Unbroken / Indecision / Jesuit / Damnation AD / Unrestrained / Psychic Limb

Santo's Party House, New York City

9 Apr 2011
 

After a grueling flying schedule the day before and wandering around NYC for the first time earlier in the day, I finally made it to Sant0's Party House to see my favorite hardcore band of all time, Unbroken.  After a quick chat with Rob Moran of Unbroken I journeyed downstairs to see the first band of the night, Psychic Limb.  They unleashed an intense attack of grindy hardcore that brought to mind a mix of Dropdead and Antischism!  Their vocalist was super animated, bouncing all over the stage while the band belted out one blastbeat section after another.  I felt drained after seeing their performance and that was just the first band of the night.  Ugh.

Up next was Portland's Unrestrained, whose set was slightly less energetic due to their musical style but they were no less intense.  The bassist was extremely lively but it seemed they did a lot of performing with their backs to the audience.  Which is fine I guess.  However being unfamiliar with their music I was left with a great need to check out their releases as I really enjoyed their songwriting.

Finally the long awaited rise to the stage was Damnation A.D.  Their singer was a monolith of brooding focus and restrained anger.  They got things underway immediately with No More Dreams of Happy Endings and the pit finally erupted in the place.  Somewhere along the way Mike cut his forehead but continued through the set, blood and all like a lumbering golem, ready to explode with pent-up emotional violence.  The set culminated with a cover of Inside Out's Burning Fight.

After that the performances moved upstairs where Virginia Beach's Jesuit got the ball rolling with their brand of noisy hardcore that had touches of Eyehategod and even some drone thrown in.  I'll admit, live this was not really my cup of tea.  But there was plenty of support from the audience though many of them seemed to be a lot more reserved than at other points during the night.

But nothing even came close to when Indecision took the stage next.  The whole place exploded.  Millions of sing-alongs and tons of stage-diving ensued.  NYC represented for Indecision and they represented for NYC.  They kicked out song after song of traditional NYC hardcore anthems which were full of energy and had a great sound.  The crowd was putty in their hands.

I really thought it would be tough for Unbroken to follow up after the set Indecision had just finished, but I was wrong.  Unbroken destroyed that place as they slashed through all my favorite songs, Fall On proverb, Crushed On You, Blanket, In the Name of Progression, and hit Curtain so well in the live environment.  During the set there was an unrelenting avalanche of stage-diving, I even took two knees to the face.  Bringing their performance towards a climax they also included two covers in their set, an Undertow song (Cutting Away) with John Pettibone on vocals as well as a Minor Threat cover of Filler with Brian Lorvo of Threadbare on vocals.  The last track of the night was Absentee Debate, delivered with conviction and pent up angst!  

A special thanks goes out to Rob Moran of Unbroken for getting me on the guest list, doing that interview awhile back and being an all around really cool guy.  Unbroken meant a lot of things to me when I was in some dark places and so it was a special night to me to finally catch them live.