South West Metal @ the Til-Two Club 10/18/2014

For the second night my musical escapades a few weeks back, I attended the Til-Two Club in San Diego. This local dive bar appears to have a good deal of history behind it, as its walls are decorated with posters of previous shows featuring artists I’d never heard of, the designs for most of which suggest that this place has been open for a few decades. This notion is supported by the fact that the interior dance room still has a disco ball, mirrored ceiling panels, and DJ turntables on the dance floor. This is not where the night’s bands performed. The Til-Two Club has built a small stage in the alley behind the venue, accessible through a sliding metal door on the back wall of the venue and protected from the elements by a large, if torn, outdoor canopy. It’s certainly a new approach to a live setting, and one that sounds much better than you might expect from such a setup.

The opening band for the evening was Bio Crisis, a crust punk band from Tijuana, Mexico. Drawing from the stylings and techniques of thrash metal and punk, their music was fast and loud, with few breaks for slower tempos. The guitars would occasionally step back away from blistering, tremolo-picked riffs to play pleasantly harmonized, though still insanely aggressive riffs as the vocalist continued to scream and shout his lyrics. The drums felt a little sloppy at times, though I’m not sure if that was a matter of technique or the fact that the front bass head had such a large hole in it that it was practically useless. Given the precision of the rest of the playing on the rest of the kit, I’m inclined to think the latter.

The second band of the night was Syrebris (read about their debut EP “Aetheric Dynamics” here) from Los Angeles. Friends from my own time in the LA/OC metal scene, they put on a killer show as always, including the addition of a new song and short intro piece to their repertoire. Seeing this progressive death metal band play is always a delight. Every aspect of their musicianship is on point, from the intricate drumming and bass lines of James and Jesse holding down the rhythm, to the guitar work of Manuel and Victoria that, while rarely playing any riff in unison, is always in sync; I will always be in awe of how their front woman manages to sing and play the majority of the band’s leads at the same time. Once their set was finished, I overheard several of the other members of the audience saying things of the same effect to each other; one guy in particular was so impressed with Jesse’s technique on a 6-string fretless bass that he asked what he was doing with his life.

The final band of the night, also from Los Angeles and fronted by a female vocalist on lead guitar (why is that so common in the LA/OC metal scene?) was DreamingDead. A blackened death metal band, and Manuel’s band before Syrebris, Dreaming Dead appears to have the most history as a band, as they were given a nearly hour-long set to perform. In typical black metal style, the majority of the songs were played in some form of triplet-meter, 6/8 or 12/8, and, like much of the rest of the night, unrelenting in tempo and ferocity. Every aspect of the musicianship was tight, especially the drumming, and I was once again impressed by a vocalist doubling lead guitar duties without missing a beat (no pun intended… mostly). At one point they even broke into a cover of one of Metallica’s instrumentals. I want to say it was Orion, but I haven’t listened to Metallica in years, so I may have it wrong.

All things considered, if you like your music on the heavy side, all of these bands are worth checking out. They are all fine examples of their respective genres with a clear passion for the music they create. If you ever find yourself in SoCal or TJ when any of these bands is performing, I highly recommend checking them out and picking up their music.

Chris Hicke