SHOW REVIEW: Cosmonauts/Hindu Pirates/Ruptures/Crisis Arm/Hash/Apathean @ The Dial, 2/8/13

Usually I start off my reviews with a little background of what I did before the show, but there's nothing particularly amusing or entertaining to say about the day prior to this one. It was a Friday at work and even though I only got one lead we were testing out new data so they had me stay til 6. I went home, ate some casserole and took some gravitys, got picked up by the Crisis kids, and went to The Dial. It was a rainy night and visibility was low but Kevin Crisis is a solid driver & got us there safely despite my constant babbling distractions.
It stopped raining by the time we got there but it was still cold as shit. Everybody wanted to stand outside and smoke cigarettes but that's not my bag plus like I said, cold as shit, so I just stood inside by the door being awkward as fuck. Pat Crisis and I tried to decipher some of the new graffiti on the walls, to no avail, while the various bands debated whether to bring in their equipment now or wait until between sets. I don't care about that discussion.
First band up was the homeboys from Riverside, Apathean. They take a long time to set up so it's sometimes good that they open up shows so as to not create a mid-show lag. Part of their set up includes bright blue lights and a makeshift candle-thing that smokes throughout the set. Apathean play a kind of churning alternative-metalcore that's clearly influenced by bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan and Burnt By The Sun. Many of their songs consist of pounding quasi-breakdowns and dissonant guitar noise, abrasive but always strongly rhythmic. They are very animated when they perform (again with the DEP-ness), thrashing around the space in front of them and kicking each other down and falling all over the place. Some kids (seriously, kids) started hardcore bashing at the beginning of the set which amply opened up space for the band peoples to abuse themselves as well as startling the hipster kids who were there for Cosmonauts. One of the coolest songs they played was a slow trudging build-up jam with low brooding Gregorian-type vocals like Nile would do on an interlude song. It eventually turned into a crashing jumble in the most badass of ways; Kevin later confirmed that that one was indeed semi-improvised but I think they should work on it and make it a full song cuz it was cool. They also debuted a new shirt with an image of an otter eating a starfish. 
There were alot of people there at The Dial for this one, alot of faces I had never seen before, and like every single one of them was clearly still in high school. I felt old as shit. In between sets I chatted with Travis from Rapid Youth/51D about that Christopher Dorner cop-killer maniac; this was before the whole cabin fire thing. Travis had made a post on Facebook before I got picked up about how despite all the media coverage on his lunacy and about guns and stuff, not a whole lot was being said about Dorner's apparent motivating factors; the police brutality and abuses of power that define the LAPD at this point. I related how I had been thinking about the same thing, how the first part of Dorner's manifesto and the changes he seemed to be pushing for, that all made total sense; he really lost me when he started talking about killing children and shit, though. He said that Dorner is like a black Rambo, we all had a good laugh, and he went to his car to get 51D tapes for me and Kevin. Cool stuff.
Next band up was Hash from Orange County. I've seen them before and they're cool. As the 2 bands were changing instruments, Ashtin Apathean pulled me over to validate his description of their sound, which was 'if "Electric Wizard" rode skateboards.' I guess I can hear that. Hash play a kind of stoner-core hybrid. If that makes sense to you than you probably already have a good idea what these guys sound like. Very riff-heavy in a mid-70s way, at times seemingly the mutant offspring of Black Sabbath and Tygers And Pan Tang. They meld from that into heavier parts and faster punk parts very appropriately, oftentimes just adjusting riffs from one tempo/style to the next without fundamentally changing the structure or the groove of the thing. I love when bands do that. They're kind of like a non-metallic version of The Sword without wanky solos; within the Southern California scene I'd go as far to say that Hash is the biggest stylistic competition that my boys in The Coltranes have right now. Punk without all the stupid fashion or fake attitude; vaguely 'core' but the breakdowns don't chugadun; heavily indebted to the Sabbath. The Coltranes are more immediate but Hash may be a tad more intricate.
As Crisis Arm set up their instruments I kinda just wandered around the warehouse, eventually getting into another conversation about that crazy Dorner dude with Eric from My Iron Lung. He was very interested in talking about it, everybody is tripping on this dude. (NOTE: Dorner is now dead but we're still all tripping.) We talked further about the 'miscarriages of justice' topic I had chatted with Travis about earlier. Eric was a bit more approving of Dorner's tactics than I am but we concluded that hopefully this whole fiasco leads to some kind of meanignful police reform. Who knows.
We could hear the band about ready to start playing so our conversation came to an end and I went to use the little gentleman's room right quick.

