As Artifacts tears up the stage at Moe's
Earlier in the month I had been invited to a show at Moe's Original Bar-B-Que in Englewood. The show was slated for Tuesday the 16th, not exactly a primo show date on anyone's calendar, but an evening that I did indeed have open.
The bill featured three bands, Son Survivor, Flood of Souls, and As Artifacts. All three bands could be filed under post-hardcore metal, or metalcore if you prefer, with a strong emphasis on the "core" aspect.
This genre is generally not my cup of poison, but truth be told, all three of these bands did a credible job of tearing up the joint, and all three of these bands exhibited an obvious love for their craft.
The opening act, Son Survivor, is a local Denver band that has been around since 2011, and has been playing live for about the past 7 months. They belt out a riot of hard-hitting, ear-bruising metal that can and does kick some ass.
The band has been honing their performance skills on the stages of many local venues over the past few months, and they are gelling quite nicely. If metalcore is your thing, you'd probably be well served to catch one of their shows.
Flood of Souls, another Denver-based band, pulled a fairly unique amalgamation of sounds out of a barrel of high-grade adrenalin.
Aside from the expected high-intensity crunch from the guitar of Johnny Fysh and combat-boot stomp of the bass of Tasker, Flood of Souls featured some decidedly twisted licks from the lead guitarist, Stevyl.
The capable vocals of Werd filled (or flooded, more appropriately) the venue, with an added bit of reverb for effect. The beat was paced by drummer Marvyn, and the high-energy combo held their own capably on a three-band bill.
Travis Bartosek utilizes a voice that should be registered as a dangerous weapon
As Artifacts, a band that calls Concord, California home, headlined on this warm evening in Englewood.
They are at the tail-end of their "Generation of Swine" tour, having played venues in California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and finally Denver - 23 shows in the past 24 days! Only 4 more stops until they get home.
The band arrived in Denver early Tuesday and enjoyed a rejuvenating day in the mile-high city with hosts Rob and Mandi* (The wonderful people who invited me to the show, incidently).
The band features both a "clean" and an "unclean" vocalist (Brian Anthony, who also plays guitar, and Travis Bartosek, respectively). They both can do incredible things with their voices. Brian's gentle vocals soar and are a perfect counter to the hard-core aggression of Travis's sonic assault.
The rhythm section featuring Joey Webb on Keyboards, Michael Yankovich beating the skins (and tossing in an occasional death growl), brother Matt Yankovich on guitar, and bassist Stephen Mallory, proved to be up to the task of providing turbo charged beats and breaks, as well as case-hardened chords and spine bending solos that perfectly complimented the vocals.
As I mentioned, this is generally not a genre I indulge in, so I was pleasantly surprised (and honestly, impressed) by how good these 6 young men were.
They played before a sparse crowd, which is to be expected for a Tuesday night in a Denver suburb, but as they gain exposure and word-of-mouth (or word-of-Facebook, I suppose) gets around, fans will soon be hard pressed to catch them in a room that isn't packed to the rafters. They have that level of promise.
They are playing Salt Lake City tonight, then head to Reno for a gig on the 18th, finishing up the tour with two dates in California - beautiful Walnut Creek on the 19th and Sacramento on the 20th.
If you are near any of those locations and enjoy high-energy enthusiastic metal, you can't go wrong making the effort to see As Artifacts live.
*Full disclosure: Rob and Mandi are two great people it is my pleasure to call dear friends, and Mandi is the Mother of Brian Anthony.
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