Braving a bitterly cold Melbourne midwinter evening I arrive at the Northcote social club and am greeted by a stage laden with vintage musical equipment, no high tech modern equipment in sight. Suddenly the house music dims and the Cascades takes to the stage.
Their set begins with a droney, ambient intro led by the keyboard player and guitarists with the bass player providing some unusual textures via sound effects like scratching his pick on the strings. Suddenly the tempo picks up, the somewhat rough and gravelly vocals become more pushed and the band launches into an addictive groove laden, fuzzed out riff. Cascades set featured good use of dynamics for building and releasing tension, spacious, clean and melodious sections in which the keyboards added a fantastic element of depth and soundscape and chunky riffs galore. Overall their performance was solid and enjoyable, however a touch more movement on stage definitely wouldn’t go astray.
Second to take the stage is Bog, surprisingly loud for a 3 piece band and full to the brim with aggression. With all three members contributing to vocals on top their main instrument, it’s no surprise that they managed such a large and commanding sound.
Taking the frantic and extreme elements of black metal such as blast beats and tremolo picking and blending them with driving, fuzzy psych rock riffs and crushing slow dissonant chords was a very interesting choice and one that seems to be quite effective at catching and holding the attention of the rapidly swelling audience as many seemed completely entranced by the performance taking place.
Ambience once again makes an appearance throughout many of Bog’s songs, however due to the far more limited range of personnel on stage, layers and harmonies are more restricted. With these sections serving as more of a palate cleanser, breaking up the lengthy songs and adding some variety to the timbre which effectively combated the possibility of the listener feeling that things could get samey.
The curtains are drawn as Bog end their set, and the tension picks up. After a short time Pallbearer begins to hit their opening notes and the curtains suddenly pull back as the band throws highly energetic and punchy riffs at the crowd. Pallbearer offers a highly polished and refined doom performance and showcase their worth as an international touring band, with stage presence and energy seemingly relentless and an incredibly well executed set.
Even though the guitars are highly distorted as they manage to remain significantly clearer than the other acts of the night, with many great examples of layering, interesting melodies over the top of high energy riffs and engaging harmonies and guitar solos. Punctuating this, Pallbearer drummer Mark Lierly provides a solid backbone to the wall of sound issuing forth and adds a great degree of excitement to the riffs with tasteful fills and competent playing that doesn’t get overly technical or convoluted. Instead it holds and encapsulates the instruments and provides a platform upon which the vocals sit.
Taking inspiration from early doom bands of the seventies the vocals Brett Campbell offers are heavily rooted in melody, with an expressive and emotional performance this lends to the notion that all of the songs pallbearer has to offer really take the listener on a journey, mature songwriting skills and an impressive grip on dynamic structure make it easy to forget single tracks can last for as long as twelve minutes. A feat which is by no means easy to accomplish in this day and age of instant gratification and disposable art.