming disc will be pure speed held together with a controlled abandon that would fit in with Exodus’s chunky post-Bonded by Blood material quite nicely.

Warbringer emphasized this was a co-headlining tour by playing a three-song encore: the Testament tech of “Silhouettes,” “Woe to the Vanquished,” and the tumultuous triple-time thrasher “Living Weapon” that closed the set.

If Warbringer is about good-natured head-smashing pit camaraderie, Enforcer feels more like a party. This contrast in styles is what made their previous tour such a success.

Olof Wikstrand isn’t wearing that raccoon eyeliner like he did three years ago, but that doesn’t stop Enforcer from reviving the days when the NWOBHM birthed the classic makeup-clad likes of Heavy Pettin’ and Tokyo Blade. Enforcer ignores the era’s bands that looked back (Witchfinder General) and forward (Iron Maiden); instead they take their cues from the bands that looked like rock stars — and sounded like them too – with bright choruses instead of grunts and Priestly solo breaks instead of mosh parts.

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Enforcer is a lot heavier than most traditional metal, though, with neo-classical flourishes (“Destroyer”) and allusions to early Mercyful Fate. There’s a reason they got lumped in with the thrash metal revival at the start of the millennium, and that was evident on the Philly stage — the songs are played even faster live but they all have a noticeably shiny patina. The melodies are as anthemic as power metal and just as fist-pumping as well; when they led the crowd in a “woah-woah-woah” singalong during “Take Me Out of this Nightmare” it was way more Dokken than Diamond Head.

At the conclusion of the set, they didn’t do an encore. Instead they slunk off the stage while the Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” played over the PA. It might have been a little better had it been “Rocks Off,” but Enforcer’s point was still crystal clear even for the thrashers whose necks were already starting to get sore.

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The name Ogre is perfect for a traditional metal band with classic rock sensibilities. The image of a lumbering, grotesque, powerful, and solitary creature fits in perfectly with the expected Neolithic riffs and plodding tempos. It was such an impeccable moniker, actually, that an Idaho bar band took the name in the early 1970s — the Portland, Maine group that later took the name showed their respect by covering one of their songs “Soulless Woman” on 2014’s The Last Neanderthal.

It took five years for the band to release the follow-up Thrice as Strong (hitting shelves on October 25th). That’s not too surprising since the band has always been deliberate: since forming in 1999, this is only their fifth album, though a hiatus from 2009-2013 didn’t catalyze things (the preceding LP was the culmination of their comeback). What is surprising is how Ogre has always kept a consistent line-up (Ed Cunningham on bass and vocals, guitarist Ross Markonish, and Will Broadbent on drums) and how, 20 years after forming, they now find themselves with Cruz del Sur Music, perhaps their biggest opportunity yet.

And it makes sense, because Thrice as Strong is the strongest album the trio has released. The band’s overwhelming love for Black Sabbath is made abundantly clear; however it’s more than just Markonish wringing out proto-doom from his guitar and Cunningham’s nasal wail. A lot of bands approximate Iommi and Osbourne, but Ogre instead more delicately captures the atmosphere that seminal bands heretofore have conjured.

Those feelings of “sludgy hash smoke” influenced Gothic music and a few witty metal bands, with Ogre executing on one of the finer jobs capturing that essence. This is made no clearer than on Thrice as Strong‘s second track “Hive Mind,” premiering exclusively below. Ogre feels out the Brummie boogie quite nicely, letting a rollicking riff and Broadbent’s crash cymbals genuinely swing. The song also shares Sabbath’s well-known tropes of modernity gone tragically wrong, something beneficially present on the rest of Thrice as Strong. Dig in.

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Markonish said the following regarding Thrice as Strong and “Hive Mind”:

“Hive Mind” is a song that we first started working on four to five years ago, shortly after we released our prior album The Last Neanderthal, making it the “oldest” song on Thrice as Strong. At the time, we were flirting with the idea of writing a more straight-up rock album with shorter songs and “Hive Mind” stood out as the best of the bunch (you can decide for yourself whether or not a nearly six-minute track should be considered “short,” but it certainly is in the Ogre universe!) — it’s got all the classic Ogre elements, a balance of heavy 1970s rock and doom elements and plenty of riffs. It has gone over really well with our hometown crowds, fitting right in with our older material. Lyrically, this album focuses a bit more on present-day woes, rather than our usual tales of the distant past or far future; “Hive Mind” is no exception. Here, Ed tackles the issue of how we’ve become slaves to our technology, a familiar tale for sure, but one that still needs to be told.

