Toronto – Metal and hardcore are not things we write about too often here on The Panic Manual, but as I may have mentioned before, I do like the heavy stuff from time to time, so for my purposes ,Canadian Music Week became Canadian Metal Week on this night.
First up was The Atlas Moth, a band out of Chicago who really impressed me. They had a densely layered,epic, doomy sound featuring three guitars, multiple vocalists, and touches of synth. I heard touches of Neurosis and even Pink Floyd in their sound. Their set seemed like it was over too soon and way too short, but that may have had something to do with the fact that all their songs were pretty long. I would definitely be interested in seeing them again.
Harvey Milk are an interesting band. Named after the politician from the ’70s, they’re currently touring behind their self titled album, which was actually recorded back in the early ’90s but has only recently been remastered and released for the first time. The first couple songs were really doing it for me, but by the third song, they really hit their groove. They played a bunch of new unreleased songs a new unreleased song (or maybe two?) from an upcoming album , which was full of slow, bluesy riffs. Frontman Creston Spears had a row of what I believe were shots of whiskey lined up onstage ,which probably accounts for his vocal style, which could certainly be described as whiskey soaked. They also have what I believe is the best t-shirt design ever.
Coalesce put on a pretty intense show. The recently reunited band are touring behind their latest (and first in 10 years) album OX, although they only had a handful for sale because they figured everyone would have downloaded it anyways. It’s ok though, I’m sure they sold a few t-shirts (even though the designs weren’t as daft as those Harvey Milk were selling). They were gracious enough to take a few song requests shouted out by fans, saying that since they hadn’t been here in 10 years, they would play what the crowd wanted to hear. I was a little bummed that they didn’t play anything from their album of Led Zeppelin covers, but not at all surprised … although hearing “Black Dog” would have been pretty sweet.