2-16-05 at Sabala's in Portland, OR
Nut Brown, Gifford Pinchot, Hollowpoint, & Amongst Us
By Robin Steeley
Sabala’s is pretty quiet on this Wednesday night, there isn’t really much of a crowd and the room is kind of cold. We got their during the last song of Nut Brown, a band I have never heard of before but I have to give them props for attempting something different. Their music is a messy menagerie of sax, drums, keyboards, and bass. I didn’t hear any vocals and the music itself was wild and experimental, in fact, it sounded a whole lot like something that might be born after band members spent a lot of time shaking hands with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Gifford Pinchot is a Northwest three piece with a diminutive female vocalist/bass player who while small in stature is huge in sound and style. The guitar player also shares vocal duties while playing a layered guitar sound highlighted by the faster tempo of percussion. For the first song or two the vocals were really hard to hear but after a few directions from the band to the sound engineer I could finally start to make out the vocals, which were a mix of throaty whispers and clean melodies. My friend Elana coined their sound rather well I think; she called them “Bohemian Metal”.
Hollowpoint is on stage next and I was happy to see them, the last time I saw them play was at a huge party in Estacada where they incited an out of control riot playing a Rage Against the Machine song and then got it under control again by playing Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”. The band has a distinct hardcore sound that is rap mixed with metal, heavier then most Nu Metal but with the spitfire vocals and thumping bass usually associated with it, and leaning heavily towards the metal side. The music itself is heavy yet oddly melodic with a powerful delivery and screeching vocals. The bass is low end to the max and it gives it that initial resemblance to bands like RATM without being a direct copy. Lyrically it is an angry, angst-ridden tirade against society and is very fitting for this style of music. Overall, it was high energy, a good performance, and it was great to see these guys again.
Portland’s Amongst Us takes over the stage and it’s easy to see who dominates tonight when all of a sudden there’s a crowd in front of the stage when it had been close to empty all night. The energy in the room soon rose as surely as the decibels did. The band features crunchy yet intricate guitar work laid down in a classic thrash manner, and straightforward, throat ripping death metal growls. The percussion is ferocious and the bands timing is impeccable. A thunderous bass line torments every song and I can surely tell you that this three piece can BRING IT.
I can’t believe I have lived here three years and have never seen them before. The music has a classic grindcore feel with a modern metal twist. Dynamic shifts in tempo make it unique and I can tell you I have never seen three people pull off this huge of a sound. If I had to describe Amongst Us in one single word, it would be MONSTEROUS.
On their last song's final note, guitarist/vocalist Chris Finster falls over backwards and hits the stage pinned with his guitar covering his face. The crowd went crazy over this but I was close enough to see that this wasn’t staged, the black out was real. He was down for the count. Just when I started to get worried the crowd began to scream for an encore and to my surprise Chris jumped back up and dove right into another song full of blistering riffs and violent energy, playing not one but two songs before finally ending the night. Now that is fucking metal.