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Thrice as Strong releases October 25th via Cruz del Sur Music. Vinyl preorders here and CDs here. Stream another single below:

Ogre celebrates their 20th anniversary (and the album’s release) with a hometown show at Geno’s Rock Club in Portland, Maine on December 14th.

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Everything went black. Opening act Void Vision had left the stage a while ago, their retro synth-pop already a distant memory. The venue suddenly was completely devoid of light save for some cantina fixtures over the Underground Arts bar.

That’s when the screaming started.

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We still couldn’t see anything in the darkness. All we could hear were her tortured voice and a single piano. The cracking vocals of “Do You Doubt Me Traitor” came out from the lightless stage.

I don’t eat, I don’t sleep.
I don’t eat, I don’t sleep.
I don’t eat, I don’t sleep.
I don’t eat, I don’t sleep.
I don’t eat.
I let it consume me.

And everyone was consumed along with her. And the show has yet to really begin. You wonder of the darkness will ever end.

And then it does. Kind of.

She’s not on the stage. Too easy. In the middle of the room, a haggard frock of clear plastic sheeting hangs from the exposed pipes in the ceiling. She is near that, off the stage, in the crowd. Then, like an apparition, she seems to float among the crowd.

How can you doubt me now?
Satan, get beside me.

Decades of seeing bands live in concert does not prepare for this. One song in, she is yelping, gasping, questioning. “How do I break you?”

I. Do. Not. Know.

When all this is ended
As cruel as I am
Remember how I loved you
But that nothing, nothing can stand.

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Lingua Ignota. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Lingua Ignota. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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Lingua Ignota. Photo credit: Tashina Byrd

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One song in, Lingua Ignota project mastermind Kristin Hayter (bonus: check out our interview from earlier this year) hasn’t even set foot on the stage and it’s possible she never will. There’s nothing up there, no band, nothing. The music is prerecorded. It doesn’t matter. She owns it. She owns it all.

She actually does go on the stage, the front of it. She is flanked by audience members who just wound up there with nobody to stop them. She has her microphone in one hand and in the other, a clamp light, the industrial kind that might be used for auto repair, which she shines on herself and on the audience and onto the plastic.

She leaves the stage, and proceeds to spend the entire time in front of it. She uses the frayed, hanging sheet as her anchor, twisting around in it, shining the light through it, while other industrial lights illuminate it from the floor.

To test a theory, I jumped on the stage. No resistance. I’m standing among the bank of keyboards leftover from the support act. She resides on the other side of her makeshift curtain, behind it so I cannot see her, but it doesn’t matter. I can hear her as she plaintively wails while piped-in piano plays.

Who will love you if I don’t?
Who will fuck you if I won’t?

The crowd around her stares. I can’t see her, but I can hear her and feel her presence and it’s as real as the muted keys that accompany her. She would do this without an audience, I think. This ritual is personal. We’re lucky to be allowed to watch as she purges everything and everything and everything. “If the poison won’t take you, my dogs will.”

On Caligula, Lingua Ignota’s visceral latest album, this line from the song of the same title is sung angrily, a menacing growl that shows she means business, or at least needs to convince someone she does, and maybe it’s her that needs convincing. On the floor of Underground Arts, it’s different. It’s somber, resigned to whatever fate it’s due. She sings how she wants to. Lines that were recorded to sound measured come off manic here, and sometimes screams become whispers. Your own Lingua Ignota show will be different. It has to be.

“All I know is violence,” Hayter exclaims.

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She thrashed throughout the song, against the sheet, tangled within it, seemingly unable to escape. She screams, she screams, over and over. She throws the light to the floor and it crashes and then goes dark. Then she darkens every other light. She quickly escapes under the cover of her darkness.

She whisked by me, far faster than she had any right to do so with the darkness and the monitors and the equipment on the stage I shouldn’t have been on. I felt her air, the breeze she made more than her actually, and before I could react she was gone.

And it was over.

Lingua Ignota is unlike any other artist performing in heavy music today; her show is unlike any other show I’ve seen before. It’s more performance art than musical performance, and all cathartic release. It’s way more Diamanda Galas than whatever definition of metal might be employed, but in these times, we can have her too. In these times, this can be metal, an artist shrieking to pre-recorded piano, a woman defiantly reclaiming herself from those who would try and take her.

