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Narrows & All Pigs Must Die played Knitting Factory w/ Cleanteeth (pics, video), playing BV-SXSW

photos by Sarah Coulter and Maclyn Bean

All Pigs Must Die (by Sarah Coulter)
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On Friday March 9th, I toddled over to the Knitting Factory to see the triple bill featuring Clean Teeth, All Pigs Must Die, and Narrows. To be honest, All Pigs Must Die was literally the only reason for my being at that show, but the acts that book-ended them made me glad I got there early and left late.

Cleanteeth blasted off pretty much at 9pm on the nose. This particular show marked the first for their new drummer, who absolutely dominated the kit with incredible skill and aggression. The band was really great; they were heavy as hell and lacked a lot of the slow plodding monotony a lot of metal bands suffer from nowadays. It drives me absolutely fucking crazy that metal bands feel the need to drop their guitars down to some low ass note such as B; as though that somehow makes them heavier. Weren’t the guitars on Obituary‘s Slowly We Rot, one of the heaviest albums to come out of the late 80s/early 90s metal scene, tuned to a standard E tuning? Yes. They were. Write heavy songs and stop leaning on the cliche low tuning crutch people. Anywho, Clean Teeth were great! They had my massive bald skull banging, that’s for sure.

Next up was the centerpiece of the evening (for me), All Pigs Must Die. As a person very much into the whole late 80s, early 90s death metal stuff, newer metal is a lot harder for me to get into. There’s is a lot of horseshit bands out there, bands who are covered in ink copping nice vintage gear and huge stacks and essentially just looking the part and producing nothing worth anyone’s time. APMD, on the other hand, are the real article, creating some of the heaviest music to hit my ear drums in a loooong time. Sonically, they encompass a lot of elements that your man Klaus can’t get enough of; speed and vocals bordering on Sick of it All, a guitar tone that reminds of me Entombed‘s monumental debut record Left Hand Path, and a dash of good old fashioned hardcore, grindcore, thrash, and death metal. I have missed every single NYC-area APMD since I saw their debut show at Union Pool in January 2011, so this was a show I had been looking forward to big time. Few front men have the power and presence of Kevin Baker. I’ve met him twice off stage and he couldn’t have been nicer, but onstage he is the epitome of fury. If there was ever to be a systematic destruction of earth, whoever is in charge of the project should hire Kevin as project foreman. As he screams his way through the songs, his body language gives off the impression that he is about 1 second away from snapping and destroying everyone in the room. This was the first part of the evening where the crowd sort of woke up and started shoving which was good on two scores; first, it’s great to see a typically flaccid NYC crowd actually get cranked about something. Second, someone dropped 10 bucks which I promptly ganked and used to buy an APMD shirt. Thanks, whoever you are!

Last up was Narrows who really shut things down with a big sweaty bang. Holy. I’ve been a huge fan of Botch forever, so for a Dave Verellen project to be happening in my backyard (with APMD no less) was double dope. What a phenomenal band to follow up APMD. I don’t want to trivialize what they do by comparing them to other acts or bringing up their related projects, but Narrows is absolutely crushing. Do yourself a favor and seek them out any way you can; buy their shit, look at their vids on youtube… I cannot think of a better pairing than APMD and Narrows.

APMD and Narrows play together again at the BV-BBG/Thrasher/Power of The Riff Official Showcase at Scoot Inn on 3/16, part of an all day BV/POTR event at the venue. Narrows will ALSO play the BV/Chaos in Tejas bridge show scheduled for the night of 3/15 at 2AM with Regents, Darkest Hour, and a special “Nighttime” guest. Make sure and see that bridge show… don’t sleep!

More pictures from Knitting Factory below…

Cleanteeth by Sarah Coulter

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Cleanteeth by Maclyn Bean

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All Pigs Must Die by Sarah Coulter

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All Pigs Must Die by Maclyn Bean

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All Pigs Must Die – Curse of Humanity / Extinction is ours

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Narrows by Maclyn Bean

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Narrows – Greenland