Crazy band hits the Union - hard

by Steve Kehnel
FOR THE POST

It is a shame Athens' impending Wal-Mart has not been constructed yet. If the nightmare-of-a-chain store was already here, it would surely crumble into a dusty heap of plaster and sweatshop-produced clothing at approximately 12:30 a.m. Monday.

At this same time, the gargantuan guitars of the almighty High On Fire will begin their sonic assault across town at The Union, 18 W. Union St., sending seismic waves throughout Southeastern Ohio. Like the demolition of a culturally-void Wal-Mart, High On Fire leaves similarly unoriginal, heavy-by-numbers bands in ruins. If your conception of heavy music is the eighth generation rap-metal of Limp Bizkit or equally distasteful image-obsessed bands like Korn or Slipknot, it's high time you take a course firmly rooted in the classical theorists of heaviness: Black Sabbath.

As tenured professors of this discipline, HOF will surely provide a contemporary twist to the legendary Sabbath text, playing Tony Iommi-inspired riffs as though their guitars were soaked in tar and filled with lead.

Although only a three-piece band, HOF plays with the force of 10, layering thick bass lines with stifling, sludge-drenched guitar. They create a near-deafening wall of sound.

Anchored by former Sleep guitarist Matt Pike, also the vocalist for HOF, the band has garnered much notoriety in the volume department by using a custom-built Green Matamp brand amplification system. Couple that with their epic-length songs (a six-song CD is nearly 45 minutes long), and you have a live performance that will surely leave the crowd sweat-drenched and bloodied, begging for mercy.

The key to HOF's music lies in their primitive, bare-knuckled musical approach. This is organic heaviness, stripped and tuned down to a most visceral level. Yet with all of its brutality, HOF's debut on Man's Ruin Records, The Art of Self-Defense, completely avoids the macho, tough-guy posturing commonly found in heavy music.

High On Fire lets its riffs speak louder than its words. Vocalist Matt Pike's wail perfectly complements the music's ferocity, though, paralleling the songs' methodic bludgeoning. His lyrics are replete with religious and medieval imagery, weaving abstract tales of "celestial kings" walking across water and the "melding of the Riffchild" on the driving "Baghdad," while punishing the listener about going "down the river for some black medication" over the putrid sludge of "10,000 years." How on earth did this mammoth-of-a-band evolve?

In a recent interview for England's Kerrang magazine, Pike described his continuing musical mission from Sleep to HOF, stating "I just wanted to continue my work. It's a never-ending study of the revolution of riffs. I could get all mathematical about it, but I just have to keep going and just keep writing."

As long as Pike continues writing and revolutionizing, the world of heavy music will keep listening.

Sunday night's all-ages show at The Union begins at 10. Opening bands are the F**ks, New Terror Class, and Athens' newest band to fuse the lamb and the goat, Cities In Ashes. There will be a cover.