Live Review: Nothing, Deafcult, Oslow

The biggest thing taken away from Oslow's set was their tight control. The Sydney quartet didn't ignite the room, but their attention to detail and strong cohesion made an impression. Emo has always regrettably encouraged naval gazing, and the genre would benefit from sharper acts like these guys.

Brisbane's Deafcult owed obvious debts to My Bloody Valentine. Voluminous clouds of luscious distortion courtesy of the four guitars onstage made for a set of songs you felt you could almost touch. It was all about texture and their impressive minor-chord soundscapes were fine-grained and beautiful like crushed diamonds.

Philadelphia's Nothing released an album late last year called Tired Of Tomorrow. On the surface, it's a dream, a sun-drenched tribute to bands like My Vitriol, Rival Schools and Slowdive boasting wall-to-wall fuzz and bleeding-heart vocals care of frontman and ex-con (he stabbed a guy at a show) Domenic Palermo. Scratch the surface, however, and you'll find white-hot nihilism. It became apparent during their set that all the caustic imagery and bleak testimonials they employ on record hold far less power when drowned in distortion. The mix wasn't kind to the vocals but, since Palermo wasn't allowed in the country due to his criminal history, there was something intangible missing as well. We were left, instead, with the blissed-out dream metal of Fever Queen, Vertigo Flowers and The Dead Are Dumb, among others. Free from the weight of context, the music was allowed to wash over the room — rolling, swelling and breaking — with the crowd rocking back and forth like seagrass in violent surf. It was short, but therapeutic. 

The world seems like a bin fire at the moment, but shows like this can help us harness negative energy and feed it into pursuits of empathy and solidarity; easing the weltschmerz, if only for a moment.