Smug Anime Face
Whitehorse
ESP Mayhem
The World At A Glance
Muddy Lawrence

Friday evening on the 16th of January, a night of sonic experimentation and extremity took place at Spit, in Footscray. Local doom, cybergrind, and noise bands joined Hobart’s Smug Anime Face for a chaotic lineup, each act pushing genres to their limits.

The first act of the night was Muddy Lawrence, a harsh noise/experimental performance artist. I was under the impression that this was just one person’s project?? (the drummer from death metal band Tumour) but there were two people wearing balaclavas on stage… I am not an expert here. The music pushed the experimental genre to its limit, with distored and pulsating noise permeating echoing fragments of sampled dialogue.

The abrasive distortion eventually engulfed all other sound, at times leaving only hissing static and feedback.

Following Muddy Lawrence, Naarm band The World At A Glance delivered a set rooted in post-hardcore, with an underlying quality of gothic melancholy. The electric violin introduced a weeping and swaying feel, imbued with a faint sense of despair and sorrow. Scott’s vocals were a standout of this act, a combination of deep, well-annunciated clean lines and harsh screaming to suit the songs’ tension.

Scott’s animated performance led to their cap flying backwards off their head early into the set, a reflection of the band’s high-energy stage presence. TWAAG have never let me down with a live gig - one of the most consistent local bands I’ve ever seen.

Naarm five-piece ESP Mayhem played a set unlike anything I had ever seen before. Their self-described 3-synth-no-guitar-future-shock-grind was as deranged as it sounds. Without guitars, the three synths instead drove an electronic, cybergrind sound that kept up with grindcore’s usual hyper-velocity. Able to achieve sounds impossible when using guitars, the band’s hard-hitting, aggressive, and stabbing bass punched through the mix to emphasise the violence and force of their performance.

Between songs, dreamy and swirling ambience that contrasted with the band’s aggressive music paired with the vocalist’s musings, which covered a range of topics from teen pregnancy, self-help advice, and Marxism. These quiet refrains would not last long, however, as the chaotic synthgrind would take over once again. Personally, I thought ESP Mayhem were one of the highlights of the night, managing to command an intense and turbulent mosh without making their 3-synth setup feel like a gimmick.

Whitehorse were next, opening their set with a dark, ambient, and droning song that stretched to an unforgiving 24 minutes. Rooted in atmospheric sludge metal, doom, and noise, the performance moved at an extremely slow pace, its creeping structure forming into something hypnotic, industrial, and oppressive.

Their second (and final) track was no less crushing, continuing the suffocating sound. Harsh, decayed vocals accompanied the viscerally heavy instrumentals, tied together with eruptions of feedback and abrasive static. Whitehorse showcased doom and drone metal pushed to their extreme limits with both of these pieces.

Headlining the show, Smug Anime Face were the last to play. The Hobart band’s sample-ridden chaotic grindcore was a drastic change of pace to Whitehorse’s crawling previous set, leading to a wild and unrestrained mosh. Smug Anime Face’s genre is hard to put in a box, with elements of grind, skramz, electronic, and noise. Cutting through the speed and volume, the samples seemed to originate from anything the band could get their hands on, including (multiple times) a Centrelink phone hold message.

Unfortunately I had to leave the venue around halfway through their set. I didn’t want to miss their last few songs, but I will admit I was slightly relieved to be out of that pit (especially due to the amount of stray elbows I was getting hit by).

This show delivered intense performances from some great bands, local or (in Smug Anime Face's case) otherwise. It was such a great reminder of how diverse the Naarm music scene is. If you get the opportunity to see any of these wonderful people play somewhere please please pleaseeee do it!

Thank you soooo much to @lauradalezz1e for their hard work documenting different parts of our scene. To listen to a bootleg from the night, you can access Laura's audio recordings!

photos from the night (click to expand)

photo credits:
@applegangdafotoman on instagram