YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A COALESCE CONCERT IN BROOKLYN NEXT WEEK
With Christmas nearly upon us, and “Best of 2009” lists thankfully behind us, many people are hoping to ride out the rest of the year quietly without getting into arguments with their respective families. Due to the obligations of the holiday season and a general desire on the part of folks to do fuck-all, the final week of a given year typically doesn’t offer music lovers much in the way of live shows, unless you’re the type of degenerate willing to pay an inflated ticket price to watch a band play a truncated set with drunken, amateurish New Year’s Eve revelers hellbent on making monumental asses of themselves. And while I have every intention of honoring my New Year’s Eve tradition of locking myself in my panic room with a case of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and several tins of Vienna Sausages, it would be impossible for me to pass up the chance to catch Coalesce, who are headlining a rare, one-off date on December 30th at Club Europa in Brooklyn, NY.
As a metalhead you’re undoubtedly aware that Coalesce released one of the year’s most-celebrated albums. The band’s first album in a decade, OX appeared on countless year-end write-ups (including mine), almost as many as did the 2009 albums from Baroness, Converge and Mastodon. Their subsequent OXEP was a pleasant surprise as well, and I’m naturally quite excited that they’ve chosen to close out their banner year with an exclusive concert in my fair city. Thankfully, the opening acts aren’t the usual suspects of the NYC metal scene, who will go nameless since I’m sick of seeing some of their names. Locals Tournament and Your Skull My Closet will kick the night off, followed by Neurot Recordings’ post-metal act A Storm Of Light. And then: COLISEUM. Holy crap, I’m almost as stoked to catch a set from these Louisville-based hardcore punks as I am to finally see Coalesce live! Hopefully they’ll play some stuff off their forthcoming album alongside the fantastic cuts from their 2007 Relapse Records longplayer No Salvation.
If you love hardcore/metal and live within walking/driving/hitchhiking distance from New York City, you’re gonna want to be there. Get your tickets now. It sure beats arguing about Obama with your stubborn racist grandfather over microwaved leftover ham slices.
-GS
[Gary Suarez doesn’t take kindly to strangers. He helps manage Shadows Fail and the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don’t you follow him on Twitter?]
