Accompanied by an interminable number guitar pedals and visual projectors, New York’s noise-rock connoisseurs, A Place To Bury Strangers, bring their incomparably dense walls of sound to The Corner Hotel in support of their 2012 album, Worship.
Harry Howard and the NDE’s garage rock stylings take the stage first, roused by an electrifying, yet subtle psychedelic undercurrent. Howard’s agitated vocals float atop tunneling rhythms and creeping organs.
“Black Shoe”, with a chunky riff and apocalyptic bass, thunders like the storm to end it all. It’s earnest, unpretentious, deliberate, yet impulsive solid rock that carries a distinctively timeworn charm, but doesn’t seem at all dated.
“She’s always bossing me around,” jokes Howard of backing vocalist/organ wizard, Edwina Preston, after being forcefully told which track to play next. “We don’t have a setlist. We just have a strong-minded woman.” The modest crowd is an injustice to Howard’s songwriting and the collective skill of his band, and he’s easily deserving of a much larger audience.
Back by dazzling projections that resemble something between crawling paint spatters and exploding confetti, “I Lost You” hosts the deliberately dissonant wailing guitars and furious percussion that’s characteristic of A Place To Bury Strangers’ sound. Lead guitarist/vocalist, Oliver Ackerman, raises his guitar towards the ceiling and bashes aimlessly at the strings.
Bassist Dion Lunadon takes over the vocals, whilst Ackerman thrashes around in dark, smoky shadows at the back of the stage. Thick smoke fills the venue, as Lunadon dives into the crowd.
He snakes his way through the audience, until he carelessly throws his bass onto the stage (nearly collecting the drumkit), before effortlessly leaping to collect it in one impossibly graceful swoop.
The richly atmospheric, impenetrable walls of sound are complimented by an indeterminate number of projectors situated at various locations throughout the venue. Images emanating from the floor of the stage implant a rapidly orbiting artificial galaxy on the ceiling, whilst their paths can be traced beautifully through the smoke.
A Place To Bury Strangers are not just using this space; they’ve commandeered the venue and inside it, they have built their own cosmic world.
“Drill It Up” sounds like a fiercely modern twist on an old Western soundtrack, while “You Are the One” is accompanied by visuals of a ballerina whose dance become increasingly disjointed and frantic, much like the song itself as it descends into a inescapably bleak and uncompromising outro.
Lunadon lashes his body aggressively across the stage during “Deadbeat”, eventually thrusting his bass forcefully around his head, causing it to violently crash at the edge of the stage. The robust rhythm gives form to the otherwise harsh and discordant guitars, and the audience is thankful for a beat they can properly move to.
“I Lived My Life To Stand In the Shadow Of Your Heart” features spirally distortion, wrapping itself tightly around the percussion and birthing a dynamic explosion of well-structured noise. Ackerman steps to the front of the stage, picks up the strobe light and directs it to the crowd, as Lunadon violently knocks his microphone to the ground. It’s unsettling how the flashing light breaks the fluidity of their movements.
A cacophonous collective of noises, thrashing persons, flickering lights and an overload of smoke culminates as Lunadon – once again – violently hurls his bass to the ground.
As the set draws to an end with the grand “Ocean”, Lunadon collapses dramatically to the floor, whilst Ackerman humbly raises his hands to the ceiling, departing the stage.
