VEIL OF MAYA ARE “UNBREAKABLE” AT SUMMER SLAUGHTER

Axl and I finally got to hit up this year’s Summer Slaughter tour here in NYC on Sunday, and in person the lineup of bands was even better than on paper — and we’ve been raving about it on (i-)paper for months. Every band was just so good and they kept coming one right after the next; even Carnifex, to whom we’ve devoted a fair amount of time to slagging, weren’t bad… they’re a perfectly serviceable band but their music just happens to be really generic and uninteresting when compared to all the other bands on the bill.

Of all the bands I was seeing live for the first time — which was a lot of them — Veil of Maya are my pick for “best new/young band discovery.” I know they aren’t exactly a new band anymore, but the last several times they’ve come through town they’ve either been on crappy bills or I haven’t been able to go. Dudes really know how to pump up the crowd and give a razor-tight, energy-filled performance at the same time; from our view in the balcony we had an amazing view of the pit, and I gotta tell ya, shit was insanely brutal. Our birds’ eye view also afforded us a look at guitarist Marc Okubo’s fancy footwork; he uses a sampling pedal to live-record the creepy lead lines you hear in a lot of the band’s songs, then loops them on repeat while he plays the rhythm parts live and rocks out. I know plenty of guitarists do this but I think the way Okubo does it is unique, and it was cool to see it from atop.

Here’s VoM playing “[id]” and “Unbreakable” live on Sunday in NYC.

-VN