I have seen Crisis Arm like a million times, at practices and at shows, at various different venues, and I can definitely say this was the best I've ever seen them play. Maybe it's due to the fact that they can practice all the time now because they finally live together at their new jam-house, but many of the problems that had plagued them in the past (namely, one guitar overpowering the other and ruining the dynamics) seemed to be smoothed away. Also newly absent were the animal masks they had always worn. I think maybe after the Tittyfucker show they grew wary of gimmickry. Either way they sounded great. "Empire" is so depressingly dramatic; sometimes its like the guitars are howling in anguish, and I don't mean that in a bad way whatsoever.
The highlight for me was the final song of their set, a new one called "Late" that I had seen at practice once before and then they sent me a live demo that I became familiar with. Pat told me that this song is about child abuse, and it has got to be the most upbeat-sounding child abuse song ever written. My first impression of the song was that it sounded like Polaris, which is about as good of company as I can put a band. It's by far the poppiest, most accessible song in Crisis Arm's catalog, so much so that it almost seems out of character for them. After they finished I gave Pat a big high five because that shit was high-five material.
We were gonna go snack & smoke in the van while the next band set up, but these guys had their shit set up very quickly. Ruptures is a 4-piece hardcore band from Los Angeles. If I had to crudely distill their sound (which is all I really do in these reviews) I'd go with post-Verse hardcore. Maybe post-Deathwish but not as heavy. Haircut hardcore. Clearly rooted in modern, not old-school, hardcore, with emotive flourishes that don't quite delve into Touche Amore territory, some faster parts that aren't overtly punk. Their lead guitarist had some spiffy dance moves; he liked to twirl. He must have twirled at least 10 times. I can respect that. The drummer dude needed water and I let him waterfall from my bottle a few times. I contributed. They played a cool set, not too long, never started to drag. Their tunes don't reach out and shake me like an abusive babysitter or anything but I thought they were cool.
After Ruptures played we finally had a few moments to sit down and munch on some cookies and apples. It was still cold as shit but not so unbearable anymore; my socks had become damp, however. That was a bummer.
Hindu Pirates was the next band up and I won't hesitate to say that this was quite possible the absolute lamest band that has ever played at The Dial. It's not they were objectively a bad band; they were all adept at their instruments, their songs were fleshed out and everything. It was just lame as hell. They're the kind of arena-"indie" group that LA and OC have been puking out in fits for the last half decade. They wouldn't seem out of place on an old episode of "The OC" because it was exactly swill like this that Seth bastard thought was cool. Think of the Cold War Kids mixed with the worst parts of The Growlers and Vampire Weekend, with a half-rate Kings Of Leon wannabe on vocals. IT'S THAT BAD.
Every song they played was derivative mainstream shit in one way or another; the opening jam was a kind of throbbing buildup that sounded nearly exactly like "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis; halfway through the vocalist got up from his keyboard for a desperate, un-rock-n-roll "romp" that sounded like that fucking band Jet; even the 2 songs I kind of enjoyed, I only liked because they kind of reminded me of U2. It's bands like this that make uneasy to use the term "indie rock" sometimes. These motherfuckers played at the goddamn U.S. Open. So alternative.
By the time Cosmonauts were getting set up it was already pretty late, probably past midnight, and kids were getting tired. I remember waiting for the bathroom after the Apathean chaos and hearing one of the too-young-for-me girls lamenting, "I thought Cosmonauts were gonna play firrrrst!" I guess they got that impression because they're listed first on the flyer, but that's the universal symbol of being the headliner and just goes to show how lost this new generation of hipsters really is. Anyway I think alot of them kids were thinking the same thing because it seemed like alot of people were all the sudden back for the Burger band.
I say that because Cosmonauts have released music on Burger Records and embody the trademark sound of that extremely trendy label: catchy in a late-60s psych-surf-"Nuggets" way, but also kinda self-consciously trash-thrashy. When they record they have a bunch of unnecessary noise on the tracks, and kids eat that shit right up nowadays, but I thought seeing them live was a better representation of the songs. The catchiness is way more apparent, and the three-vocal vocal onslaught sounded clearer and more reminiscent of classic bands. On drums was Fletcher from The Garden, whose characteristic hyper-smiles and drumstick baton-tosses were on full display. It was a good show.

At first the hardcore children from the Apathean set were just moshing, which seemed funny to me because I just don't see this as moshing music. It's dancing music. Myself and a few other like-minded individuals began shimmying in a more natural style and before you knew it even the moshers were big dancing. Throughout the set Fletcher's twin brother and their lookalike dad (I think?) were being all sorts of wacky, wrestling each other and dancing like champions, starting push pits and general acting fools. Dope fools.
Overall, Cosmonauts were some good old-fashioned rocknroll fun hidden in the sheen of hipster punk and it was a real good time. I hadn't danced at an actual rock show for a good minute. It was fun.
After the show was over there were some intra-Dial issues to be dealt with an we cleaned up. We had a little convo between myself, Navis, the Crisis kids, and JJ about future projects and stuff but of course I had very little to contribute besides general support and/or shit-talk. I got driven home and went to bed. It was late.