Channeling anger

When I saw the lineup for the Monday night show at the Food Hole, I immediately knew my hearing would be affected for several days after the show – and I wasn’t disappointed. Every single one of the bands brought great performances and extremely loud amps to the tiny space of the Food Hole.

Portland locals Rabbits opened the night of the heavy. Rabbits play ugly, distorted, thick sludge-metal that’s heavy on the bottom end of the sound spectrum. The two guitarists (Rabbits are surprisingly without a bass player) pounded out the jams with a good amount of energy. While hardly the highlight of the night, that honor would go to Torche, Rabbits still held their own against a stellar lineup.

Black Cobra went on after Rabbits and more than any other band that played Monday night, their brand of distorted sludge-metal mayhem destroyed my ears. The reason for this probably has to do with my proximity to the PA speakers, which function at the Food Hole solely as vocal amplification so it was all screamy, trebly angst. Black Cobra played a set comprised mostly of songs from their soon-to-be-released album, Bestial. The new album is a solid testament to the members’ past in the bands Cavity and 16, and shows new musical tendencies that are unique to Black Cobra. The songs translated well live, and I don’t for a moment question my choice to have violence done against my ears. Black Cobra were that good.

Seattle band Akimbo have been playing Portland on a fairly regular basis since the release of their new album, Forging Steel and Laying Stone, but I have yet to get burnt out on them. Akimbo play music with so much groove and so many righteous riffs that it would take something quite drastic for me to tire of their music. Monday night wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen Akimbo play, probably because they had someone filling in for the normal guitarist. Overall, Akimbo played a good set but were outshined by Torche and Black Cobra.

Now, as they say, for the main event: Torche, in all their amazing glory. This band played what is perhaps one of the greatest sets I have ever seen. Now I knew that Torche would be good going into the night. They had put out one of my favorite albums of last year with their self-titled Robotic Empire release. The band features members of seminal sludge band Floor, whose songs I had heard they were covering on this tour, but I didn’t expect them to be as remarkable as they were on Monday.

Torche surprised much of the audience (including me) by choosing to set up their three full stacks of amplifiers in the middle of the room. This ended up working distinctly to their advantage, as well as the audience’s, because this setup made for an awesome amount of crowd interaction. That interaction consisted of guitarist Steve Brooks being in, around, through and many times on top of the audience throughout the set. Torche’s set really took off when they switched to guitars that they literally tuned to rumble or what they refer to as “the bomb string” (maybe the most aptly titled tuning ever). This tuning basically consists of the low string on the guitar being completely de-tuned, and then hit hard to create a sound that is extremely reminiscent of a bomb going off. This technique, pioneered while in Floor, works well in a recording, but live it is almost too powerful. If you ever have a chance to see Torche – do it! They will not disappoint.