Beastwars cross the ditch from New Zealand on a lightning Australian east coast tour, promoting their new single This Mortal Decay. I caught them at Crowbar in Sydney supported by Sumeru, POTION and Astrodeath for AMNplify. You can see the full photo gallery here.

Astrodeath

The was a bit of a commotion and crush getting into the band room as Astrodeath hit the stage right on time just as the room doors opened. This duo of drums and guitar from Sydney fill the universe with their solid brand of sludge grunge.

The driving, chunky, swampy guitar was pushed along by drums shaking the thunder from the sky; all coming together with a screaming vocal to wake the dead and make them snap necks in an explosion of headbanging.

A short but massive set from these two noisemakers was well appreciated by the quickly swelling crowd, warming nicely for the night ahead.

Check out their latest sounds here.

POTION

Next up – add a band member and you have the trio that is Sydney based POTION. With drums, bass and guitar cranked to FULL BORE, the band room was thick with thunderous sound.

Murderous screams, a raucous and savage guitar; and a bottom end that thumped pounding beats straight to your heart; led the room into a sinister pit of doom. You could almost feel the walls closing in on you as we all descended into the abyss.

The sound mesmerised and held everyone in the room, transfixed through the set with an aural overload – until the short set was over & we were back in reality – the absence of sound almost hurting.

Experience the onslaught here.

Sumeru

Skipping 4 and moving straight up to a troupe of 5 black clad men of mayhem; Sydney’s Sumeru pitched us back into a melee of darkness.

With a rhythm section of drum and bass laying some heavy metal clad railway tracks for the rest of the band to scream along, guitars were free to belt along with massive power chords or lilt and trip on metal excursions up and down the fretboard – always coming back to each songs journey that careered along at breakneck speed. All this while vocalist Jake Willoughby drove the train with a voice that could blow a Viking into submission.

Another whirlwind of a short set, pushing the crowd further into a black frenzy, goaded on by the bands on-stage antics and doom inspired lighting. The night was heating up and we were all now well and truly dripping.

Listen to their darkness here.

Beastwars

By the numbers we are back to the missing four piece in tonight’s puzzle. Wellington’s Beastwars once again grace our shores and bring their slow, heavy, heavy sludge metal for our ecstatic pleasure.

Bass, drums, guitar and vocal made up a sackful of sound at the Crowbar tonight, shaking our insides out, with a wall of sound that penetrated into every nook and crevice. Songs eddied from menacing whispers to all out Marshall powered assaults in a whirlwind of a set. But it was the vocals and the mesmerising moves of vocalist Matt Hyde that you could just not look away from. Was he incanting spells? Creating a new form of tai chi? Or just living the moment through heavy sludge meditation?

A quiet moment in the set sees a rare bit of stage banter about bringing the much needed but torrential rain to Sydney – immediately picked up by the crowd with an impromptu chorus of Crowded House’s “Weather with You”, much to the delight of the band – but then, not to be distracted, it was quickly back to the business of dealing out the thunderous and raw sludge metal and attempting to make every earhole in the room weep with blood.

You can sample their aural wares here, but get along to a gig when it turns up for a whole in and out of body experience.

And the Brown Note? The sheer volume and doom reverberating through the Crowbar tonight was enough for the Brown Note to turn black.