By Corey Clark
July 24th 2013, Chain Reaction, Anaheim CA: Ahh sweet Chain Reaction. Host to many shoulder-to-shoulder hardcore shows in my youth. Scene girls, slam dancers, small dudes screaming: you know the drill.
Tonight’s first metal warriors were Children of God. Kind of a nice imitation of Neurosis except they’re all like 20 years younger. I would posit that no doom and gloom band has truly earned its stripes until they’ve been bent over by the road for at least a decade. And lord, these youngins are just fresh off the boat! All this is not to say that their music isn’t pretty great though. The basswork was frantic and the guitars were appropriately crunchy. They suitably took time out from the gloom for some atmospheric interludes. Only to smack us down with the nastiest curdling riffs before we became pacified. With a little sprinkle of impassioned grunts an’ howls we’ve got ourselves a pretty decent young band!
Maybe lighten it up a bit for now though guys, when you hear progressive metal bands write seven minute opuses; it’s often about spine problems. You boys don’t know pain yet.
Shai Hulud has been through some lineup turmoil as they were wont to mention when they took the stage. Shortening their set in light of this; they blasted their way through five or so songs and presented the crowd (albeit a small one) with their old-school tried-and-true brand of metalcore. Midway through the set it was declared by Matt Fox that “this is Shai Hulud 2013!” Presumably meaning touring singer Justin Kraus is here to stay and Matt Covey has been replaced by some guy named Dave (I think) on the drums. The guys kept their collective chins up and seemed to be having a good time playing despite the small turnout. It impressed me as an opportunity for them to solidify their personnel changes on a stage with relatively low stakes.
Then came Early Graves.
The crusty fuckers.
They hammered and shucked away as the crowd dwindled even more. The remaining Chain Reaction throng seemed non-committal as these hairy men displayed a charming commitment to their crusty material. It’s got to be hard out there on the road, but it seems obvious based on their music that these dudes are used to the grind. They stood their ground.
All in all a quiet night of loud music in Anaheim. There have been better nights, and there have been worse ones as well.