Strolling casually onstage with lights dimmed and smoke-machines billowing, Georgia’s Dead Confederate launch into a ferocious and manically driven performance of feedback, noise and utterly brain-melting volume. This is the sound of violence. But it’s beautiful violence.
Mixing elements of desolate Southern dirge rock with early 90s shoegaze, it’s easy to see why the band have recently had the accolade of supporting J. Mascis’ noisy grunge luminaries Dinosaur Jr, and Dead Confederate seamlessly merge distortion with melody to create a painfully loud wall of sound aesthetic that will quite possibly leave your ears bleeding.
Playing songs mainly from their debut LP ‘Wrecking Ball’ including ‘‘Start Me Laughing’, ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘Heavy Petting’, the band employ a combination of crushingly heavy riffs and pounding rhythms with hushed vocals and quieter, more reflective breakdowns with front man Hardy Morris’ cracked drawl spilling out from the speakers like the cries of a tortured animal. The black-clad crowd go wild for The Rat’, throwing their bodies around like inmates in a scene from the Cramps infamously deranged Napa State Mental Hospital show.
The set is infused with a sense of introspection and melancholy, yet still holds a positive and uplifting charm as Dead Confederate marry together the disparate elements of grunge, psychedelia, and post-rock. Tender and quiet moments lull you into a false sense of security before the band launch into heavy, monolithic and densely textured combos of squalling noise and echoing space, the songs relying heavily on delicate nuances of sound set within a chaotic background.
This is the sonic beauty of My Bloody Valentine meets the druidic Southern-rock drone of the Black Angels. Swirling ambient guitar lines meet the obscene heaviness of Brantley Senn’s bass, layer upon layer of mesmerizingly overdriven beauty quite literally shaking the floor beneath us.
Wailing reverb, vocals imbibed with pain, huge breaks and dream-pop atmospherics fall into driving post-psychedelic vibes, the band seemingly in a trance as they attack their instruments with gleeful abandon as guitars clash and drums pound. But there are no cliché rock star moves on display here, just a refreshingly honest and truthful onstage focus completely devoid of pretension.
With their second LP entitled ‘Sugar’ on its way in August, the band are one to be experienced firsthand with a degree of caution and trepidation. Your ears may well not appreciate the sheer unrelenting abuse of Dead Confederate in the morning, but after all, this is music for the soul. And Lord, does it feel good.
Ramsay Cooper
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