Industrial music can use electronics to make metal heavier, which is one of the reasons why it is still a winning genre, and which is why 4:06–4:27 of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Becoming” is heavier than anything Slayer ever recorded. NIN are back in action these days and just released a collab album with Boyz Noise, and industrial is visible again, not that it ever really went out of fashion, it just went underground; in Europe, the goth-industrial subculture has always remained strong. I saw Youth Code in Berlin a year ago, and it was packed full of enthusiastic black-clad folks lapping up every minute of it.
Palm Springs duo Desire, who originally formed in Montreal and take the time to express some hometown love tonight, are a great opener, with their slinky cabaret vibe, vampy spoken word vocals, and swirling melodies. The music is a kind of gothic synthgaze, which reminds me a little of cult desert goth duo Gram Rabbit. There’s something out-of-time about Desire’s music, and you get the feeling they’d be at home in a Dan Clowes or Gilbert Hernandez comic. Megan Louise is an eye-catching presence, spilling out of her black latex outfit as she dances, while Johnny Jewel hunches over his keyboards. “It’s like the whole world has gone mad. I saw you in a dream again,” she intones in “Black Latex,” distributing flowers to a grateful audience at the end of their set.
The venue is pretty full at this point, and of course the PA music between sets is Nine Inch Nails and Ministry; you can’t go wrong with the classics. I’m a little surprised that Health are on next, I thought they’d be headlining, but I check the internet on my phone, and sure enough, Carpenter Brut are the bigger band. LA trio Health have seen a steady rise since their 2009 breakout album Get Color, and it’s not hard to see why: their sound takes the chunky heaviness of industrial metal and melds it with shoegazey vibes and vocals, blurring the boundaries between those two worlds, which was a long time coming (industrialgaze?). Together with bands 3TEETH and Author & Punisher, this seems to be a creative avenue for industrial to go, carving out a niche in the liminal zone between alt. rock, industrial, and doomy, abstract atmospherics. Health also have killer aesthetics, great collaborative chops, know how to ride the algorithm, and are great at worldbuilding, creating the whole package of what a band can be in the internet age.
Health’s set begins strong and demonstrates the ingenious way they combine shredding heaviness with ethereal, otherworldly vocals, recalling the likes of Tool and Deftones in the sense of putting together seemingly incongruous things and making it work. Bringing together the heavy and the vulnerable is a real product of the 90s, and Health can appeal to the youth and also the oldies such as myself. They wear their debt to NIN (who they have collaborated with on “Isn’t Everyone”) very much on their sleeves: “Crack Metal” recalls the guitars and drums from “Wish,” and “Children of Sorrow” those of “Last,” both from the Broken EP. Jake Duzsik’s vocals always were an acquired taste, but the band really found their footing as they leaned into being heavy, and recent albums such as Conflict DLC and Rat Wars are fantastic.
The main problem with tonight is that, after a while, it hits you that a lot of what you’re hearing is clearly on tape. There’s no way three people could make this much noise, and there comes a point where it feels a bit like you’re in a room with several hundred people listening to a Health album on CD. The live arena is a chance to go off the chain a bit, but Health do not do that; there’s a brooding energy to their recorded songs that doesn’t get unleashed tonight because they stay within the confines rather than bursting out of them. Also, the sound just isn’t loud enough; I don’t feel like I’m being punished.
There are great moments, and the band’s range, from Dead Can Dance or Purity Ring chanting ambience, also recalling that band VAST (remember them?), to echoes of old Smashing Pumpkins or even Type O Negative, is impressive. They can even do slow dances, and Duzsik tells the crowd, “We want to be back soon, but nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody, so let’s have this moment together: dance, cry, catharsis.” I would like them to be a bit heavier, but I suppose I can always listen to PeelingFlesh. Ultimately, the performance is a bit clean and clinical and could be dirtier, and the band could let their hair down a bit more; it’d be worth the expense to get another guitarist and someone on keyboards, to become the live band their records deserve.
From the get-go, Carpenter Brut is a vibe shift. The French solo act comes from a different world, that of dark, industrial-tinged synthwave known as darksynth. There are overlaps between all three artists tonight, of the dark and electronic persuasion, but where Desire were camp and Health were sincere, Carpenter Brut are playful. Main man Franck Hueso is accompanied onstage by guitarist Adrien Grousset and drummer Florent Marcadet of French prog-metallers Hacride, with Marcadet on his drum kit looking very much like a big spider behind the big Tusk logo. The set’s intro video, a sci-fi parody ad from “Tusk Estates,” introduces the show: a multimedia, cinematic experience combining sci-fi video imagery, forays through cyberpunk cities with robot soldiers, and a throbbing 80s-infused synth techno soundtrack. The droll robot banter is amusing, saying stuff like “You may crowdsurf” and “Merci Montreal,” and there is a postmodern wink-wink lightheartedness to the experience, which some audience members interpret correctly by dancing along “ironically,” though down at the front, dancing fans are getting really into it, especially when the trio ratchets up the intensity.
On one level, it feels like this could be the future of live shows, with the synergy of images and sound, think of the Sphere in Las Vegas. Carpenter Brut’s darksynth cavalcade certainly expresses a modern darkness, and the growing hybrid of metal and synthwave is exciting, with Gost, whose James Lollar sadly died recently, being one of that genre’s big names. On the other hand, there’s something resolutely surface level about Carpenter Brut which is all too evident tonight: shouldn’t this be at a rave? I feel I’m on the wrong drugs to appreciate it, or maybe I’m just tired. My general takeaway tonight is that both headliners come across a little too artificial and lacking the human element, and in this era of rising techno-feudalism and AI infiltrating every aspect of our lives, for a live concert it’s not really good enough.
Review – Daniel Lukes
Photos – Melih Nehir
