Jupiter Zeus/Wizard Sleeve
YaYa’s
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Early Saturday night and we hit the venue with schoolboy anticipation for one of Perth’s best stone/doom line ups. Wizard Sleeve put the keys in the ignition, put their foot to the floor and left the audience with a face full of rubber and dust. Who, I might add, were lapping up every bit of it. It’s a style of stoner punk rock at full speed to disrupt the masses with lead solos, cool transitions, brutal vocals and fuckin’ rad breakdowns. Each song is driving and pummelling from beginning to end, an attack on the aural senses.
Jupiter Zeus, whom this was my first time to see, came from the other side of the solar system (Secret Harbour) with their solid riffing, low, heavy rock on the verge of metal. With psychedelic vocals and bong-rattling bass lines the four piece with two guitarists got heavier towards the end of their set with a showcase of bone-crunching riffs. With the drummer setting the mood with fantastic ability, they even played what I would call their “ballad.” The heavier, slower number capped of an impressive set of other worldly psychedelic heavy rock metal.
Bayou set the scene like the soundtrack to a strange and very intense grindhouse horror film that you stumble onto after a late night party, strung out and red eyed. The guitar and bass (Brendon Grubisich and Rob Popiel, respectively) are low and heavy and sometimes weird, making you feel disturbed at times and tripping at others, sneaking up on you in between the head nodding, chugging, engaging riffs. Drummer Eejaye Charlie keeps time perfectly on his drums with brutally percussive beats and fills, helping create each song’s intense vibe. And, to top it all off, singer Dean Robertson attacks over it all with a vehemence unmatched by many, creating a feeling of angst-ridden, dirty southern-fried sludgy doom like a bad trip, man. A must see band like no other.
REGS MCVEIGH
