Posted on November 17, 2009 - by Chris Seed

Not Much Middle Ground To Bury Strangers

A Place To Bury Strangers are the only group touring with their own structural engineer, (not really but perhaps they should). They are reckoned to be the loudest band in New York producing music with kinetic energy that can rattle an RSJ.

Moho Live, like the last 2 venues they played in Manchester, is a well built bunker and it survived an assault from ‘Total Sonic Annihilation’, (an effects pedal employed by the band).

APtBS are more than simple volume, much more. The sound they produce is meticulously constructed. The foundations are provided by Jay Space, his drumming, relentless and happily devoid of frills. On bass guitar, Jono Mofo, a tough Welsh/New Yorker who punches out a bass line as hard as nails. Chief architect and master builder is Oliver Ackermann, once more famous for his ‘Death by Audio’ effects pedals used by the likes of Kevin Shields, U2, Serena Maneesh, Airiel and Alcian Blue, to name but a few. Ackermann possesses a rare skill, much of it learnt through years of experimentation, a lot of it just good old-fashioned talent, he can craft sound.

The band were supported by the hugely entertaining and convivial Japandroids and by the excellent Swedish band ‘Sad Day For Puppets’. Neither band really ’set the scene’ for what was to follow, that would be impossible, but both were easily worth the £6 entrance fee alone, (good value for money).

What did follow was a mix of the old and new. The first few tracks were played pretty straight, like the second album, they were ‘accessible’. It wasn’t until ‘…Shadow of Your Heart’ transmogrified into ‘Ocean’ that the essence of the band was released. Hardly visible through a haze of dry ice, they constructed an awe inspiring ‘wall of noise’, not a minimalist bare wall, if it were visualised it would look much more like the side of a Gaudi cathedral, such was its depth and complexity.

This was rock/shoegaze taken from the plain previously wandered by the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Skywave and put somewhere beyond.

This is a band all music lovers should experience live. Opinions will be polarised, carbuncle or monument, there won’t be much middle ground here.

A Place To Bury Strangers – “She Dies”

Let it ring on...

• Oliver Ackermann: Italo Disco is fucking amazing! (0)
• A Place To Bury Strangers (0)