Live Review: Black Cobra, Jucifer, Dead, Nunchukka Superfly

Does anyone know the correct etiquette for getting the sound turned down a little at a metal gig? Has any etiquette been established? Is it like telling a rabbi to be a little less Jewish? We only ask because had the sound at Newtown Social’s Twins Of Evil show been taken down just a notch or two, the thick putrid crust that collected over everything via an overworked speaker setup wouldn’t have decimated any and all detail punched out by bands heavy on riffing and groove. The show forfeited nuance in favour of volume, and although it probably seemed like the right thing to do on paper, the result was an ugly mess that shortchanged four great bands.

Mighty hometown heroes Nunchukka Superfly fared best, with most of their psychedelic assault remaining intact. The guys were free to wander around their cosmic, bottom-heavy catalogue unimpeded by shitty sound and chewed up detail. It was too short. A Superfly show generally is.

Melbourne experimental sludge punk outfit DEAD may have delivered the killing blow that felled the house speakers. They’re a really interesting band that combines the blistering intensity of a Steve Albini project on PCP with the rhythmic inventiveness of a band like Battles. Hypnotic passages of single-chord caterwauls and punishing drum patterns got grittier and grittier, and everything soon became mud.

Jucifer screamed and thrashed their way through a brutal set of songs that pummelled us into a fugue state. If DEAD killed the speakers, Jucifer violated their corpses. The husband and wife team from Georgia, USA, have such a rich catalogue it was a pity the genre-shifting duo didn’t have a better place to show it off. Edgar Livengood was a fucking animal on sticks, snap-locking himself into brilliant passages of fury.

Perennially underrated duo Black Cobra closed with a fiery set that clawed back some sense of solid identity from the wall of Orange amps stacked behind them. Familiar riffs angrily tumbled out onto the small crowd and it was enough to inject some life back into the gig.