Best Shows of 2013: METZ at the Biltmore Cabaret, May 3

Photo credit: Azimut Brutal

Some bands fail to capture their live energy on record. Some bands fail to translate their studio dynamics live. Some bands manage to sound exactly the same live as they do on record but come off boring, robotic. "If a band sounds the same live, why not just listen to their albums?"

METZ prove that the problem isn't remaining too faithful to records but being a boring, robotic band in the first place. METZ are every bit as explosive live as they are on their self-titled 2012 debut album, and that album, as I've discussed in last year's best-of list, contains a despairing energy I've never heard in music before and didn't think could have been captured in a studio. There is no divide between recorded and live experiences with METZ: What you hear while safe at home or when passing as a detuned ghost in transit is what you hear while being moshed unstuck from beer-soaked floors at the bar - or in my case, a "cabaret."

Read my full review of METZ at Vancouver Weekly. And before anyone "quickly" points out, yes, I repeated much imagery between both the album and live reviews. If musicians can re-work demos, I can re-work my personal writings.

METZ Live on KEXP (Full Performance)

Finally saw METZ last Friday. My review for Vancouver Weekly is almost done. They hurt:

Boom Goes the Night

Toronto's jet-engine punk rockers METZ storm the Biltmore tonight with White Lung and Cindy Lee in tow as support:

Homesick #9: White Lung - "Saint Dad"

Opening for METZ on Friday at the Biltmore. Always a great show:
  Homesick #9: White Lung - "Saint Dad" from INTOTHEWOODS.TV on Vimeo.

Favourite Releases of 2012: METZ - METZ (Sub Pop)

One of my most frequent musical analogies for the hardest rocking music to me is the sound of fighter jets taking off and barreling through soot-filled skies. Nothing I've heard from this year - or ever, really - has sounded quite as turbulent as Toronto's destructive METZ. They play to kill, even if it means taking themselves down with you.

METZ' entire self-titled album bleeds the nihilistic despair of a pilot who knows he's on a collision course with infernal death. Downward spiraling, tailspin guitar opens "Rats," and the plane bursts into a ball of flames as drums and bass simultaneously inject themselves into the wreckage. The sense of panic in "Rats" is so overwhelming, I find myself wanting to radio for help, fully aware of the futility in doing so.

METZ is volatile, every song a ticking time-bomb. Every drumbeat explodes like stepping on a landmine. Bass notes launch like strings of mortars. Engine-roar guitars ring out relentlessly like glass-shattering sonic booms. The only cessation comes as stormy calms before METZ circle around and dive-bomb your ears again, penetrating all the way to your psyche, blanketing you with scalding sheets of corrosive napalm noise.

Though not stripped enough to sound punk in the purest sense, the actually demure Toronto trio delivers their F5 whirlwind of gusty hard rock with such an unmatched sense of urgency and alarm (perhaps nowhere more than on "Sad Pricks") that METZ has become one of my favourite albums of its kind period, let alone of the year.