Death Valley Dragline is definitely one of my favorite local bands, and I just found out about them recently. Whenever they have played a show I am either already going to another show or I'm out of town, so when I found out they were playing Saturday night at Macs, I was super excited.
DVD was a three piece where the drummer was the singer before they found their new singer. I didn't even notice a difference because Joe just blends so well with the band. The band was saying that they have enough material for a new record which I am very excited about. Their metal sound reminds me of old school bands, with the screaming sounding like Billy Idol, starting from softer and increasing into that kind of cry, high pitched scream.
Death Valley has a great sound, one that can transcend the line between metal and more accessible music- not saying they should sell out to become "radio" metal, but they could definitely tap into more groups.
Suma, a band from Sweden (I believe), was a very weird band to watch. One thing that's cool is that they have the drums in the front of the stage and have the computer in that back, that makes some of the machine sounds voice echos that back the music. There was a little too much build-up before the first song truly started, it was cool at first but then it just kept going. The singer was doing weird hand movements through the whole set- it looked like a mix between magic tricks and Tai Chi... Later I decided that he was trippin' on acid because he started to pick things out of the air that did NOT exist.
Suma would be way better if the singer was different. His voice didn't really seem to match the other musicians, but it could have been because he has the sound guy turn up his vocals so it was too loud above the drums and guitar. Whatever it was it didn't seem to matter because there were a lot of people watching and listening, in fact most of the people at the bar were up by the stage. They definitely care about putting on a performance- the build-up, the dramatic hand movements, and working the songs into that sort of climatic-then-drop-off style.
Next up was Unearthly Trance from New York. The New York thing was epitomized in their punk meets metal type sound. They were bad ass. The band overall was nicely balanced- the drums didn't go over everything else, the guitars didn't take out the vocals and the singing feet perfectly with the music. They also used a recording of some sort to add those extra sounds that the musicians can't do.
Unearthly Trance's kind of off/syncopated punk style of singing and of the technical musicality was awesome to listen to. You can't anticipate what's going to happen, it doesn't just follow the same pattern through the whole song. And their transitions between a softer/chill sound and the punk/metal were smooth and came in the perfect parts. The drumming, however, was kind of "simple" compared to most metal bands and in a few parts he seemed to be a half beat behind or something, but it didn't ruin the band- in fact in some parts it added to the punk sound.
Calvacade was the last band and again the singing didn't seem to fit the music. With a more punk influence with indie-ish influence was paired with death-core screaming- a deep, dark, guttural scream. It just seemed off, I mean everyone can have the sound that they want and people can like whatever they want, but in mind the dissonance between the screaming and the music just doesn't work together. Their sound overall reminds me of some of the earlier Interpol records, but the singing can be heard on a lot of death and black metal records.
They played a new song that was dedicated to their "friends for hanging out cause it won't be perfect and neither are you." During this song the bassist used the mic stand to stretch his strings, which I've never really seen done before, so that was interesting. The bassist aids in singing in most of the songs also, and in my mind he should take over that responsibility full time.
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