MASSIE + SCHMOOZE + GIRLESQUE + HALFCOLT
SAT JUL 25 | 7 PM | COASTAL EMPIRE BEER CO.
DC power-pop trio Massie get a lot of things right. The moderate guitar fuzz meets Emily Yaremchuk’s vocals in a sweet spot, the rhythm section drives, and the harmonies connect with stunning regularity. Sonic Youth’s most commercially accessible album, Dirty, made longer, more dissonant versions of this formula. Massie mates that vibe with the disciplined punk songs of bands like Green Day and the ambition of Hole’s Live Through This. Above all else, they know how to write catchy songs nearly impossible to dislike.
Schmooze, from Athens, lean more into grungy alternative rock. At times, their sound enters almost classic-rock territory, perhaps due exclusively to Jack Weatherby’s strong lead guitar work. Cameryn Carr’s vocals range from the subtle tones of Fall to the forcefulness of Too Late to Plead Insanity. The result is a surprisingly large online listening base for a newer band.
Two Savannah acts join the all-ages show. Halfcolt rock it so slow, it’s nearly in reverse. The mellow dirges, rich with lumbering emotion, are as unhurried and restrained as a regretful dive into a thesaurus.
Finally, don’t miss the debut of “alt rock girl band” Girlesque. They’re only playing their first show once, and if they take off, you can brag that you saw it all begin.
CORRUPTED EMPIRE + ALUKAH + DEATHLESS + HOMICYDE + SORRY FOR THE MESS
THU JUL 23 | 7 PM | THE WINGMEN CLUB
The Riff Rampage Tour invading the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast features a trio of melodic and technical death metal crews with local support at each show. In this case, Sorry For The Mess opens. Corrupted Empire closes. In other words, a Savannah sandwich. A six-footer stuffed to the gills.
Corrupted Empire is a local favorite for good reason. Their angry, groove-heavy metalcore is like the musical child of Dimebag Darrell and Killswitch Engage. The bottom bun, Sorry For The Mess, made their live debut only three months ago. The hardcore-metalcore hybrid, replete with raging speed and gigantic breakdowns, has clearly made an impression. After they open this banger, the band will appear on several upcoming bills, including AURA’s Mosh for Tots.
Getting back to the metaphor, the triple meat in this hoagie of horror includes Maryland’s Alukah, Nashville’s Deathless, and exurban Charleston’s Homicyde. The latter has blasted Savannah plenty of times with a barrage of modern death metal. It’s relentless and punishing, with vocals harsh enough to melt a Norwegian glacier in January.
Alukah, from a town south of DC loaded with joyful bureaucrats, is a biblical word loosely translated as “insatiable bloodsucking leech.” Fitting not only because of their neighbors, but also because their brutal death metal will drain you dry. The massive sound makes room for technical riffing, blast beats, and heart-stopping breakdowns.
Nashville’s Deathless play melodic, technical death metal through a nonstop frenzy of convulsions. Short passages of pretty and quiet give listeners a second to catch their breath until the storm recommences, seemingly heavier and more frantic each time. At full tempo, it’s a blurred view into the void.
SID JERR-DAN & THE SNAKE MOUNTAIN BOYS
FRI JUL 24 |10 PM | THE WORMHOLE
SAT JUL 25 | 3 PM | OVER YONDER
The old-school country music Hank Williams made famous nearly 80 years ago was, like most popular music, typically centered around desire, heartbreak, and hard times. If there’s a deeper well in the human experience to pull songs out of, it hasn’t been found. Hank’s own tragedy, dying suddenly at 29 during the height of his fame and influence, is but one example.
Sid Jerr-Dan channels such feelz in songs like There’ll Be Sorrow and Honky Tonk Nightmare, classic country tunes drenched in steel guitar, fiddle, and plaintive narratives. Despite all this, it’s anything but morose.
Somehow, Sid and the style itself turn the sadness into something desirable. He adds to Hank’s foundation with electric guitar, additional influences ranging from George Jones to Gram Parsons, and a touch of hippie psychedelia he calls “the wanderlust sound.”
The hardworking trio is playing both a Friday night show after the comedy at The Wormhole and a Saturday matinee at Over Yonder. No excuse to miss it!
THE D.O.O.D. + KILL TACTIK
SAT JUL 25 | 9 PM | THE WORMHOLE
Accounts of heavy metal’s origins vary slightly. Take Five lands on Black Sabbath removing the blues base of rock to invent metal. The warmth of analog was hardened to the mechanics of digital.
It took about a decade for the genre to find mass appeal with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Iron Maiden were leaders, and their 1980–84 output is a strong example of what the standard sounds like, free of modifiers like death-, thrash-, stoner-, and -core.
The Distinguished Order Of Disobedience are well-steeped in the style, and they’re quite good at it. The recent single Superficial and the track The Well, from the 2024 LP Dissonance, sit squarely in that solid Maiden/Dio/Priest lane of OG heavy metal.
They will veer, however, as heard on the 2021 album Firefly. The lead single Kill the Light has modern, slashing riffs, harsh vocals and, dare it be said, an emo angle. Debatable, but the risk paid off.
The Sarasota quintet has been at it for nearly 20 years, and rightly refers to their music as “road tested.” They undertake mini-tours with industrious frequency. For this Georgia invasion, they’re bringing Jacksonville’s Kill Tactik. The relatively new metal band is playing their first out-of-state show. From a small sample, Kill Tactik’s metal has a hardcore punk edge, not unlike the D.R.I. Crossover era.
DERAILER + CROWN CURSE + MOURNE + BLACK HILLS
FRI JUL 24 | 6 PM | VFW POST 660
Derailer, from Warner Robins, are the “train kids” who started a deathcore band. The kind of deathcore band that sounds like a runaway freight train flying off its tracks and barreling through a large group of innocent bystanders. Limbs, blood, and sinew everywhere.
Despite the fury, their sense of mirth is intact. One IG post of a grinding live breakdown instructs the viewer to forward it to a fan of “breakdowns and gurgle noises.” Where would metal be without self-deprecating humor?
On Never Gonna Change, Drive-By Truckers mention “strong like the people from South Alabama/and mean like the people from here.” The “here” in that lyric might be east Alabama, home of Crown Curse. Mean and strong are just the beginning. The band calls it simply “heavy,” but it straddles the metalcore and deathcore divide, assuming there really is one.
Brunswick’s Mourne provide “kinky fun for the whole family.” As heavy as it is, their deep South hardcore provides a moment or two of breathing room before the full-on metalcore/deathcore assault begins.
They, too, keep a sense of humor. Despite indecipherable lyrics, no one can expect the single Shishkabong to be a profound meditation on the pain and suffering of … whoever. South Florida’s geographically incongruent Black Hills opens with their own brand of raging metal-n-death-core.
-- Frank Ricci