Halloween is one of my favorite fake holidays: It's an excuse to eat shitloads of tooth-rotting sweets and dress up as bloodthirsty serial killers, zombies and assassinated presidents. But last week, I forwent my annual costumed partying and gluttonous candy-eating by attending a concert at the Blender Theatre at Gramercy. And with good reason: Between the Buried and Me were playing a headlining show with support from Horse the band, Animosity and Giant.
First up were Giant. The Raleigh, North Carolina quartet recently replaced The End after their guitarist abruptly quit the band. But Giant's squalls of melody, bass grooves, atmospheric guitars and occasional throaty shouts didn't go over well with the Blender crowd -- people began spewing the typically unimaginative insults ("You suuuuuuuuuuuuck!") during most of the quieter instrumental parts. (Clearly no one else was a fan of Isis, Pelican or Cult of Luna.)
Next were Animosity. I had first heard of them a few weeks ago when I received their new album Animal, which was produced by Converge's Kurt Ballou (the disc caught my attention among my pile of CDs because it had a neon album cover that featured a vomiting bear), and I was really psyched to see them live. When they came onstage, each member wore a mask of a giant photo of their own heads. "We're Animosity, Bobblehead Edition 2008," said singer Leo Miller, whose "bobblehead" bore green sunglasses and an open mouth. They immediately launched into "Toothgrinder" from the new album; they also played "Bomb Over Rome," "A Passionate Journey" and "Plunder Incorporated" from Animal as well as older tunes. Animosity's fast metal guitars, pummeling blastbeats and strangled screams induced non-stop mosh pits and left the crowd wanting more -- when their set ended, the "one more song" chant turned into "one more set."
To prepare for HORSE the band's performance, roadies began putting out fake trees, a giant inflatable turkey and a funeral horse and carriage on the stage. Then the drummer flitted into the spotlight in a short dress and fairy wings; the guitarist came on in a belly-baring genie outfit, the bassist was dressed as a witch and the keyboardist wore a yellow evening gown. When the singer walked out in a mermaid outfit (complete with a red-haired wig and seashells covering his hairy man boobs), it became apparent that Htb were dressed as female Disney characters (that's Tinkerbell, Jasmine, Maleficent, Belle and Ariel for the Disney deprived).
"We're HORSE the band from another land," said frontman (er, frontwoman) Nathan Winneke in a high-pitched voice, setting off the band's raucous set of frantic tunes laced with lung-burning howls, breakneck guitar runs and manic 8-bit video game-inspired synthesizers worthy of the greatest NES games. Htb played both new and old tracks (from R. Borlax to The Mechanical Hand to their latest, A Natural Death) including crowd-pleaser "New York City" (natch). The little mermaid was wigless and topless ("Let's see that at Disney on Ice, you motherfuckers!") by the time they got to their closing song "Cutsman," which had the audience going apeshit over the "Nintendocore" classic. Even if Htb isn't your cup of tea, you can't say that they don't put on an entertaining show.
Finally, the headliner: Between the Buried and Me. The last time I saw BTBAM in NYC was October 31, 2004 at the Knitting Factory, when they were touring in support of Alaska and opening for Converge. This time around, the five-piece came onstage dressed in matching overalls and straw hats with no shoes ("I think it was a bad idea to play barefoot," frontman Tommy Rogers later said). From there, they played their new album Colors in its entirety. From the opening piano ballad of "Foam Born (a) The Backtrack" to the 14-minute opus "White Walls," it was immersive, beautiful, heavy, melodic, progressive. When the set ended they left the stage for a mere two minutes only to returns and play "Selkies: The Endless Obsession," everyone's favorite jazzy, synthesizer-laden track from Alaska. Costumes aside, this was one of the best all-around shows I'd been to in a long time, and you should kick yourself for missing it.
[All photos by Jesse Angelo.]
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