Young Widows exude a chilled-out vibe to their brand of sludgy hardcore. Their music is intense, with frontman Evan Patterson’s guitar riffs chunking out like metal bolts and anvils coming out of a meat grinder, but it’s a sort of pensive aggressiveness, like watching volatile chemicals in science. Young Widows are the type of band whose record you throw on and smoke a J to, even though they are noise-rockers imbued with hardcore. … read more

Sheena Ozella, the frontwoman (guitar and vocals) of Lemuria, is an amazing guitarist—she’s clearly an intelligent person, as her odd chord structuring and deft movement along the neck played out sonically with an almost jazzy character. Her left hand played Tetris with itself and moved from barre 7 chords to tuning while she was singing during a stop. … read more

You see, Masked Intruder has a dancer, who is a dude dressed up in a cop costume. His job is to run around and rile people up. He accomplishes this by pushing people and moshing with them. Part of his job is to flip people off, too. He flips off as many people as he can at any given moment, on- or offstage. I imagine that Masked Intruder would kidnap me, as they are robbers, and I’d probably get sick and tired of the cop, even though I think he’s cool at the same time. … read more