Boris, Tera Melos, & Coliseum @ Metro
Tera Melos is a unique blend of math rock, slacker indie pop, grunge, punk, and noise. At one minute they’ll be playing a fairly poppy song, maybe with a few strange chords, and suddenly it breaks down into chaos. During these sections, Nick Reinhart randomly tapped frets on his guitar, staring at his jerkily moving fingers as if the instrument had possessed them. It was reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age’s psychedelic freak-outs on their first two albums. When they got heavy it was abrasive with loose rhythm and tone. John Clardy’s jazzy punk drumming was aggressive with many intentionally arrhythmic moments. Their new honorary member joined them on stage, a Freddy Krueger costume that was suspended next to Reinhart.
A very intoxicated man ranted to me about how seeing Boris is as awesome as our parents going to Steely Dan or Led Zeppelin, which I found funny at first but it actually made some sense after a couple songs. Boris gave off a rock star aura as they walked on stage, enhanced by the volume and enthusiasm of the audience’s cheers. Atsuo wore a headset mic, playing drums made of clear acrylic in the tradition of John Bonham, raised high on the stage to compete with the height of the towering full stack guitar amps and cabinets. Takeshi had a double-necked guitar that was split between a bass and a standard guitar, which I heard someone refer to as a “Swiss Army-tar.” They covered a ridiculously wide range of rock sub-genres, including stoner metal, indie rock, hair metal, classic rock, and pop punk while maintaining an overall ambient and sludgy tone.
Head here to view all the pictures from all three bands and Boris’ setlist.
