couch-slut

Live Report: Couch Slut at Saint Vitus

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Metal, in its lyrics, is ultimately predicated on darkness. For Mayhem, that darkness might manifest through satan worship. For Metallica, it might come from state violence, or from mythical beasts. But for Couch Slut, the darkness is self-evident: life as a woman is filled with its daily terrors, and last night at Saint Vitus, Megan Osztrosits blew those nightmares up for the entire audience to see.

Following sets from Finnish noise rock band Throat, Brooklyn punk outfit HAAN, and Brooklyn prog-punk band Netherlands, Osztrosits and the rest of Couch Slut took to the stage. But the band barely made it halfway through the first song before Osztrosits left the comfort and remove of the elevated platform and entered the crowd, barefoot, trudging through the sweaty masses. Covered in blood — coming from her lip, her leg, her face — Oszrosits was the embodiment of terror, as she let out her piercing, pained screams.

The rest of the band, for the most part, acted like a backing band to her personal diary of anger and frustration. “I love these guys,” she said, before launching into “Rape Kit,” an emotionally charged slowburn of a song based on Osztrosits’s assault and carjacking. The band mostly performed songs from their debut LP My Life as a Woman, but they also, excitingly, played one new song from an upcoming third LP, the follow up to 2017’s Contempt. According to guitarist Kevin Wunderlich, the LP is vaguely in the works to be released in 2019.

They wrapped after only a few songs, with Osztrosits saying she “can’t do anymore.” But it was hard to blame her after such a raw, confrontational performance, that saw Osztrosits screaming in the faces of audience members as she slowly made her way up and down the entire crowd at Saint Vitus. Couch Slut proved, once again, that the truest nightmares aren’t works of fantasy, but personal terrors that are hard to shake. Perhaps that’s why, after leaving a Couch Slut show, Osztrosits expressions — her disgust, her anger — stick with you hours after your ears stop ringing from the noise.

Couch Slut’s latest album Contempt released on July 28 2017 via Gilead Media. Stream it here.