And she performs for the benefit of all of us, mouths agape, and it matters not what band shirt we wear or what patches we don as we bear slack-jawed witness to the raw power Lingua Ignota can unleash.

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There’s more than meets the Eye Flys. That’s not just an attempt at clever wordplay; it’s a fact of life since the band is an underground supergroup of sorts.

Eye Flys formed when Patrick Forrest, former drummer from Backslider (“pain rock” purveyors with a decade-long discography including two albums and a slew of EPs), saw that Spencer Hazard announced he was temporarily relocating to Philadelphia.

“I knew Spencer from when Backslider played with [Full of Hell] a bunch of times. He posted [online] that he was looking to start up something when he was in town,” recalled the drummer over drinks in the back room of Gojjo, an Ethiopian restaurant not far from his West Philly residence. “I was like, ‘Hey, we should jam sometime, but I don’t really want to do a fast band because we already did fast music.’ He was like, ‘Neither do I. I’m thinking Melvins.’”

That would be prophetic given the project would eventually take on the name of the Melvins song. It was especially prescient since Forrest had already been working on material by himself long before he and Hazard jammed for the first time. “We kind of were real serious off the bat. We knew what we wanted to do, and it just kind of gelled.”

They recruited bassist Jake Smith from Backslider. “I said no first,” he laughed as he squeezed lime into his drink. “Too much going on; I was like this will be a bad idea from the start.”

Forrest made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “I was like, the catch is you’ve got to sing, because neither of us is going to sing, and we really want to keep it a trio,” he laughed. “It took a little convincing, but he was down.”

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Eventually the band decided not to keep it a trio when Smith got the itch to ditch his bass. “I really wanted to play guitar,” he said. “I consider myself a guitar player first. I hadn’t played guitar in a band seriously in a handful of years and I feel like that’s the shit I want to do.”

They brought in Kevin Bernsten of Philly noisemakers Triac to handle the bass duties, feeling he would fit right in. “I feel like Triac was the perfect mix of Unsane and grind,” said Forrest, “and I just kind of went off with that.”

Eye Flys takes more than just their name from a seminal 1990s noise-rock band. The band’s debut Context EP, released just today via Thrill Jockey Records, is one explosive overture after another of abrasive, menacing, mid-tempo homages to the days when cranky indie rockers recorded for Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go.

The drummer nodded, “Even at the end of Backslider, you can feel on Motherfucker, the influences there; I was definitely getting more and more into Unsane, Cherubs, The Jesus Lizard, all of that. After a while, playing in punk and hardcore and grind bands, just playing so fast all the time… it was just kind of relaxing for me.”

Despite outward appearances, noise rock was not a homogenous movement, even during that specific era. On the Context EP, Eye Flys tempers impulses for the chaotic with controlled song structures. “Stems” is dirgy Melvins worship, “Crushing the Human Spirit” is raw rock aggression akin to the lost and lamented Surgery, whereas “Weaponize” — the first song the band reworked from Forrest’s demos he worked on before ever forming the band — reminds of the poppiest band from that scene, Helmet. The final tally resides in a sweet spot drawing from both extremes.

“That’s pretty much what we’re going for,” Forrest enthused. “You don’t want it to be a total fucked up thing. We want there to be songs.”

Smith elaborated, “We’re a great contrast for each other because I think we push each other a little bit in the opposite directions. In my adult life I’ve played in punk rock bands so there’s a space there for me where I’m like, I want it to be catchy, I want a verse-chorus situation. But you don’t know how many times I’ve heard Pat say, ‘I want things to be real fucked up.’ I’m into that, but sometimes he’s got to push me into that space.’

With three-quarters of the band in concurrent projects, and Full of Hell in particular having many touring and recording commitments, when will Eye Flys be able to tour and add to the dozen regional shows they have done to date?

“We don’t exactly know,” conceded Smith. “We hugely rely on Spencer, and we have a lot of other shit going on. Matt’s got a briefing of all of our schedules for the year. But we are eager to get out and tour as much as we can.

“We’re doing something really cool next spring that folks will hear about soon — we’re going to track a [full-length] record that’s going to come out next spring; we’re going to do a tour that’s going to be really fun after that. We’re working through Heavy Talent so they’re trying to help us get some stuff that fits with our schedule. You’ll see us out on the road for sure.”

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The Context EP released today via Thrill Jockey.

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