orlandooomdotcom

After a long afternoon of being treated like an OBT hooker by thunderstorms, the air was thick with vapor, hot and sticky as hell, almost as though the bogs and marshes of Old Florida had risen up to reclaim the city. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for a night like this.

The hordes of Orlando’s doom fans gathered at Will’s Pub for night of metal firsts.. This was the first time YOB, brutal sludge/doom masters from Oregon, were playing here in O-town. YOB has been for a long time one of those bands that can successfully merge the brutal sludge tone with black, evil riffs that linger in the memory for ages after hearing them. They’ve been around for aeons as far as modern doom is concerned, and having them here at a venue like Will’s would’ve been worth seeing even if you had to crawl on your stomach through the rainstorms down 17-92.

The show also carried, maybe unintentionally, a feeling of rebirth. This holds especially true for the first band to hit the stage, Fire in the Cave. Now, right off the bat, any band that can name itself something that invites countless jokes about late night Del Taco or diseases that require liberal application of creams and ointments is already demonstrating they’re confident as hell in their entire concept as a band. Having “Fire” in the name is also extremely appropriate, as the band is rising out of the burning ashes of Bad Actor, another Orlando doom/death band of whom Michael Saffran, Jared Oates and Scott Nubar were founding members. Fire is known to purify the fuck out of things, and it’s clear these guys were looking to shed all the old dead skin and find a new sound to rock faces with.

FitC features the insanely versatile drumming of Justin Sharan, something that the old Bad Actor sound sorely lacked, and the pristine, and tastefully atmospheric, backing guitar of Ken Reda. The result ends up being a far, far cry from the thrashy sludge the previous band laid out.

Of course, it’s a bad idea to sit around and discuss the past, as the first moments of FitC’s set probably shattered everyone’s memories anyway. Frontman Jared began the show in the crowd, and his M.O. for the night was to get very fucking personal with his audience. Right from the jump, he was right in people’s faces, screaming his head off, inviting everyone to scream with him, push him around, sacrifice him to the god of metal. A good frontman bleeds for his craft, and Jared will probably end up dumping a few more pints over the course of his career and be all the better for it.

FitC’s set, though brief, was completely crushing. They’ve managed to seamlessly incorporate massive, instantly memorable riffs with the blackest USBM passages I’ve heard coming out of a modern Florida band. Being able to combine brutality with actual emotion in the context of sludge is something only a certain few bands (much like the night’s headliner, YOB) can pull off, and I think that FitC is well on their way to accomplishing such a high sound. While I’ll be honest, there were some portions that were rough around the edges, but for a debut performance they’ve already laid down the gauntlet for other bands of their age and experience to improve themselves and touch the high bar they set. Plus, everybody had a fucking blast thrashing around, nearly getting knocked over by Jared’s mic cord, and seeing him bleed like a stuck pig. His bloodied, maniacally grinning face when seen on top of the charred black riffing and cro-magnon-meets-Dale Crover-meets-Neil Peart drumming was too good, and really set the tone for the rest of the night.

The theme of rebirth carries into our second band, Hollow Leg from Jacksonville/Deltona, FL. Hollow Leg was already tearing it up as a duo after their LP, Instinct, dropped last year. They’ve ended up absorbing Tom Crowther and Scott Angelacos (both members of Junior Bruce, and ex-Bloodlet/ex-Hope & Suicide) on bass and vocals, respectively. Tim and Brent Lynch could already churn out some of the heaviest stoner metal in the state, and if memory serves, shit can only get heavier when you add mass to it, whether literally or figuratively.

They’ve played multiple shows as a four-piece, but this was my first time seeing the new lineup after having been to quite a few HL shows in the past. They played all of the Instinct material, and the addition of Tom’s luddite distorted bass really changed the character of the songs. Scott is also one of my favorite vocalists live, and the two of them together helped turn the songs off Instinct from very good groovy stoner metal into genuinely frightening, still groovy as hell sludge. Completely punishing, the songs now carry a sort of physical weight to them, while retaining my favorite part of a Hollow Leg show; their ability to move a crowd. Everybody went nuts for “The Return,” even moreso than usual, and “Warbeast” is now like a tribal war rally with Scott as warrior chieftan. “Spit in the Fire” was already soul-crushing, but now it felt like you were being buried by the riff, like the rain outside turned into gravel and was burying the audience, note by note.

