PRACTICE-SPACE PARTY Motherboar’s cover of Metallica’s “Hit the Lights” pushed the pit into the red. |
Celebrating the release of sophomore album The Beast Becomes the Servant (Born of Fire Records), Motherboar had a thawing crowd headbanging at full clip Saturday night, proving they won't be resting on their 2010 Boston Music Award for Best Metal/Hardcore Band. A thrashing Allston audience packed 20-deep threw and spit tallboys of 'Gansett and PBR at vocalist Kenny Irwin, who soaked up the scene and beer like a Frank Frazetta Cimmerian by way of Lemmy.
PHOTOS: Motherboar at Great Scott, by Derek Kouyoumjian
Songs off the new album revealed a tremendous progression in Motherboar's sound, from the workmanlike metal/hard rock of 2006's Raise the Death Toll to a fist-shaking prog-tinged behemoth that brought Baroness's first two EPs to mind. But Motherboar still know how to party. They pushed an already vicious pit into the red with a furious cover of Metallica's "Hit the Lights" before closing out with the pummeling "Raise the Death Toll," undoubtedly inspiring many to make a stop at the merch table on their way out.
For most of the night, the show felt like a practice-space party, with each band - Razors in the Night, Acaro, and Livver setting up Motherboar - shouting out to one another, the revolving cast of openers jumping on stage for gang vocals during the headliner set. Led by Troy Schoeller, an absolute monster of a frontman in archetypical working-class skin, Razors in the Night would have stolen the show on any other bill. A powderkeg in braces, Schoeller spent most of the set leading vocals in the pit, briefly jumping back on stage to introduce the Razors' next blue-collar hardcore anthem. With a Gothenburg metalcore straight out of a VFW show circa 2003, Acaro's kinetic vocalist Chris Harrell and shredding guitarist Felipe Roa went a long way toward winning over the early crowd; they even inspired a few nostalgic bursts of moshing. The sludgy hardcore of Livver left little time for stage banter, but on a night like this, it was about action, not words.
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