Isis/Pelican/Tombs - Black Cat - May 30 2009

Tombs - a thick hard trio with a bit of tempo. Kind of in the Melvins camp at a guess. They are from New York and when bands focus on an interesting sonic assault over songs, it can be very interesting if they do it well and don't go on about it for too long. This was one of those cases.

Pelican - A four-piece (two guitar) instrumental act. They did the shoe gazing style loud assault that did have some dynamics working and about half song oriented/half jam. Perfectly good, perfectly unmoving, however. They went over well so I am being a wee bit harsh I think. But see above about set length excess.

Isis - Five piece rock band from LA here. Hadn't known of them, but they drew a good crowd and had their act together. Two guitars and some keys that became a third guitar more often than not. Vocals were kind of Opeth-like with good normal singing and some death metal growl. Music was more psychedelic heavy as opposed to metal. Good spacey vibe in the songs and quite involving. Impressive show, a vibrant crowd and a good set through and through. Worth the price of admission this time, for sure.

Quote of the Night: Virtually no stage patter and I was dead tired, so nothing interesting or dull was overheard. I will say that the Black Cat staff was friendlier than the 9:30 staff, but stay tuned for a full club analysis later this year.