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Mare Vitalis

Despite all the rain last night, I made the trek up to Denton to see the Appleseed Cast at Rubber Gloves. This was my third time to see these guys and the first time to see them with their new-ish drummer, Nathan "Jr." Richardson.

As I've described their live show before, I feel like I'm watching waves crash on a beach. There's constant movement, but it's slow; there's a lot of beauty, but it's not all pretty; and it's rather peaceful. Last night was no different, and I think it was the best performance I've seen by them.

Promoting their latest, sixth proper full-length, Peregrine, the Cast dug out a few nuggets from their past too. Tracks from Mare Vitalis and Low Level Owl were the highlights for me, but I really enjoyed the new material too. I was very curious to hear Jr.'s parts on the older material because he replaced an incredibly unique player by the name of Josh "Cobra" Baruth.

Cobra had a style that could be best described as "lead" playing compared to standard, straightforward playing. Instead of playing with simple grooves, Cobra's playing was always a walking, behind-the-beat kind of rhythm. Well, Jr. faithfully duplicated the old parts, but he also gave them some extra flair. He left no dead space and played so well. I couldn't stop watching this.

Opening for the Cast was the one-and-only [daryl] and a relatively new band, Broadcast Sea. [daryl] was its usual good, but I had a hard time hearing everything. Broadcast Sea reminded me of Thursday and At the Drive-In, but they weren't tacky knock-offs.

Despite raining off and on last night, Rubber Gloves was packed (not to maximum capacity, but pretty full). Everybody was into the music and hanging out, leading me to think that this kind of community in post-hardcore is still very alive and well.

Comments

Kev said…
Heh, the drummer from my combo was up there seeing that same show last Friday; he called me while I was in New Orleans to ask for directions around Denton.

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