Live Music Review //
Space Camp / Kidnapped / Intercourse
Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop Chop / Doom Beach
February 12th, 2023
@ The Space Ballroom, Hamden CT
If you ever needed more evidence that the Connecticut music scene was thriving, this weekend would be the best place to find it. Though a show unlike the one the night before, it was another packed house and bands doing what they do best. This was, in many ways, a hardcore show, but all of these artists brought their own rendition to what that means exactly. And, as with the night before, it was a roster of artists who all had similar sounds at their core but none sounded exactly alike.
The show opened with Doom Beach, who I saw at Willimantic Records late last year. It still amazes me how loud two musicians playing together can fill up a room. If people ask about the local music scene in CT, Doom Beach is one of the first artists I like to go to as a "Have you heard them?" I'm not sure there is a better two piece out there right now, creating this combination of hardcore music with just harsh noise. It just has to be heard (and experienced live) to fully get.
Up next was Chopx7 and this was their album release show. Chopx7 set up a table and played music that was somewhere between harsh noise and hip hop. The vocals scream as sometimes the songs can be short enough to just feel like a jab to the throat. The thing about Chopx7 that I really like is that this isn't the type of music you just put on in the background while you do something else. This music remains at the forefront and as the center of attention. I really do enjoy when music is so in your face that you can't deny it.
As proof of this music and physical media as well, the new album has already sold out on cassette and I think that speaks volumes as well. Again, Chopx7 is another artist on this show that has those hardcore roots, but still utilizes the sound in a way which is unlike anyone else. This whole show was loud and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
To have that old school hardcore vibe and mix it with metal is how Intercourse sounds. Somewhere between Sick Of It All and Suicidal Tendencies, but also some of the early 2000's hardcore bands that don't get as much attention. Intercourse just has this presence on stage while at the same time you feel like after they play they're just going to leave the place in ashes. It really is remarkable that you can have these bands that have these hardcore bass lines that still have their own identity.
Kidnapped were up next and they were the band on this show that I knew the least about going into it. They had more of this straight forward hardcore style, with short songs and being very much in your face, and when I think about hardcore and when I got into it listening to local bands like Forced Reality, this is what I think of most. So I really did enjoy that this was more of an old school style of hardcore sound.
Space Camp is a tough one to describe because even having listened to their new album via streaming it just doesn't do the same thing live. There were moments where you could really hear the orchestra side of this sound, but then there were also moments where it was just this giant wave of loud that wiped out everything and anything. I'm not sure I've ever felt anything quite this loud before and it's how I would imagine it feels to get hit by a bus.
I'm going to try and explain this next part the best that I can, but it's worth it. To the right side of the stage there is a hallway which leads to where "artists only" go. It was roped off, but then instruments were being moved around. In this hallway there exists a light on the wall with two lightbulbs. One lightbulb was lit, the other was not. During the Space Camp set, there was one point where the music became so loud and intense that the lightbulb on that wall which was not lit just completely shattered.
Someone, who I assume works there, went and got a broom and dust pan to clean it up after everyone who saw it kind of stood around in disbelief for a little bit. I've literally never seen something like this happen before. At a hardcore show, sure, maybe the band throws a drum stick and knocks out a light. But just from the sound, just from that wave of harsh noise, the lightbulb just ups and explodes... It really says more about the music, how intense and loud it is, than I ever could.
Comments
Post a Comment