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Preview Tue Mar 20 2012
Preview: A Place To Bury Strangers @ Empty Bottle, 3/21
[This review comes to us from writer Rachel Angres.]
A Place To Bury Strangers released their latest album Onwards To The Wall on Dead Oceans in early February. The album was produced, mixed and mastered by the trio, which now after a six year swap includes front man Ollie Ackermann (guitar/vocals), Dion Lunadon (bass guitar) and Jay Space (drums).
Using the "wall of sound" technique and some DIY instrumentation, (they nerd out by building their own amps and various instruments to take on the road with them) APTBS has spent the last couple years preparing for what they love most — being on the road. The band brings a volatility that is more malleable when compared to the typical shoe-gazing method of compression, blending and reverberating slurred and sullen vocals.
Onwards To The Wall is full of elegies — the album itself is an ode to all things melancholy. The bridges in flux with the distortion have a fleeting optimism that teases the listener.
APTBS are known for a shocking and sometimes even horrifying live performance. When I spoke with Ackermann earlier this year, he noted that the band builds kinetic sound sculptures assembled into strange creatures and irate robots combating the war on loudness with amplified guile. While on stage, they destroy these sound sculptures with their instruments. This intensity is what Ackermann believes is lacking in live performances as he reminisces of the days when concerts were like wild acid trips where you lose yourself in the music.
APTBS courageously attempts to interact with the crowd and summons them in a whirlwind of passionate destruction. See it for yourself, tomorrow night. A Place To Bury Strangers performs Wednesday, March 21, at the Empty Bottle at 10:30pm. Apteka, The Big Sleep, and DJ Brady open. Tickets are $12. The Empty Bottle is located at 1035 N. Western Ave. (773) 276-3600.
-Rachel Angres