Metal/Crustcore Band Black Recluse To Play Indy’s Melody Inn on January 20th.
Anyone who ever said punk had to be pure was suffering from a bad case of missing brain. Certainly, punk has a few hallmark features that make it punk. There’s no debate there, but tying it down to a single, narrow definition? Demanding that punk stultify to a collection of formalities? Ignoring the explosion of diversity in popular music that punk is responsible in the first place? Rather misses the point I think. What’s so great about purity anyway? Arsenic is an element, as pure as pure is, but that doesn’t mean I want it on my salad. But, I digress. And so, with an eye to directly experiencing what I’m talking about, look no father than the Melody Inn. That’s right, brothers and sisters, on January 20th the Melody Inn welcomes Black Recluse!
A Brief History
Black Recluse is the brainchild of John Saxen, a local musician. Before he formed Black Recluse, Saxen played in the band Bolth from 2006-2009. After Bolth dissolved, Saxen got the idea to go his own direction and in 2016, he inaugurated Black Recluse. The path from then to now is, of course, neither simple nor easy. In fact, Saxen had to replace several positions in the three-man lineup multiple times. Thus far, the band has released on exclusively on BandCamp, with four albums (LPs and EPs) to date.
Their Sound
At it’s simplest, one could describe Black Recluse’s sound as hardcore punk meets metal. This would be a gross oversimplification, but useful enough. It does have the hallmarks of both genres, after all. Saxen doesn’t so much belt out as belch out his lyrics. Doing so with an intestinal fury that harkens back to Discordance Axis. Speaking of which, there is also more than a touch of grindcore about the whole enterprise. The songs are frequently very short, and violate the typical punk simplicity freely. Perhaps the most precise classification would be somewhere in the crust punk sector, or even crustgrind. The instrumentation has all the deep rumbling of metal with the deliberate abrasiveness of punk. Guitars grind like chainsaws cutting into quality oak. The drums rattle and boom at speeds Chuck Yeager would think twice about. Of course, the capstone is the deceptively technical playing style favored by Black Recluse, which is bound to reward a close listen. If your eardrums don’t burst first.
So, as always. The venue is the Melody Inn, door’s 9:00.
See you there!
