Converge / Touché Amoré / A Storm of Light / The Secret @ Classic Grand, 28 November

Italy's The Secret waste no time in blowing the doors open tonight.Their chaotic, nihilistic blend of hardcore, grind and black metal is simply unforgiving; vocalist Marco Coslovich's deathly bellow accompanies a violent maelstrom of blast beats and dramatic minor guitar chords throughout the set, making them sound like some kind of rabid crossover between Mayhem and our headliners. The results are positively grim, paving the way for three more stellar, quality-assured acts.

 

A Storm of Light are perhaps the odd ones out – they're more of a slow, brooding collective, both sonically and in the way that they play. A collage of stunning apocalyptic images floods the screen behind them (it figures; guitarist/vocalist Josh Graham was a visual collaborator for Neurosis), setting a thick, gloomy atmosphere as the band studiously bring their Neurot-indebted, industrial-tinged post-metal to life. Bassist Domenic Seita's tones are notable for being thick, sludgy and devastatingly loud.

 

The crowd have been fairly static up until this point, but as L.A.'s Touché Amoré take to the stage and begin to pile through their emotionally wrought post-hardcore mini-epics, the front-end of the Classic Grand erupts with positive energy, sending a sea of hands desperately grasping for a shot at frontman Jeremy Bolm's mic. His anxious, confessional lyrics are at odds with his stage presence, which radiates with profound joy: “I have the biggest crush on this city,” he admits, name-dropping a number of homegrown acts he holds dear, from Mogwai to Belle & Sebastian.

 

Converge simply don't do that kind of sentimentality. Instead, the Massachusetts hardcore veterans pile on the aggression with seminal Jane Doe opener Concubine, which acts as some kind of anger-stimulus for the audience, who lunge forth with wild enthusiasm. A good bulk of new material is given a test run: quickfire rager Trespasses and the slower, more textural Glacial Pace stand out, going down superbly in amongst the classics. Axe to Fall's doom-laden Worms Will Feed / Rats Will Feast has become something of a live staple, and for good reason, too. To witness their calculated brutality in the flesh is to be part of something truly significant.