Vulvodynia play South African Slam Metal, the equivalent of a sonic sand blasting with a dread-locked singer screaming in tongues.
The most succinct description of them from Encyclopaedia Metallum, is Deathcore and brutal Death Metal. Subject matter, gore, murder, sexual perversion, destruction, corruption, end of humanity.
I sense the same artistic conceit as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie hit cinemas with a reputation for unimaginable terrible on-screen violence and sadism. It was mainstream media click-bate well before the age of the World-Wide Web.
After the hysteria of people vomiting in cinemas died down (itself hyperbole), it could be appreciated as a well-made landmark movie, taking a lot of Hitchcock influence and expanding on the genre of horror and suspense. There was little gore and a lot of psychology.
It eventually was taken up by MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art.
The same Art Concept is at work here.
We can go back to the Grand Guignol French theatre movement of the late nineteenth century, which spawned the idea of splatter movies.
The Dada movement in 1915 Zurich, a direct reaction to the horrors of the Great War. Its last manifestation began with the Punks of 1976. Metal music in all its myriad forms continues those energy vibrations.
Music Not Meant for Pussies!
That is the joke and (very) black humour of the band’s name, Vulvodynia. A medical term for pain around the female pudenda with no organic cause found. Allow me to extend the humour further and observe that all 96 sexes can identify with this. 96 Tears!
Vulvodynia kicked off in South Africa 2014, with album Cognisant Castigation which included songs like Pathogen X and Diverge, Transmute, Alter. Prescient, or were they party to the conspiracy?
Founding members Luke Haarhoff guitar and Duncan Bentley voice.
In 2023, it was reported on social media that the singer had brutally bashed drummer Thomas Hughes, with accompanying photos as proof. Bentley was kicked out.
Lending street credibility to this band in the same way Darby Crash’s suicide did for meat head LA Punks Germs. If I was purely cynical, that is.
Guitarist Lwandile Prusent took over the vocal duties. A dread-locked black South African, who resembles a Springbok prop-forward with names like Beast or Ox.
Chris Xenopoulos guitar rounds out the quartet. They don’t have a bass guitar on stage currently.
The two guitarists administer the super heavy meshed sound, an elemental sonic pressure wave.
Any riffs or hints of melody are quickly annihilated. They keep coming up and they eventually lay out some brief Prog solos.
They play current single Adamaster. The drummer lays out the fastest artillery gunfire of the evening. Once you stop resisting and let this music into your consciousness, the technical skill required to play this style without dissolving into an atonal mess is a monumental achievement.
We might ponder on Free Jazz and the influence that Coltrane and Ornette Coltrane on Rock music in the Sixties.
Maybe it’s deeper genesis is Be-Bop Jazz from the early Forties. With all superfluous bits trimmed off, the speed increased until you reach a state of purity.
Impossible to make out lyrics. I assume subject matter is the same as previously mentioned. They act on the subliminal level and the are probably the music equivalent of a vaccine. They build your immune system to toxic consciousness.
The singer asks for the Wall of Death. We all know what he means. At front of stage, the people part in the middle, the prelude to smashing into each other.
An abbreviated form of Bullrush. Being the only Boomer in the room, I can attest that smashing people on a field was a favourite form of primary school entertainment. Long banned, so you don’t know what you have missed.
Total Lord of the Flies as there was never any teacher involvement. There were strict rules we all adhered to.
This music is the most physically demanding to perform that I have witnessed (even more the Ramones).
Four other bands play for 20 to 30 minutes. Vulvodynia manages just over 40 minutes.
Pale Flag are from Auckland, and they are Isaac Berkeley singer, Jack Queenin guitar, Liam Donald guitar, Mark Hammond bass, Cody Johnson drums.
Death Metal at the level of heavy and hard Slam. Rock guitar riffs continually break out briefly and get swallowed back in a perpetually meshed cyclical sound field.
The singer yells fuck it up as the mosh pit do the upright body slam. One origin of the name of this Metal sub-genre.
There is a rare melodic intro coda, which has a disorientating effect, until they relent and blast out some dissonant psychobilly.
Parasitic Infestation call themselves Slam Fusion. They add other elements, not sure which as they don’t sound that different from the rest.
Aucklanders as well, they are Liam Hand voice, Aidan McGorry guitar, Grady Gottler guitar, Jacob Rafaelli bass, Blake Plester drums.
Their sound is still an impressive battering attack force of drums paired with waves of sludge guitar.
Singer asks for more energy from the front of stage as they start playing Blunt Force Trauma.
DDT continues the dark foreboding nature.
The dance is truly in the head, as opposed to any trace of Funk. Which would bring the hips and backbone into play.
Darktide and Imperial Slave play earlier.
Vulvodynia, and the others have a paradoxical relaxing effect. Eventually get to a meditative state, the slam dancing becoming improvisatory theatre.
The neon colours of red and blue enhance the guitar pyrotechnics, coming to the end of their set.
Vulvodynia signal to let that shit loose, as they most likely finish with Entabeni, their latest single. Mighty Metal Machine Music!
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Jennifer De Koning
Vulvodynia
Pale Flag
Parasitic Infestation
Dark Tide
Imperial Slave