Trash Talk, Cower, Death A.D., Ill Intent @ Good Neighbor Pizza 11/17

I thought I was on the east coast again. In a land seemingly full of happy circle pits and straight ‘getting rad’, Good Neighbor Pizza earlier last month was full of spin kicks and windmills. Machoism was in the air, and if it wasn’t for the brutal riffs I think I might have actually left. Death A.D., though they look like they’re all batting at 17 right now, started the night with some spastic, grindy influenced hardcore. Their songs were short and fast, which is all I can ask for, but something about their stupid antics – showy ironic fingerpicking, singer collapsing on the floor, etc. – got to me after a while. The drummer was wearing an Infest shirt and the influence definitely showed, and overall it was a good set. Ill Intent played typical bro mosh and sucked. Nothing more can be said. But rest assured when Cower played they made sure that every last person’s insides were sufficiently pulverized. D-beats gave way into crushing sludge riffs and, yes, they managed to protect that age-old rule, abused so many times now by new age shitty metalcore bands: yes, if you play that line again that much slower, it will be that much heavier. Last up was Trash Talk, representing the oh so raging Sacramento California (…?). With songs lasting an average 50 seconds or less, these dudes threw down some impressive choppy thrash that wasn’t afraid to slow it down for a few seconds before launching into 10 seconds more of blazing brutality. While still bringing their own style to the table, the classic oldschool hardcore influence was hard to miss. Trash Talk came to rage and without a doubt succeeded, but their sound was just a little too clean for me. More feedback, more distortion on the bass, less attention to detail, please. By far the most impressive part of the night, however, was the fact that I made it back to the bus at Pioneer Square in 15 FUCKING MINUTES. (Dekum St. is really god damn far north). Cower is playing again soon with Autistic Youth somewhere on Alberta – come see it if you want to rage it and avoid a far too serious scene. -ds