The ‘Sold Out’ sign was up at the Crowbar on a chilly Thursday night! This is a compliment, not only to Potion & their rabid following, but also to the rest of the bill that they put together to launch the new ‘Oath to Flame’ EP. If Doom is your thing, there’s plenty to like about this line up, and there are plenty of punters here to enjoy it, in spite of the chill that’s been shrouding Sydney for the last month.
The band room is fairly empty when KVLL put down their pints & amble from the floor up to the stage, but once they kick off… with a squall of feedback into a punishingly low rumble, not just the floor but the cross city tunnel is probably shaking! Such is the crushingly bass-heavy sound, KVLL come at you like a giant steamroller in a pool of wet cement. The room certainly filled up considerably by the end of the set, and for what is apparently only their 2nd show, the band get a great response from the crowd.
So apparently someone hired a smoke machine for the gig tonight, and by God they intend to use it! Each band look like they’re playing in a junior high school toilet block, at times you can hardly see the Drummer, hey at times you can hardly see the BANDS. Maybe someone was going for the Stoner rock effect or something, but they went overboard in my opinion.
Mountain Wizard Death Cult emerge from the gloom. Singer JJ Brady is a presence in the middle with his ungodly yowl, while Guitarist Chris Chaplin & Bass player Anthony Langton are a whirlwind of shapes either side, and Lachlan Livingston Wink at the back pounding the gold sparkle drumkit into submission.
The 2nd song goes from an atmospheric opening to bombastic riffing over inhuman shrieking, into discomforting crooning… and back again.
MWDC aren’t really a verse, chorus, verse type deal. Indeed their entire set seems like it’s been arranged so that it flows like one single unsettling set piece. Sabbath into Spanish Guitar, into Pantera via Blackmore with an unhinged ringmaster howling over it all. Thoroughly unique, check them out!
Astrodeath, the 2-piece Rock & Roll Machine are up next, filling the room with a sound fatter than bands 2, 3 or 4 times their size can lay claim to. The first time I saw these guys, I thought that they sounded a bit empty, but that certainly wasn’t the case tonight! Drummer Yoshi Hausler is an absolute weapon, while singer / guitarist Tim Lancken howls like James Brown on a particularly potent batch of bathtub crank. ‘The Beers are kickin’ in’ he proclaims, as they roar into ‘Dogma’. ‘Relentless Brutality’ does exactly what it says on the wrapper and perfectly describes their rifftastic sound. They finish with a wall of fuzz called ‘Mountain King’. Astrodeath are in top form at the moment, showing no signs of any COVID rust, catch them while they’re peaking.
It’s a leaner, meaner & tighter Potion tonight than I’ve seen previously… no fussing & right to the punch! Playing to a bigger crowd clearly agrees with them! Having seen them a few times now, tonight is easily probably the best show I’ve seen them play. Singer / Guitarist Lee churns out the doomy riffs, and he & the drummer do a great job in swapping lead vocals, while Bass player Stella Leung looms on the right, like Joey Ramone with a Bass guitar, bobbing her head from time to time in unison with the crowd. One area that Potion particularly shines is memorable riffs, the songs are crammed with them (one sounding like an inverted ‘in-a-gadda-da-vida’). The smoky stage is bathed in a sickly yellow light for much of the set, which on top of the smoke, gives a 70’s stoner-den feel. To the set, the newer songs (‘Hallucination Rites’?) were standouts, and also seemed to set the crowd off as well. Potion, and their fans will definitely mark this night down as a night to remember
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Adam Sivewright
