Show Review: Thou, Sun Spells, Lux Carentes (Ithaca, NY 10/3/11)

A few nights ago I had the pleasure of having my head smashed and my neck destroyed by the awesome power of Thou live. In a small, nearly basement sized space in the warehouse of a whole foods store no less. No way that this couldn't have been anything less then stellar, which it was. The place was crawling with people before the show started, a lot of them of course checking out Thou's incredible merch table which was covered in records, books, CD's and shirts. They even had and a couple excellent distro box's filled with obscure hardcore and black metal records. I bought all the Thou stuff I could.
Two local bands also played, Lux Carentes being the opener. Black metal-ish music with a lot of genuine rock influences. I've seen these guys a handful of times, every time the sound being not to my liking. This time probably was probably their best sound wise. The bass was still very, very up front and the guitar was barely audible, but compared to the other shows I've seen this was better. Some technical problems with the bass head stopped the set for a few minutes too, shit happens.
Sun Spells were next. They play instrumental drone with a lot of guitar effects and noise. This was the second time I've seen them, this time with noise loops replacing a drummer. Again, sound mixing was an issue. I could see them fiddling with pedals and knobs and such, but the low end bass frequency was so overpowering that it pretty much drowned everything else out. It was enjoyable, but I always thought bands like this would be more effective if the room was completely dark and you couldn't see anything and you could only hear the music.

I should point out at this point that I was not a huge fan of though going into this show. I liked them sure, but I wasn't a legit "fan". Never the less I was still incredibly excited from the to start playing. The lights went off and the crowd got in reallllllllly close(there was no stage by the way), and then the music started. The whole front row commenced headbanging in time with the pummeling, dense skull-fuckingly heavy riffs. The sound was so thick and bassy, I could feel my legs and chest vibrate.
I guess they didn't have a planned set-list, so their set didn't have a seamless flow. The pauses were filled with genuinely funny banter between the band members. Highlights of the set were "Smoke Pigs", which is my current favorite song of theirs and the cover of Nirvana's "Aneurysm" which got the crowd kinda moving(the guy next to me was jumping around at least). I came in a casual listener, but left a devote fan. The band had a blast, so I hope to seem them around here again soon!

~VII