the Triumph of Doom

Last night I went to a reconverted church to see a coronation. Japan's crushingly heavy Boris was playing with the earthshaking SunnO))) at the Avalon in Manhattan, along with avant-guitarist Oren Ambarchi. I was surprised to see the size and the fervour of the crowd. I knew Boris had become a very popular underground draw but was unprepared for the amount of goodwill they engendered in their audience. Although the club Avalon is merely another incarnation of the zipperhead standby dance club the Limelight, the room was a good place to see a show. The high ceilings of the room muddied up the sound of Boris, but SunnO))) sounded amazing. The crowd was pretty diverse for an indie rock show, with everyone from t-shirted hipsters from Williamsburg to dressed-down thrash metallers from Queens, and what was most surprising to me was the patience of the crowd as the drones unfolded from the stage.

Oren Ambarchi started things off with an understated half-hour long piece utilizing minimalist melodic snippets run through a variety of effects. Elongated and processed sustains collided with deep rumbling bass tones, and the elegiac feel of the piece was shattered nicely by an explosion of noise at around the 20-minute mark. I figured for sure that the crowd would despise Ambarchi's gentle pulsings and surges, but they loved it. He would return to play with SunnO))) during their set.

Boris was everything I hoped they would be. Powerful, charismatic, tight, and ecstatic, the trio ripped through a set that drew mostly from their last two full-length releases, Pink and Akuma No Uta. They were received joyously by the crowd. Their professionalism was underscored by their showmanship, led by manic white-gloved drummer Atsuo, who served as set boss and chief ringleader for the band. Whether saluting the crowd with his gong-stick, screaming into his headset microphone, or simply pounding the shit out of his drums, Atsuo got the crowd fired up with his energy and sense of fun. Their set concentrated more on shorter songs, but one or two crawling tempos snuck out from underneath. They closed with a tremendous take on Pink's amazing shoegazer/stoner rock opener after punishing the crowd with a nifty hour-plus set. All in all, they proved themselves to be one of the most creatively asskicking bands on the planet.

I had seen SunnO))) three times prior to last night, with diminishing levels of enjoyment each time. I love their records and think that they are one of the most unique bands currently active, combining tectonic sludge and awesome guitar and bass tones with noise and creepy guest-vocal weirdness. The last time I'd seen them was last year at Northsix, and I found their set that night to be forgettable. After an amazing smoke-machine/blood red spotlight intro, they devolved into boring drone that was not helped by the ridiculous and timid presence of Malefic (from Xasthur), who contributed black metal vokills to that night's efforts. Thankfully, last night's set left the corpsepaint on the sidelines--the duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley were augmented by Rex Ritter on Moog, Oren Ambarchi on guitar and treatments, and the long-lost Mark Deutrom (ex-Melvins) on bass. The additional low end was great, and Atsuo from Boris contributed some gong hits and weird handheld percussion to the ritual. The first half hour of the set was excellent, with both the crowd and band totally into the performance. All six musicians were draped in black robes with cowls, and the extending of a hand or a fist from the robes was enough to solicit immediate crowd response in all the traditional forms of metallic hand signing--horns were as plentiful as fists. After the first half hour, they seemed to drift aimlessly for about ten minutes before I decided to bail. My neck was tightening up and I'd seen and heard enough for one evening. The crowd was still going strong when I took off, basking in the blackness of doom.

I grabbed a copy of the hard-to-find domestically Boris/Keiji Haino collaborative effort before I left, and it is really fucking cool. All the violence of the man from Fushitsusha's guitar work, backed up with the drones and weight of Boris' sound. Despite leaving a little early during SunnO))), this show was a blast all the way round. A great bill of music that featured several different interpretations of how to be heavy. If doom is now king, one of these bands must wear the black and filth-encrusted crown.