Monday 19 August 2013

Metz - Switching Saturday @ OFF! Festival On

Never heard of OFF! Festival? Neither had I. This Polish festival, however, is definitely worth hearing about. In an age where we're bombarded with stale information about bands that aren't worth hearing or places that aren't worth seeing, the stumbling upon of OFF! was very much a revelation. Here lies a festival that, at £46 for 3 days with camping, offers you bands such as The Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine and Deerhunter. After experiencing Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Woods, Cloud Nothings and The Smashing Pumpkins on the Friday we'd already gotten our monies worth. There were still two days to go.

Friday got us off to the psychedelic dripping doom metal of Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, who we totally saw collecting their guitars and gear alongside us at the airport ("They must be going to OFF!"). A band hailing from Cambridge, they sound like the soul-soup combination of what a cannibal might cook if they'd come across the wreckage of a plane housing Black Sabbath, Witch and The Stooges. A worthy band to be our first taste of OFF! 

However, if Fridays opener is to be compared to soul-soup from the cannibal's bowl, then our first taste of music on Saturday must be compared to the chase before the plane's victims came to their soupy end. That is to say, that the band in question were a high velocity, high intensity, high up (well, they were up on a stage) band that managed to heat up an already sweltering afternoon. If we the crowd were feeling the effect of the 35°C sun, these guys must have been close to popping with the show they were giving us. So who was this band and if they weren't one of the headliners why should we care?

To put it simply, they were Metz. A Toronto based punk noise trio with their finger on the button. A button that triggers the explosives strapped to the stage and ends the show in a cacophony of noise and a showering of blood and guts. Okay, maybe that last bit was a metaphor. In truth though their set was close to having that effect. Their set lasted 50 minutes and rarely had a moments pause. They opened with their self-titled debut album's first track Headache, which coincidentally the audience also ended the set with. Now that's not a jab at Metz because if you're into noisy punk rock and you've come for noisy punk rock then there's nothing about this band you won't love. They're engaging on stage, sharing small banter with the crowd (Bassist aka Bruce Campbell's love child: "This next one's a dancing song, so start moving around."). They also play their huge Canadian hearts out, making sure that if they're not soaked with sweat by the end then they haven't done the crowd justice. Highlights included Get Off and Wet Blanket which were perfect mosh-pit hits to rock out to. 

Now the only criticism I felt I had when leaving at the end of the set was that their songs all sounded very similar. However, after re-listening to the album and reflecting about the set I've come to the conclusion that if you enjoy one Metz song you'll enjoy them all and thats no bad thing. If you're after some Canadian punk, mosh-pit inducing goodness then I can't think of a better band (except Fucked Up - but I'll review them later). For now however, take flight to Youtube and search Metz, live or in the studio this is some information worth listening to. 




Alex Edkins in full flow

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