Show Review: Le Bang, Aux Blood, Cardiel in Purgatory.
May 25th, 2024
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Remember us, the faithfully departed
May 26th, 2024
Sometime during the 13th century, God gave St. Gertrude the Great the Prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, to ease the suffering of the spirits stuck in salvation limbo. It goes like this: “Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.” What a banger. Last night at Purgatory Bar, Brooklyn, our soul was saved thanks to Le Bang, Aux Blood, and Cardiel. Here’s our testament.
Every time we see Le Bang, they crank it up a notch. At their Robot Island album release show in November, the crowd went nuts. At Trans Pecos in February, people were singing along to the Robot Island songs. Last night, their bassist torqued the sludge knob to 11. Their bass is like a brain worm that’s now grown to be one of those massive sand creatures from Dune. This combined with the incessant drumming makes for the perfect playground for their frontwoman to romp on, lyrically hopping and skipping on top of the monstrous rhythm. She is the sandrider. Nod your head if you know what we’re talking about. If not, hear this: Vive Le Bang!
Aux Blood’s frontman began their set playing a recording from their iphone speaker through his guitar by holding it right up to the strings. Fucking genius. Then he broke two strings within the first two songs. While in the pit stop the rest of the band jammed out on an awesome impromptu groove. Songs were drawling arpeggios for verses and stuttering stomps for choruses, the ends of which often broke down into an ear-numbing blender of feedback before snapping back into the next segment. One intro sounded like a blown out dial tone, when someone’s hung up on you but you’re still on the line in disbelief. We were in disbelief at how hard they rocked.
Laurel Canyon was on the bill but suffered a last minute emergency and couldn’t make it. We wish them well, we were excited to hear them play again after catching them absolutely tear up Arlene’s Grocery in March, you can read about that show at the link.
We were thinking that Cardiel must be the real deal after seeing a pair of longboard trucks screwed onto the bottom of one of their thousand-sticker covered equipment cases. Their guitarist then sound checked with Sabbath's Into the Void intro riff and we completely lost our minds. Their set hadn’t even started yet. The duo took a shot as a last rite before playing. They rocked for five minutes before singing a single lyric, because they weren’t necessary. Imagine if Bongzilla did coke instead of smoke weed. Their opening sprint slowed to a crawling ooze, and just when we thought we got the vibe, they switched up to the most hypnotizing of reggae dub grooves. Never seen a duo so heavy.
Thank you, St. Gertrude the Great, for praying for our souls stuck in Purgatory. And many thanks to Le Bang, Aux Blood, and Cardiel for putting on a sacred show, Purgatory rocks if you ask us. Missed this? Connect with these bands below to see their next show, or be damned.
