Athletic Automaton, White Mice, Hamborghini, To Live & Shave In LA at Friendship Cove, Montreal

I was fortunate enough to catch some Providence noise last night at Friendship Cove in Montreal.

Hamborghini

Showed up too late to catch Hamborghini, which was a drag because this is a couple of the folks from AIDS Wolf and I was eager to see them play after seeing AIDS Wolf for the first time at the Suoni Per Il Popolo festival earlier this year.

White Mice

White Mice are a three-piece with oscillator, drums and bass. Their sound was like a combination of noise, black metal and Comets On Fire (well.... the oscillator guy of course). Pummeling blast beats from the drummer and the most insane distorted bass ever. The bassist was apparently singing through his mice mask but it was totally indistuinguishable - heavily distorted as well. They picked up steam as the set went on - getting into some heavier slower grooves and riffs. There was a lot of throwing of bass, duct taping shit together and drum sticks shooting everywhere. Nice!

Athletic Automaton

Athletic Automaton was on next and they were really the show-stoppers. Patrick's drumming was mind-blowing and his drum kit sounded incredible. Apparently he has a friend that work's at a big music warehouse and so he got a very lavish top-of-the-line set of drums for basically free. Stephen from Arab on Radar was doing guitar and lap-steel guitar.

They sounded like heavy-boogie-psych filtered through noise rock. The beats were heavy as hell and more musically satisfying than a lot of noise rock bands - Patrick actually put his foot through the base of the kick drum pedal at the show, which is something you certainly don't see every day.

Their set was way too short and everybody was left wanting more which is OK because these guys have been to Montreal four or five times and plan on coming back soon cause it's one of their favourite places to play.

These guys are great on record too – they have a split record with Made In Mexico (also ex-Arab on Radar) and a full-length of their own, and a split with AIDS Wolf coming out on Skin Graft Records. As far as I know these are all available on both CD and 180-Gram vinyl. This is one of the best bands I have seen in years and I highly recommend checking out both their records and live show.

http://www.athleticautomaton.com

Gordon B. Isnor