YOB
Like every other YOB show this writer has witnessed, the music, both in composition and in delivery, spans the full spectrum of the detectable dynamic range. Emotions ebb and flow through YOB’s music. Pure fury will rise spontaneously out of glimmering beauty, only to subside as quickly as it came, back into the deep as waves of transcendence and enlightenment bury the wrath under gratitude. Not surprisingly, lead singer and guitar player Mike Scheidt had some sincere things to say about gratitude, a feeling which resonated throughout the raucous, but highly uplifting set. Featuring many songs from Our Raw Heart,
their new album, these songs roared and soared uniquely in a live setting.
Bell Witch
The legendary two man progressive doom outfit from Seattle owned their set. The saltiest, dirtiest, pit-hungry headbangers in the building stood transfixed as Bell Witch enveloped the room like binary supernovas oppositely orbiting hollow dimensions on the far side of the galaxy. The six string multi-finger harmonics of founding member and bass player Dylan Desmond elegantly used his six string multifinger harmonic technique, weaving warm and sonically dense melodies. Drummer Jesse Shreibman acts as the other centrifugal force, hammering the drums with the force and delivery of a dying star, each beat ringing resonantly,
like fractions of light traveling the universe and reaching far off constellations long after death.
Primitive Man
Much like ancient peoples’ heads must have painfully pulsed as they started to comprehend the chaos of existence, Primitive Man’s music throbs and lurches in the register of the sludgiest of primordial pits. Just as our ancestors inevitably saw red as mastodons, saber tooth cats, and woolly mammoths trampled their bodies, the only lighting provided during their set was a dull, aching pulse of red strobes, providing a forever setting sun to accompany ball-rumbling bass and guitar strikes that never seem to decay. Denver’s own held their own with this ultra-duty bill at the Bluebird.
All photos by Josef Bachmeier.