Tag: shoegaze

Sound and Fury Fest 2023: The Stage Dive Will Never Die

Danny Ryan August 30, 2023

Sound and Fury is easily my favorite music festival, and consistently takes the spot as the best weekend of the year for me without fail. Returning again to Exposition Park for the second year in a row, the controversial choice to move the festival outdoors has proven again to succeed as a hardcore experience exclusive to Sound and Fury. The overwhelming heat and dust clouds were absolutely brutal this year compared to 2022, but passionate fans were not going to let anything stop them from hardcore dancing all weekend long. This was also the second year with involvement from art collective and fashion brand Brain Dead, and their influence could be seen everywhere from the stage backdrops to exclusive merch designs. Sound and Fury is absolutely unmatched when it comes to finding the best collaborators and vendors to help with making their vision come alive, something that more music festivals should take note of in the goal of creating an unforgettable experience that everybody in attendance feels a need to come back to. related: Risks Make Better Memories than Nostalgia – Sound and Fury 2022 One of the biggest draws to Sound and Fury’s 2023 lineup for me was the

Deafheaven at Lodge Room- A Perfect Marriage Of Time

Danny Ryan February 8, 2023

Deafheaven astonishingly achieved fitting their enormous, atmospheric sound into the intimate setting of The Lodge Room for 2 sold out nights, hosting different lineups and playing different setlists for each of them. As heavy metal further evolves with its experimentation and hardcore punk is currently seeing a revival in its popularity, artists that were early to adopt this innovative nature, like Deafheaven, are now seeing the respect that they deserve for breaking ground within these movements. With the environment of Night 2 shifting from their classic black metal influenced material to the shoegaze and emo sounds of their newest album Infinite Granite, Deafheaven showcased the importance for legendary bands within modern heavy music scenes, to continue to explore and evolve as these genres do alongside them. While Deafheaven is known for bringing a massive and theatrical presence to the audience with their live performances, Spiritual Cramp creates a completely different atmosphere with their upbeat, groovy sound that inspires pogo dancing in all directions within any room that they play. Spiritual Cramp is one of the most distinctively unique bands to come out of the punk genre in recent years, having the spirit of classic ‘77 punk rather than the hardcore

United Kingdom, United Scene: Basement at the Hi Hat

Rob Shepyer October 17, 2018

When you listen to Basement, you hear so many different styles of rock converging into one sweeping underground sound that whether you’re into alternative, emo, or hardcore, you feel pain, pleasure, and everything in between. These young chaps from the United Kingdom call themselves melodic hardcore but hardcore is the least of what you hear if you span the Basement catalogue. They’ve recorded a song for every scene but don’t alienate anyone in those scenes. It’s no wonder all these different people came together to sell out Basement’s Hi Hat show the same day tickets were made available. Basement could draw at a much larger venue at this point so this show was something of a rare treat. related content: Nirvana Leads To Nothing… At The Regent Basement’s 2018 North American West Coast tour featured San Francisco’s Pllush as the opening band. A sweet and meaningful shoe-gaze experience, Pllush plays long, drawn out riffs that seemingly come straight from the heart. Featuring three women on strings and a guy on the kit, every member of Pllush balances a delicate sound with a mean punch. Pleasant Hill’s Elder Brother plays an emo that could’ve only been spawned in Nor Cal. It’s got chill vibrations

Nirvana Leads to Nothing… at the Regent

Rob Shepyer September 25, 2018

90’s alternative music is having an organic and overlooked revival that is making for some of the best rock and roll of this decade. Whether it be the post-grunge sounds of Culture Abuse or the hardcore infused shoegaze of Nothing, you should get into these bands before you miss the boat. related content: NOTHING Unhinge Echoplex Audience By Bending Sonic Waves Having just released an album and made the cover of Revolver magazine, Nothing is riding a wave at the moment with a cult-like following of hardcore kids that fell in love with gaze. This new album, “Dance on the Black Top” is for my money, the band’s best. You’d think that would make this Part Time Punks show at The Regent something magical to me but such wasn’t exactly the case. Nothing isn’t a bad live band, they’re just hit or miss. Hit or miss because something is missing. What great live music does, which is suspend your thinking mind and connect everyone by making them forget themselves, Nothing achieves this phenomenon better on record than in performance. It’s a big deal when Part Time Punks moves from the Echo or Echoplex to the Regent and opening up the