I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 23, 2024] Big ‡ Brave / Spiritual Poison / Bruise Bath

I saw Big ‡ Brave open for Sunn O))) back in 2017.  

They play slow and loud.  And their songs are very bass-heavy even though there is no bass!  Two guitars making very low rumbles.  The band is a trio–2 guitars and a fairly sparse drum kit.  Robin Wattie on guitars and vocals, guitarist Mathieu Bernard Ball and drummer Louis-Alexandre Beauregard.

I really enjoyed the way some of the songs were maybe two chords, sometimes possibly even one chord, just repetitive and lulling (but really noisy) until it began to morph into something else.

I would have loved to see them again.  I cannot even comprehend how loud they would have been in that tiny venue (and how loud it would have been downstairs!)  But it was the night before we were going on vacation, so I wasn’t going to go out.

Spiritual Poison is a band I’ve never heard of.

Custom Made Music Magazine writes that the band

entices listeners to dive deeper via its cinematic drone punctuated by dynamics of jarring heaviness, numbing feedback, and unexpected melodic reprieve.  As the vision of vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Ethan McCarthy, this sound instantly captivates.  “I wanted it to sound like a long journey through an otherworldly doorway,” McCarthy muses.

I hadn’t heard of Bruise Bath either.

Post-Trash describes the

Philadelphia’s Bruise Bath is the “solo” project of Zak Krone (formerly of Left & Right) and they like to play things slow and heavy. Their music carries an immense weight, providing you that heart-sinking feeling of all your burdens teaming together to finally crush you. While that reality is too much to bare, the mentality of it works well for Krone’s songs.  “The Veil” is the record’s first single, a molasses slow song is equal parts gloomy and in search of something better, something to dig out of the rut.

It sounds like an overwhelmingly loud, heavy and overwhelming evening.