Saturday 23 August 2014

***UNITED NATIONS / FOXMOULDER / BLACK CLOUDS show review***

On Augst 7th, 2014 UNITED NATIONS hit Toronto at Sneaky Dee's, which I had to attend. I was also pumped to see my boys in FOXMOULDER unveil a new song. I'd never heard BLACK CLOUDS, but I can dish out some obvious foreshadowing - they were great. FRAMEWORKS also came through the city for the second time in the last few months.

I have embedded my favourite video from each band below, but click here to view a total of 20 videos from the show!

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UNITED NATIONS
Here is UNITED NATIONS rocking my favourite song "Communication Letdown". The video is a little shaky because I lost my fucking gord while filming it. The band played pretty well but I noticed that Geoff's voice was much louder when talking than when screaming, so I'm guessing he kinda lost his voice after the first night (this was the 2nd show of the tour) or maybe his vocal chords are shredded from being in Thursday for so long. I also overheard one of the band members say it wasn't a great show for them, but I really enjoyed the set and therefore hadn't realized. All in all, they played really well and engaged the audience. The band also chatted to pretty much anyone who wanted to say hi, which was pretty cool. I spoke with Jonah at length and he was very receptive and an all-around decent guy. I also spoke with Geoff briefly, but he kinda forgot about a distro trade after he got a little tipsy and invited everyone out for pasta. He was also approached by almost every audience member at some point during the night, so I'm sure that can be a little taxing. I definitely said, "I love Thursday. Shit you probably get that all the time and don't want to hear that. Sorry." Sometimes I say some pretty stupid shit. There's also a review of UNITED NATIONS by yours truly right here.

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FRAMEWORKS
I jammed the band's previous 2 EPs pretty regularly last year and reviewed the band here. When I heard they were coming out with an LP I was super pumped. I heard the single and wasn't overly impressed. I then heard people talking pretty negatively about it/them but I reserved judgement. I figured I'd see how it played out in a live setting. Maybe it's just me (although apparently not), but it was kinda meh live. The songs themselves don't hold the power that they used to and sounded pretty similar. The vocalist is much more repetitive and monotone than I had expected and generally swayed back and forth during the songs. It was a decent set, but I certainly expected more. The guitarists got into it but it didn't make up for the songs.

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BLACK CLOUDS
From Seattle, Washington, BLACK CLOUDS really impressed me. The 3-piece put on a mad light show and rocked the house the way Mono, Atsuko Chiba and Russian Circles would. Instrumental-rock with post-metal tendencies, this band will be very welcomed by further fans of Pelican, Finger Of God, Boris, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Ornaments and Tomydeepestego. Seriously these guys were really good and I picked up some LPs (and stickers) that you can purchase here.

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FOXMOULDER
FOXMOULDER opened the night and played really well. The sound quality was fantastic, they played tight and revealed a new song titled "Tempest Ill" which is the best the band has written thus far, in my humble opinion. Check it out below and grab their new 7" 'Lethe' here and split 5" with Coma Regalia here or get them bundled at a discount here.


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