Friendship Bracelet: "Total Sonic Annihilation"

Sunday, February 8, 2009

"Total Sonic Annihilation"

Last night A Place To Bury Strangers was absolute destruction, or, as their Myspace reads, "Total Sonic Annihilation." They blasted through a bunch of songs, including a sort of sped up version of "The Falling Sun" and of course my favorite song by them, "Don't Think Lover," which was exceedingly kickass and deafening. Openers The Baltic Sea were alright at best, monotonous and yawn-inducing at worst, but APTBS saved. They're as known for building and using their own pedals (guitarist Oliver Ackermann founded the pedal company Death By Audio) as they are for being life-threateningly loud. While they did not seem quite as noisy as they did upstairs at the Middle East in Cambridge last April, they certainly left my hearing slightly lacking.

They stood bathed in a mix of their unintelligible, blurry projections and the audience's collective shadows, eerily creeping in and out of light and black. This murkiness persisted until their final number, during which strobe lights illuminated the meager stage. Lights flashed and twitched rhythmically until the jammed-out song began to close, when the lights flashed more sporadically, like lightning. Ackermann flailed his guitar about his body, as well as the space above and around it, creating unbelievable feedback washes and general piercing sound, eventually laying it to rest at his feet, sustaining the noise, and picking up another guitar to top off the finale. The whole time this was happening, bassist Jonathan (Jono MOFO) Smith and drummer Jay Space continued to blast out rhythm section roars until they had finally had enough.

Upon talking to Oliver afterwards, I learned they're cutting back on playing shows for now, at least until their record is finished. Their new album will be out by July or August, but "definitely by August," according to Space. Hopefully they're done recording soon and they hit the road for a proper U.S. tour, since this is one of three shows they had listed up until a half-month stint in Europe, which directly precedes their appearance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival April 17th.

Here's some photos: