Live Music Review //
Zipper / A Paramount, A Love Supreme / Doom Beach
October 9th, 2022
@ Willimantic Records
Willimantic, CT
Right away I feel the need to point out before I even get into the music that I haven't been to live music on purpose since before the pandemic. I've been to places that have had live music along with something else, but to go out of my way just to hear bands play is something I haven't done literally for years and nearly 100% of that reason is because of the pandemic.
This show was outside at Willimantic Records and the only other time I've been to Willimantic Records was when they lived across the train tracks. They have a new set up and what this comes down to is being set up in an alley. So it's kind of fun because you go out a door after going inside of the building and you feel kind of like you're in a cage.
The noon start time for this show also sold it for me because what better way to spend your Sunday afternoon than listening to these heavy bands play their music. Willimantic Records is close to an hour away, but after you get on 384 you take these sort of backroads and the whole drive just looks so pretty in Autumn, so knowing that we would also see that made this feel like it was worth the drive.
One of the best parts about this show was that it consisted of three bands and each of them had their own heavy sound. It all started with Doom Beach, a two piece from CT, and their sound is somewhere between hardcore / grindcore / metal and it's just heavy. With the screaming and loudness of the guitar, Doom Beach might have been the heaviest band on this show but, again, the others were heavy in different ways.
Doom Beach made me think of a band from the early 2000's on Black Market Activities and while A Paramount, A Love Supreme also had similar screaming and destruction within their songs they would take moments to just play these beautiful little bridges that were full of melody. It's that sound like Doom Beach, but A Paramount, A Love Supreme just felt like they were breaking down in math rock patterns at times, which made me feel like I Kill Giants or Tiny Moving Parts had an influence on the sound.
A Paramount, A Love Supreme is a three piece band from Delaware that was on tour and just that idea of being able to hang with the hardcore sound but also crossing over into something more intricate and melodic showed their range. If you come out and just feel like you're going balls to the wall (as they say) then you're going to be more like Doom Beach. But the contrast in styles within their own songs, the breaks-- it's just not what a lot of bands (if any) are doing or have ever done and that's what makes A Paramount, A Love Supreme so special.
The third and final band of the afternoon was a four piece from CT called Zipper. I should note now as well that behind where the bands were playing was a fence and that was facing the street. We could see the parking lot where we parked through there. So people would be walking, riding their bikes or whatever and just stop because they heard the music.
Without naming names or locations, I've walked through cities that felt like Willimantic and you might pass by a café that has someone playing an acoustic guitar and it could be folk or maybe blues but nothing this abrasive. That seemed to add an extra layer of enjoyment to the show, knowing that not just those who chose to hear it would be listening.
Zipper has more of a traditional hardcore punk sound. It's tough to place them within relation to other bands because in a lot of ways bands today are either punk or hardcore (unless they've been around forever) and so to hear someone playing this type of music still was refreshing. And, as with the way the show went, Zipper still had that heavy quality where you're at this show because you like heavy music and all three bands showed that.
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