Unsane, Reas [23.05.2023: Postgarage, Graz]

2023-05-24 19:00:48

by Oliver
am 24. May 2023
in Featured, Reviews

Absolute noise rock legends visit on Second Floor the Grazer Postgarage: Chris Spencer brawls with the newly formed, 2021-reborn Unsane on the Mur by an almost breathless, rough, dirty, grooving Early Cuts-Setliste.

Like guitarist/singer Spencer as the only constant in what is now more or less the third life of Unsane caught up with Eric Cooper (who works with jobs at JJ Paradise Players Club, Strangelight, Pushmen, Bad Powers, Kiss It Goodbye, Pigs. or Made Out of Babies even has an impressive list of references to show for himself) because he tussled with the bassist once more and once more, and he retaliated between exuberant punk rock leaps by mischievously stepping on his opponent’s effect pedals scattered across the stage, while drummer Jon Syverson practically does not allow a quiet second, connects almost all songs with short, feverishly lurking or nonchalantly swinging transitions and further intensifies the trio’s enormous playfulness, while his precise, jagged and powerful playing the furiosity of the currently dormant ones Daughters straight into the raw unpolishedness of Unsane-Noiserocks translated, yes, because of the trio’s sparkling chemistry, you can hardly believe that this constellation of the legendary band from New York only came together almost two years ago – they are so perfectly attuned to each other, so euphoric does the song material become with a blind understanding communicated as if nothing else had ever been done.

Unsane 2

Unsane 3

Unsane 4

If you want, you can perhaps hear the reason why Unsane in 2023 – a whopping three and a half decades following the band was originally founded – seem so hungry and energetic that the immediacy is also created by a particularly impetuous urgency – as if you were dealing with three youngsters who want to let the air burn. And can.
Conversely, this also includes the fact that it certainly has a wistful followingtaste, not being able to marvel at the “classic” line-up with Dave Curran and Vincent Signorelli, but the realization that arises beyond that is by no means absurd: Possibly have Unsane never sounded so grandiose as with this line-up.
The great sound of 2nd Floor In this regard, he will certainly do the rest to spread the spark (on a quite numerous one, the small sub-establishment of the Postgarage but by no means fully occupied) audience to skip, even if restrained movement comes into the crowd late.

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Unsane 6

The start of the evening at 9:05 p.m. is still a bit bumpy, because Andreas Klöckl alias is standing on the laptop that does not want to start Reas initially helpless and condemned to wait for the technology.
After that, it takes a while before the bass player, who is strolling solo across the stage, can begin to create an atmosphere, as the performance seems immature: once the woofer gets going, it grooves virtuosically and engagingly, but the performance clearly suffers from it drums that come in a can, which next to the mighty, scratchy, booming bass just seem damn cheaply made and didn’t trigger the enthusiasm that Reas might possibly have produced in a jam association with a drummer made of flesh and blood. Maybe best to listen to the concluding “new piece“, which with rattling beats as a hypnotic-psychedelic leviathan most clearly distances itself from conventional rock schemes and is therefore convincing.
However, the fact that the meandering compositions generally do not find the point here and seem like intricate bulges of intricately interwoven, repetitive motifs also slows down the potential effect with a rhythm structure-show-walking-demo flair in the solo effort and exhausts the almost half-hour set of the not wrongly as “local legend“ featured institution Reas.

There is also a bit of nostalgia reminiscing regarding the organiser’s noticeably proud speech before the set of Unsane allowed, while Spencer is already raring to go, waiting for his two buddies to play at a location he’s taken a liking to -“like performing in a lounge„.
There’s 10:10 p.m. (when Riz Ortolanis’ Cannibal Holocaust-Piece Adulteress‘ Punishment sounds as an intro and it has long been clear that the performance might have started earlier on a weekday) not to suspect how incredibly sweaty the man and his skullcap will be a little later, how much the stage will be dripping with snot and spit being thrown out , because the opening Setlt part, which focuses on material from the self-titled debut album, is thrown out with such breathlessness that Unsane sweep away even the highest expectations of uncompromising.

Strictly speaking, the intensity level remains extremely high over the entire almost one and a quarter hour of playing time, even if the tempo and the punching power almost never come out of the red roaring range – only Against the Grain and Factory slowed down the tempo noticeably and put the melodic aspect in the display: this is especially liberating in the context of a well-balanced setlist.
That apart from an almost outstanding Commited and Scrape some scene “hits” of the band’s history are missing? Free! For that there is Broke and Concrete Bed also two encores that weren’t on schedule – following which the approachable Spencer immediately roams through the audience and shakes hands. The fact that it’s almost half past eleven at this point is actually the only flaw in a constantly captivating performance that doesn’t leave any empty meters and that requires a minimum of audience interaction (a few cautious bows say everything) and a simple red light show , to make the fan heart beat even faster with the fair merch prices: What a (timeless) band, what a (outdated) concert highlight!

Setlist:
Organ Donor
Bath
Maggot
Cracked Up
Slag
Vandal X
HLL
Cut
This Town
Streetsweeper
Committed
Over Me
Against the Grain
Factory
Only Pain
We’re Fucked
Scrape
Empty Cartridge
Get Off My Back

Encore:
Broke
Concrete Bed

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