The Blood Brothers / Minus the Bear : Showbox, Seattle WA 1/28/2006

According to their website, last Saturday’s sold-out show by Minus the Bear at Seattle’s Showbox was going to be “bitchin’ like my Camaro.” It’s hard to say what the Dead Milkmen would’ve thought, but in the ears of this reviewer, the talented MTB put on a solid, if unmemorable, show in support of local youth music scene stalwart, The Vera Project. The lyrically strong Seattle quartet carries the familiar sound of many in today’s four-guys-with-guitars indie rock scene, with a carefully crafted look that could send them straight to The O.C. Indeed, their set began with promise, and within a few songs of taking the stage, the group had the front few rows of the audience moving – quite an achievement in shoe-gazing Seattle.

Unfortunately, that initial burst of movement was the best the band could conjure, with a show that sadly ranged on the safe side of interesting. Unadventurous and uncharacteristically lacking in stage presence, MTB was completely inoffensive – and thus, fairly forgettable. Interestingly, it was the vocals, bearing lyrics that are arguably MTB’s strongest facet, that particularly failed to impress, carried off in a lackluster style that did little to move the audience.

Closing out the Seattle-centric lineup (Crystal Skulls and These Arms Are Snakes preceded MTB) were headliners The Blood Brothers. Their mere presence on the stage induced Beatles-esque admiration from the all-ages crowd, albeit with a slightly more graphic edge (this image was solidified by the plaintive request by one nubile girl for singer/keyboardist Johnny Whitney to “fuck me Johnny”). Fronted by two vocalists, The Blood Brothers created a cacophony of sound that admirably matched their on-stage posturing. The aforementioned Johnny vamped around the stage, drinking in the enraptured audience, while co-vocalist, Jordan Blilie, looking like a cross between Richard Ashcroft and a young Mick Jagger, remained hidden behind his wave of bangs.

The arty façade, however, quickly fell as the music rose, with the band driving a wall of sound that could only be vocally accompanied by anguished punk growling the likes of which must be heard to be appreciated. As if to contrast Minus The Bear, the lyrics were nearly universally unintelligible, with seemingly no attempt to distinguish individual words in the screeches complementing the wall of sound that was the rest of the band. The audience, clearly being treated to the band for which they had come, was quickly seduced to a seething mosh pit whose endless surging recalled the glory days of 80s metal, proving – or perhaps re-affirming – that rock is alive and kicking here in the city of grunge.

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