Dance Gavin Dance are a Hardcore blitzkrieg bopping band from Sacramento who attack from their first song and slam through seventy minutes of high-energy controlled mayhem.
They came together in 2005 and have released ten albums, several doubling up with all-instrumental versions.
Throughout all of this they have maintained their status as a top post-Hardcore band.
What does that mean? Speed metal with big slabs of melody. I particularly like the description Screamo. They have two lead singers, described as clean and unclean. Unclean being the higher tenor vocal shredding and screaming.
There may be some tentative connection to Suicide and particularly the screaming of Alan Vega. Check out their infamous terror song Frankie Teardrop to hear your heart and soul being lacerated over the second half of eleven minutes.
But you cannot make a musical sub-genre completely out of that, which would be akin watching a livestream mass murderer.
It is close to a full house at the Powerstation. In contrast to other metal bands I have seen, there are a larger number of young women. This is a positive. Although there is some serious moshing and slam dancing, it does not threaten to get out of hand.
This is the current line-up as far as I can ascertain. Will Swan lead guitar and Matt Mingus drums, these two being there from the start. Jon Mess unclean vocals and Tilian Pearson clean vocals. Andrew Wells guitar and Sergio Medina bass complete the ensemble.
Bass player Tim Feerick passed away last year, which took an emotional toll on the band.
They start with the Ghost of Billy Royalton, a brand new single. The drums stamp their authority with rapid gunfire ordnance and set the tone for the evening. One singer hits the top range like AC-DC’s Brian Johnson.
Uber music critic Robert Christgau once described this as someone who’s testicles are being threatened by a cattle-prod. He was being unkind, but it does provide an accurate description. At the bridge it lightens up suitably, and some melodic Power Pop follows.
There are many elements stitched into this music and the band play with discipline and precision.
For the Jeers is a visceral blend of Power Pop and AC-DC.
Prisoner is given a surge of energy and accelerates from the recorded version into the stratosphere with astonishing vocals. Give yourself a medal/ You just met the devil.
Summertime has the edgy guitar drone of the early Cramps, when Alex Chilton was the producer. There are shifts in structure and tempo and they remind us of the Pop Grunge of the Meat Puppets and Minutemen.
Tree Village has a confronting vocal attack backed by a Sixties garage band sound. There is probably more than a nod to Detroit noise merchants like MC5.
They appear to gather intensity and energy as the set proceeds.
Die Another Day and conventional Rock guitar riffs soon give way to awesome automatic gunfire drums.
Crooked Royals are a Metalcore band from Auckland whom I have seen once before as the full band, as well as in solo performance by singer Christian Carstensen.
Along with Carstensen, they are Lee Mackley vocals, Jake Andrews guitar, Keane Gilles drums and Conor Lawson bass.
Glass Hands is a surprise to start with. Sounds Punk like White Riot until the weapons grade drum fills kick in.
Counterfeit and they’re screaming Sick/ I’m just a hypocrite/ Caught like a rat in a maze. Later they trade vocals like the Beastie Boys.
A complete change of pace is Between You and I. A pop ballad written by Andrews for his wife and the singers can do blue-eyed Soul.
Copacetic begins with nice jangling Folk Rock guitar before the heaviness takes control.
A surprisingly good Metalcore band. They get the front of audience seriously moshing for their first Powerstation performance.
Dance Gavin Dance finish with We Own the Night and Evaporate. Gun fire drums and waves of guitars rolling through.
A Metal band which contains multitudes of influences. They carry their battle scars and subsume it in the mix.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Dance Gavin Dance
Crooked Royals
