[ATTENDED: June 24, 2023] Heatmap
Heatmap is from Philly and should not be confused with Heatmaps. They weren’t originally on this bill and I’m not sure when they got added. But wow, what a great find.
The band is a trio and they have two EPs out.
I stood right in front of their bassist who played a 1974 Gibson (I only know this because someone asked him and I overheard the answer). It had such a great sound and it worked perfectly with the way he plays. The bass is almost a lead instrument. Not like Primus (they sound absolutely nothing like Primus), but sort of like Primus in that the bass plays the main riff/melody line and the guitar mostly throws sounds and textures over the top of them.
Couple that with their drummer’s complex and amazing drum patterns (now two songs have the same beat and pretty much none of them are just bass/snare) and Heatmap proved to be the most exciting band to watch.
On record, the bass prominence is less notable–it’s still there, but the guitars are more prevalent. But live, sometimes the singer/guitarist wasn’t playing anything as the bass played the cool post-punk lines and the drums thumped away with lots of floor toms.
It was funny when they played a new song and the drummer couldn’t remember how the drums went for it. He tried out a few complex rhythms before getting the correct one. (This isn’t to say that the drummer is doing crazy prog rock stuff–again, this isn’t Primus), it’s mostly a straightforward rhythm repeated, but there’s a cool tribal feel to the beats. For one song I was sure that the drummer and bassist were keeping different time signatures, but I couldn’t quite tell.
So with this spare setup of bass and drums, throw some sharp guitar chords or riffs over it and add in the singer’s almost disinterred singing (not bad at all, but interestingly almost robotic, which works perfectly).
I enjoyed their whole set immensely.
Their EPs, as I said, aren’t mixed quite the same way I hard them so I’m a little disappointed in them, but I have high hopes for the full length they said they were recording now.
SETLIST
- Beak
- Keepers
- Bloom €
- Grows ¶
- Again ¶
- Paralyzed
- Cross
- Voice
¶ Pulses EP (2017)
€ Thank EP (2019)
I Just Read About That... 
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