It's the eternal defect in the hardcore crusade. Where forebears like Fugazi alchemise anger into energy and loss into belief, their disciples frequently lock themselves in personal catharsis, communicating nothing.
German fourpiece Metrophon should know better. Too often, they flicker some insurgent creative tempest only to fail via these shortcomings. Kalifornia Disneyland and Looking For Radiation pepper the anguished uproar with automaton riffs and palendromic, machinic beats. It should sound like Les Savy Fav at a cyclonic extreme ripping through urban concrete. Habitually drowned in surges of white noise, though, it's generic and vacant instead.
Minneapolitans Song Of Zarathustra are a more enticing prospect on established hardcore label Troubleman Unlimited. It's a tighter experience than their Teutonic comrades-in-arms: Guitar scree concentrated around garage rhythms which, alongside the hollered strainings of frontman Travis Vos, hints at Husker Dü and Drive Like Jehu (former outing of Rocket From The Crypt's Speedo). Again, though, the essentials are lost amidst implosive bursts of blurred, discordant, self-purging. In isolation, it's liberating enough - next to Mclusky or The Mars Volta, a rather poor (and worthless) second.
Zarathustra's set tonight ends with Vos paralytically frozen in his own feedback, staring face to face with Metrophon's keyboardist. It's a fair synopsis. With the same bill, same sound and same problems, they're both looking straight in the mirror.
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