I could revisit the awkward “phoenix rising” metaphor for this set, but there weren’t exactly ashes to rise from. Hollow Leg was already the part of the top tier of Florida’s doom, and they’ve only improved themselves. If FitC found change through subtraction and replacement, the Legs have built upon an already awesome framework and have leveled up because of it. Tim also displayed, whether consciously or not, the same demented, face-wide grin that Jared wore earlier in the night. Coincidence, or maybe the doom gods really did decide to possess everyone playing that night.

This brings me to Dark Castle, another crown jewel of Florida doom. I’ve seen them on a couple of occasions before, and they’ve made no changes to their two-piece lineup, but something immediately seemed different about them, even during the soundcheck. There was a feeling in the air of shit imminently getting real, and the effect on Stevie’s vocal made her sound as though she was coming from everywhere at once, some sort of shaman having projected herself through the amps and into the walls of the Pub. Chills seriously went up and down my spine. During a soundcheck.

I don’t think I’ve ever been legitimately frightened during a show, but I certainly was as soon as the first chord was struck during DC’s set. Stevie’s tone now carries a much blacker, more venomous character. The stage lighting covered her in a sick green hue, making her look even more like some kind of otherworldly sorceress. Rob, always an amazing, arresting drummer, sat directly in the center of the stage. His fury was the anchor for the entire performance.

It’s my own failure that I couldn’t tell you where one song ended or one began. I was just too sucked into this ritual, this huge maelstrom of dark magick sounds that seemed to stretch on forever. At one point, Stevie’s insane, high-pitched shriek cascaded through the monitors like a cry from the beyond. Combined with the way Rob and Stevie move on stage, and the effect the lighting had on everything, I felt like my fucking soul was being harvested. I stood benumbed, completely lost in this experience.

Yeah, overall I would say I was most blown away by Dark Castle’s performance. I love seeing them in small venues, and this time it was seriously difficult to believe I was a few feet away from what I was seeing. A constant, nagging sensation of “Is this really going on right now?” filled me through the whole set. I love bands that blur the line between metal performance and profane ritual, and Dark Castle pulled it off unlike anyone else I’ve seen live. Whether this is objective or not, fuck it. Phenomenal set; if you were there, you witnessed history.

Now, all this head I’m giving Dark Castle does not detract at all from the main course of the night, YOB. Coming out from Eugene, OR, guitarist/frontman/Jesus impersonator Mike Scheidt noted “This is our first time here,” as everyone was being bathed in feedback. An interesting development is that Rob of Dark Castle was filling in for Travis: the drummer for YOB. Beyond making this the most convenient tour since Melvins/Big Business (Reduce your breakdown/load-in times by 50%! Sign up today.), it also lent an immediacy to YOB’s already pummeling sound. I guess Florida is starting to infect other regions now, if one of our best drummers got injected into YOB’s nucleus. Excellent.

Onto the YOB set. Mike Scheidt is obviously no fool, as they kicked off with “Quantum Mystic,” my personal favorite song of theirs and absolutely mind-melting live. It’s also worth noting that YOB plays well outside the comfortable dB range, and before this set I handed my old friends 10-20kHz their suitcases and wished them well. I would never hear from them again.

Of course, Scheidt & Co. did not disappoint. “Mystic” was pure slab, endless riffing taxing both body and mind. They ran through all of YOB’s best material prior to their newest album, slaying everything in sight and covering the audience with static, feedback, and sonic death. One of Rob’s drum pedals failed about halfway through the set, and to kill time before he could set up a new one, Scheidt started talking about the weather in Florida. “I’m from Oregon, we don’t have to put up with this bullshit.” Very appropriate.

They launched into “Atma” immediately after, the title track off their latest album. I haven’t heard the new album yet, and I was ready to be completely surprised. This was easily the best song of the night, the one Rob completely owned, and shows YOB is here to stay, once again, to fuck everything up and melt faces across the country. Few bands play 90 minute sets at Will’s, but YOB milked every second, and the sense of timelessness provided by the suffocating volume levels made it seem all too short.

Once again, objective or not, I feel that this show put Florida’s scene and metal in general on notice. Out of all performances at Will’s, very few have these same qualities of time suspension and excitement. Every band brought something new to the table and killed their respective sets. I myself became a happy prisoner of the music, my attention span being held hostage by four sets I couldn’t ignore or look away from.  Everyone had an awesome time, ‘bows were thrown, minds were blown, and both Dark Castle and YOB were called to play encores. At an Orlando show.

I think that says it all.

– Chris Nunez