Soilent Green’s Sewn Mouth Secrets managed to seep all the way into Maine’s back woods when I was in high school, their crusty thrasher sound and ADD time-changes carried me through the otherwise boring crap that surrounded me with hopes for better days; last night (6/19/06) at the Elbo Room was one such day. All three bands knew each other and came together for that reason as much as to play metal. Soilent Green drove up from San Diego to play this originally unscheduled show. Mendozza, traveling from Vancouver, covered the most distance and opened the set with slow sludgy riffs. The music reminded me at times of Kyuss and Sleep, at other times of other old extinct bands. The groove was mediocre but their stage presence was lacking.
Next up was Walken, I’d never heard of these guys but they’re from San Francisco and fucking rocked the place. A combination of harmonic guitar work reminiscent of the D.C. scene’s Page 99, Mannequin, and Crestfallen with sudden thrusts of screaming mayhem. Lead singer Shane Bergman kept the audience on its toes with hilarious commentary throughout the set as well as the occasional empty beer can. Walken were getting pummeled with empties by the second song. A couple people commented on the fact that the clean guitar work was sloppy but I can’t dwell on that. The over-all effect was an awesome show and the drunken stumblies over frets was not distracting, perhaps even expected. Shortly afterward I spoke with Sean Kohler (Walken guitarist with silly hat) and told him I wanted the album with the second and last songs they played on it, his response was that those songs will be on the forth-coming album so keep your ears open.
Soilent Green took the stage with a presence of experience and their sound was amazing. Brian Patton’s Mesa Boogie guitar rig was the crunchy tone-filled fuzz almost as it is on the albums, just a little more distorted and FUCKING LOUD. They opened with Forgive & Regret off the new album Confrontation. Next up ripping into the southern-fried Sewn Mouth Secretes. Then back to the new stuff with Leaves Of Three. The changes were all there and brutal as fuck. The pit was soon dominated by inhumanly large dudes and the space before the stage completely bare. A few people mentioned that it was intimidating. I’m no megalithic mastication but I had a great time jumping around. However, having the space so open was a bummer, other than pit it was just a line, two-deep, along the front of the stage screaming with Ben Falgoust. But I wasn’t really paying all that much attention to that as Soilent Green grinded away. They played all of the jazzy interludes on Sewn Mouth Secrets and it felt like we were in the Louisiana swamp drinking fresh lemonade. Hell I even swatted a few flies. The crowd demanded an encore and received one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever heard from Soilent Green. Sick show!!!
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