A Place to Bury Strangers - Mississippi Studios, Portland OR - June 12, 2018

[New York City] I was legitimately excited to see this band. I came across them when figuring out my 2013 SXSW schedule and every single song I hear by them is: Yes. Slick dark synthy-rock. … … It was a Tuesday though … it was already 11pm when they started milling around … around the stage but not on it. Some of them walked back and forth from the stage to the bar a few times. The woman stood at the side ceremonially taking her shoes off. I was feeling real itchy. And then all of a sudden … … they were on the stage and they were playing and it was bombastic. And they sounded nothing like what I’d expected. Thunderous, chaotic. It was an unceasing onslaught of noise and lights. Super dark stage outside of the epilepsy-inducing lights. No chatting with the crowd. Later on, the lead guy started waving around a rectangle strobe light thing—I had to look away—and then started playing his guitar with it…. or something. In other areas of disregard for the audience, the bassist went off on a long psych-y solo. I didn’t realize til later the night had a heavy shoegaze theme… and deathrock. I don’t know if it was the venue’s bad sound or they’re different live or I just sort of mischaracterize them as slick, clean, driving. They’re more rollicking goth dance? Maybe like TSOL or Fields of the Nephilim. Thrash Joy Division?

The 2^nd song was more consistent with how I think of them. The songs the bassist sang sounded more like what I know of them. The third was like death speed metal – reminded me of that uncomfortable metal show centered around death themes, while my dad was really dying… The drummer might be everything in this band, a red-haired maniac. There was one eerie song where she played a mini harp as she sang along sweetly and then the guitarists would come in with distortion and destroy it – it was good. At one point, the lead person threw his guitar … softly… he might have soft-thrown a drumset too – I couldn’t really see. In other continuing themes of the night, even though I was one an entirely different side of the room next to an entirely different girl, there was hot air on my shoulder for the whole set. Control your breath! J They ended by opening up a portal to hell in the middle of the crowd—again, from what I could see, one or more band members were in the center of the crowd along with a solid beam of light shining up. In the end, Sextile were more dance-y and kind to the ear, but I remain a committed fan of the recorded material of A Place to Bury Strangers… although they might get a shorter name. On this night, I was 18 days from GM deadline.