Camera Phone Show Review #2: The Sword, Saviours, Akimbo

Spaceland
7/11/06

Akimbo started off the set with high energy and packed a punch. I didn't get a phone pic of them, as I spent most of their set shooting the shit with my friend Scott, who happens to play drums in Saviours.

In case you aren't familiar with these bands, they all fall adjacently into the genre of metal. Each act fills a different sub genre of metal that works well when juxtaposed together.

I can see why Akimbo was on the bill, since they definitely had elements of stoner metal in their sound. Although, it seems like skinny 16 year old boys with emo hair would get more enjoyment out of the chaotic drums and somewhat hardcore riffs than the decidedly over 25 crowd that filled the club that night. Obviously the appeal is wider than that, because heads were bobbing. I mentioned to Scott that I thought Akimbo could use a second guitarist to make their sound fuller (I've never been one to put much faith in the two cabinet method of making up for a single guitar player), but he gave a lot of praise to Aaron's guitar skills. "This is the best guy they've had so far." As I listened, it did seem that Aaron carried those higher frequencies just fine on his own. When they were playing, I remember thinking there was a lot of people there for a Tuesday night at Spaceland. I hadn't seen anything yet.


Saviours

I was astounded at how quickly Saviours set up and were ready to play. Though this impressed me, it was the way they began their songs that made it clear that they are already playing like a professional band. With a simple, "Are you ready?" from Scott, as soon as his sticks made contact with the drums, the whole band was playing. It was like they were one mind, one body. Not so much like you might see Fugazi reading each other's minds in Instrument, each member taking the lead at different moments, trying to figure out where the set should go next; no, this was a living breathing animal, and Scott was the brain. With no more than a gesture, he'd lead his band mates into the next blistering number, before one song saying, "No." to Tyler when I imagine he suggested a different song to play (pure speculation on my part).

This animal was angry, and Austin, its mouth and claws, growled into the mic with an intensity probably unmatched since Lemmy Kilmister first took the stage with Motörhead in 1975. This is not to say Saviours borrow much else from Motörhead's sound besides maybe attitude. I described to my drummer Rob that they played a more traditional metal than Akimbo. Traditional in the sense that guitar harmonies abound and the subject matter of their lyrics deal mostly with Satan.

Let me take this moment to say that Rob and his friend Lee were skeptical of Saviours before seeing them, being long time fans of metal and playing in many metal bands themselves.

From what I have guessed, Saviours use standard tuning, which is pretty unusual in metal these days. This increases the nostalgia (for me anyway) of the old days of metal before Fred Durst ever picked up a mic and tried to single handedly ruin the genre forever. Records such as Kill ‘Em All and The New Order come to mind as examples of true metal greatness before it was tainted in the late 90's by Nu metal.

Saviours manage to harken back to this older sound while simultaneously adding something new to it. Its hard to put my finger on it, and perhaps this is why they are so good, but I think it has to do with non-traditionally metal drum beats under very traditional metal guitar riffs. Of course, Scott is no stranger to the boom crash style made legendary by greats like John Bonham and Bill Ward in the days before metal had been fully established, but he also adds his own brand of frenzy between the lines which probably comes from years of songwriting with Yaphet Kotto.

I don't want to downplay the other parts of the beast that is Saviours. Cyrus on bass is like the muscled arms and fists, pounding sound like an ape on steroids, while Tyler on guitar is like the legs of a Satyr, keeping the whole creature lumbering along gracefully, kicking you in the face with cloven hooves.

After they finished their set, I took a moment to talk to Austin, the vocalist and guitarist of Saviours. I told him that my friends had been skeptical of whether or not they would deliver as a metal band, seeing as how they have so many years of legendary bands that came before, and when you play in a genre like metal, you have a lot to live up to. He nodded, agreeing that he was also skeptical of bands that try to tackle the genre. When I told him how impressed they were, he replied, "Winning over the skeptics. That's where its at."


The Sword

By the time The Sword took the stage, Spaceland was shoulder to shoulder. When they slammed into their first song, I observed the crowd as much as I watched the band. I wanted to know what, beyond the fact that they had the best time slot, made them the main attraction over the other two great bands that played that night. I thought I might be able to find the answer in the crowd, and I was partly right. I hadn't really noticed before, but during the other two bands, there was a certain contingent of person missing from the onlookers. Women. During The Sword, there was no shortage. And most of them were dancing.

After recovering from the shock of this revelation, I began to contemplate what the difference was. As soon as they kicked into "Freya" I realized: The Sword is sexy. Something about the groove makes the ladies shake it. In addition, I speculate that they use at least Drop D tuning, but perhaps they tune all six strings down a whole step or more. About 6 to 10 years ago, drop tuning was associated mostly with grunge bands and Nu Metal in the mainstream, a sound not uncommonly recognized as lame. However, lately this drop tuning is associated more with stoner rock and, in my opinion, when properly used in conjunction with blues scales, turns up the sex.

People were into The Sword in a huge way. They were cheering and flashing the devil sign every chance they got: during solos, during drum breaks, and basically at any point where all the instruments weren't blaring. Somewhere in the middle of the set, they got a little bogged down by a song probably intended to be epic, but ended up taking the shimmy out of people's hips. It was a song J.D. said was on a comp, so perhaps no one knew it as well as the other songs. I'll still put my money down that the groovier songs were the real crowd pleasers. All in all, I have to say that I haven't seen a band do an encore in a while where the crowd really wanted it.

After the last notes of the bass guitar ending on "Iron Swan" I weaved through the clumps of people trying to find Rob and Lee. When I finally did, we were more concerned about whether we would get parking tickets (I did) than how The Sword was. On the other hand, we all walked away feeling like we got what we payed for. I commented on how metal seems to be coming back in a big way. Rob turned to me and said, "these bands seem real down to earth, and that's something you don't see in metal anymore." To me, that's where its at.