MASTODON / CONVERGE / THE BRONX
WEBSTER HALL - 9/8/2006



Holy shit. From start to finish, the Mastodon/Converge/Bronx show completely kicked my nuts into the roof of my mouth. I had never heard The Bronx and probably never would have had they not opened for Mastodon... for some reason the idea of a Southern California based band naming themselves after a burrough of New York City just seemed really lame. But of course my prejudices were unfounded. They do tend to overuse the styles and hooks of their influences and it does come off a bit obvious, but they still kick serious ass and definitely add their own signature to the genre.

Converge was definitely the band I was eager to see; even more so than Mastodon. The Converge family tree branches out to bands like Cave In, Old Man Gloom, Daltonic and Doomriders and I have always been fond of their style. The intensity of their music is really difficult to sufficiently describe. It is simply some of the most heartfelt agression you can imagine. Imagine having someone scream in one ear while a thunder cla explodes in the other.

And what can I say about Mastodon. The setlist they put together for the show was a really good representation of their overall body of work. From start to finish it was a complete onslaught of some of the finest metal since Master of Puppets or Reign in Blood. Everyone there was so into it that for the whole show it felt as though the entire place was on the brink of exploding into one huge mosh pit. But that never happened. There was some shoving, but no actual pit, thank god. There's nothing more pathetic than a half-assed mosh pit.

The Bronx
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Converge
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Mastodon
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