Posts Tagged ‘ no anchor ’

No Anchor @ The Tempo Bar

Date: August 27, 2020
Venue: Tempo Bar, Brisbane
Acts: No Anchor, Fangs of a TV Evangelist

It’s my first encounter with Melbourne’s Fangs of a TV Evangelist. From the get-go, I like their ferocious racket — all spitting, crackling guitar and crunching percussion. I like the way all-out-effort is writ large across the shirtless bodies of drummer Jem and guitarist Jace — muscles strained and corded as they work to wring extra decibels from their instruments.

Like turns to unadulterated awe during a song I later discover is called We Shall Rule. It’s not just the doom-laden bass riff and the way that final drawling note hangs portentously before swinging around for another go. It’s not just the extra kick from Jem’s high-hat striking exactly when Mike hits those rumbling bass notes. And it’s not just the disjointed counterpoint of Jace’s guitar.

It’s the hypnotic build-up. The repetition that’s a slow evolution and intensification: the disjointed guitar morphing into a constant fuzz, the cymbal-heavy percussion deepening into rapid fills of snare and toms, the bass driving the tempo ever-faster.

Jace is singing. Then he’s screaming himself hoarse and the drums that so ominously dropped out are back louder than ever and it’s like an apocalypse, no, a post-apocalypse of sound as the vocals devolve into wordless howling collapse and the guitar disintegrates into squelching feedback.

It’s all these things. It’s massive and majestic like watching a nuke go off in slow motion.

Mono @ The Hi-Fi

October 30th, 2011

Date: October 5, 2011
Venue: The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Acts: Mono, No Anchor, Secret Birds

Shimmering like heat haze, criss-crossing guitar arpeggios seem to pluck at the very heavens. Bass thunders with symphonic grandeur. Crash cymbals scale spine-tingling heights, the crescendos piercing the senses before fracturing into a crystalline silence just as poignant.

Yet the cause, Japanese instrumental quartet, Mono is an isle of still, focused calm at the centre of this typhoon of beautiful, ferocious noise.

As I watch, I’m piqued by a fancy that music is channeling them, rather than the other way round.

That, as soon as they seat themselves on stage, a force possesses them, and the most exquisite sounds just pour forth. Read more

No Anchor spawns a Real Pain Supernova

September 21st, 2011

Real Pain Supernova

Real Pain Supernova

Act: No Anchor
Album name: Real Pain Supernova
Medium: Vinyl double LP and digital download

Late 2008. Violent Soho is headlining at the Step Inn. The first act on the bill? A two-piece bass-drum outfit going under the moniker No Anchor.

“Quasi-instrumental numbers fed a steady diet of steroids. Vocals too thin and the tune just halts with them. Surprisingly full and melodic sound, though.”

Thus conclude the brief notes of my first encounter with Brisbane doom/sludge/noise outfit No Anchor.

A few other items stand out in the mind’s eye: the eye-catching jerkiness of Alex Gillies’ drumming; Ian Rogers leaning into the microphone, his contorted face and indecipherable screaming a credible pitch for the role of angriest man in the universe; my lingering impression that the heavy bass grooves could have been crafted by Cliff Burton.

Fast forward three years and No Anchor has spawned two CDs (Steam and a live effort recorded at the now-defunct Troubadour titled Press Start And Wait For Drone…) and, most recently, a beast of a double LP called Real Pain Supernova. The band has also morphed into a three-piece along the way — adding Donovan Miller (known for his work as the sticksman for the Butcher Birds) as a second bassist.

Over coffee at a hole-in-the-wall West End cafe, Miller smiles politely when I tentatively broach the Cliff Burton comparison. Perhaps musical comparisons say more about the tastes of the reviewer than of the artist. Read more

Teargas @ Burst City

Date: August 6, 2010
Venue: Burst City, Brisbane
Acts: Teargas, No Anchor, Turnpike, Dick Nasty

Burst City.

From the outside it’s a most un-presupposing edifice of low-set brick and fibro. The street-number on the letterbox is the only indication that you’ve arrived at the right place — an inner-city haven for devotees of punk, hardcore and avant-garde music.

Windows are closed and shuttered. Overgrown garden beds line a concrete path that leads to a set of rickety wooden stairs. A dark walk between two buildings doubles as the entrance finally opening into a small and welcoming rear courtyard. Read more

God Hates Brisbane @ The Step Inn

Event: God Hates Brisbane
Date: June 5, 2010
Venue: The Step Inn, Brisbane
Acts: No Anchor, Turnpike, AXXONN, Cured Pink, White Bears of Norway, Die On Planes, The Entire Asian Population

God Hates Brisbane.

I am sure this is true.

I am sure because just up the road hundreds of drunken, braying idiots are packing themselves into the Mustang Bar trying to out-bogan each other, while a bare two-score watch the feeback-ridden, twin-guitar extremities of The Entire Asian Population.

I am sure because hundreds desecrate the rotting corpse of the Arena content to pop pills and listen to recycled RnB while at the Step Inn Ambrose Chapel channels aural destruction from the very heavens with his fingertips.

And I am sure because Brisbanites would rather pay through the nose for overpriced cocktails in wanky inner-city bars than fork out a mere $8 to enter the Step Inn to sample the likes of Turnpike, AXXONN and No Anchor.

If I was God, I would smite Brisbane for these iniquities.

God, ineffably, refrains. Nevertheless, I am sure that God hates Brisbane. It’s just a matter of time.