Mountain
Dust, Zaum & Chronolith @Turbo Haus, September 30th 2016
To end
this warm month of September, I had to choose between three
interesting gigs happening on the same evening. It wasn't an easy
decision to make since I'm a big fan of Toronto's Demontage who were
opening for DBC at the Piranha Bar and the Red Bull Academy drone gig
seemed pretty attractive as well. In the end, I went with the style of music
closer to my earth, doom metal. After a long commute to the south
west of Montréal, I arrived in time to see the first band on the
bill.
Chronolith
are a fairly new local band and based on their singer, they play some
form of sludge. I guess they do but they're not your usual
run-of-the-mill sludge band. The guitar is fairly inventive and
sometimes inflicts ethnic influenced leads with a progressive
precision and the bass was quite loud with a clean and heavy sound.
They're not the dirty, heroin-addicted style of sludge, they belong
to the psychedelic school that Kylesa used to teach at. On some of
their songs, they had a violinist who added some richness to their
sound and it wasn't too dissimilar from what SubRosa are offering us.
The singer was pretty generic and didn't offer much as far as stage
presence is concerned but maybe he wasn't feeling well that night.
Anyhow, I liked their compositions and I'm looking forward to their
studio releases.
ZAUM: The duo
from Moncton are about to release their second full length (once
again on Sweden's I Hate Records) and they decided to do a short two
dates Québec trip before going overseas to play a massive European
tour. The metropolis was to first to host those two bearded gentlemen
and they didn't disappoint. They opened with "Influence of the
Magi" the first side of Eidolon, their new album, an extended
twenty minutes track full of twists and turns before playing two
older tracks. Zaum consists of drummer Chris Lewis and bassist/singer
Kyle McDons and those two guys are able to convey an impressive sense
of mighty power with their interesting formula. McDons is using a
wide array of pedals and his abilities exceed the comprehension of
mere mortals such as myself. He's also a sound engineer so he knows
exactly what to do to make his project sound great. Decorated with
their numerous personalized candles, the stage was blown to bits by
the subtle yet captivating red lights emanating from underneath
Lewis' drums and the whole setting really managed to give the
necessary aura their middle-eastern influenced approach to doom metal
needs. Thunderous, simple but not lo-fi, Zaum are all in and they
always deliver the slow, tasteful goods.
Previous
reviews of Zaum: Oracles (2014) and Himalaya To Mesopotamia (2015)
Mountain
Dust are perhaps Montréal's current best rock band and they closed
the evening. I had to miss their album release gig so I really wanted
to see them play their new songs live and it wasn’t disappointing.
The quartet plays heavy rock with an amalgam of influences from
diverse eras. You get the lap steel from the blues or country scene,
the keys from the Deep Purple and the presence of guitarist/singer
Brendan Mainville can recall everything from the grunge era to the
early proto hard rock days of the 60s. Speaking of this decade, the
band did a fantastic super heavy cover of The Doors’ “Waiting For
the Sun”. The dudes are all coming from a metal or hardcore
background so there’s this added heaviness to their vintage rock
and it’s highly fun to hear and watch. It’s authentic without
sounding like a pale copy of your dad’s record collection
Review
of their debut album Nine Years
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