It was my first time at Saint Vitus. The bar, in Brooklyn‘s Greenpoint neighborhood — the mere fact that I didn’t have to be in Williamsburg on a Friday night was enough to make it worth driving into and through the city in the rain – is still a relatively recent advent, but it’s quickly become a hotspot for heavy shows featuring quality bands. My trip in to catch the revived Pennsylvanian trio Pearls and Brass was the first of two nights in a row I’d be spending there.

The door outside unmarked, the bar appropriately dark and the DJ spinning mostly ’80s metal when I walked in, I knew I was in the right place. The Saint Vitus homebrew ($4) is light and crisp and goes down easy. It was the kind of beer you could easily spend a night with, and doubtless they picked it as their flagship for just that purpose. I didn’t see brew-works anywhere (though they’d probably have room in the basement if it goes all the way back), and the place is split between the bar up front and the stage room separated by a thick curtain in the back.

I dug it. I dug the layout. I dug the fact that it was easy for me to get there from Jersey (if you’ve ever been to Europa, you already know how to get there), and I dug that it wasn’t peopled by assholes either of the heavy metal or hipster variety. There was some of that element — a group of people seemed to be having a photoshoot toward the end of the bar after the show — but it’s unavoidable, and if a place like Saint Vitus is going to stay in business, it’s that crowd’s disposable income that’s going to let them do it. In any case, cool room. There was a copy of the Holy Diver vinyl on display behind the bar, and that’s automatic points in my book.

The sound in back was decent as well, which I first got to experience with the avant/noise-making outfit Eleven Twenty Nine. The trio were instrumental, two guitars and a drummer, and all three members of the band seemed to be working in not only a different time signature, but a different time zone. It was the kind of noodling self-indulgence that you can either read as super-progressive or noise for noise’s sake, and either way, an odd fit for comradeship with the riffy Serpent Throne or the sweet tones of Pearls and Brass.

Serpent Throne took over following a short break and that was where the show really got on track. When last I saw them, I was getting embarrassingly drunk in their native Philadelphia and they were opening for Solace and Pentagram. That was quite an evening on multiple levels, but at Saint Vitus they proved no less engaging. Rather, with their third album — White Summer/Black Winter, which was reviewed earlier this year — behind them, they seemed relaxed and able to settle into the grooves their riffs inevitably led them.

They had several highlights to their set, but the unnamed new song they closed with hit especially hard. They’re not really doing anything that’s never been done before, but the interplay between the guitars is interesting, and as they’ve developed as a band, their songs have gradually become more intricate. They sound like they’re having a lot of fun, and they looked that way on stage as well. With stage banter that centered largely on the freeing of the West Memphis Three, a jovial atmosphere was set.

When Pearls and Brass announced their reactivation toward the end of last year, they did so with a show in the bar of a hotel (at least I seem to recall that was the situation) in their native Nazareth, PA. I tried to get advance tickets to that show, but it quickly sold out, and so I was even more eager to see them at the Saint Vitus bar. Their sunshine blues rock was three or four years ahead of the curve when they released their last album, The Indian Tower, on Drag City, and so I expected they’d pull a decent audience in Brooklyn, and they did. I don’t think there was any threat of the show selling out, but the room was crowded anyway, and the people who showed up knew what they were there for.

Myself included. I’d been a fan of Pearls and Brass since they released their self-titled on Doppelganger Records in 2003, and so the chance to see them now, eight years and one reunion later, was exciting. Guitarist Randall Huth and bassist Joel Winter, whose shared vocals came through low in the mix, played right into Sunn amps and made the most of the tones therefrom. The songs they played carried across a lighthearted Americana despite their distortion, and with drummer Josh Martin‘s punkish backbeat, there was never any energy lacking in the performance.

It was a joy to see them after so long. As I stood and watched their too-short set (though the last song they played was at least 10 minutes long and had multiple movements) progressed, I remembered hearing the Pearls and Brass record and feeling like I’d stumbled on something really special. They were tight like a band who’d never gone away, and should they decide to record new material, I can’t see them having any problem aligning themselves with Tee Pee Records or someone like that should Drag City not be able to put it out. The aesthetic having caught up to where they were half a decade ago, I’d be eager to hear where they went next on a studio album.

The Jersey-bound drive ahead of me, I left almost immediately after they finished. I’d made the drive into Brooklyn with one headlight, and decided to change the broken one before I headed back, which took a humiliating amount of time (big American hands, tiny Swedish spaces). That feat finally accomplished, I hightailed it back to the valley and caught as much sleep as possible, ready to do it all again the next night for Totimoshi.

As per usual, there are more pics after the jump.

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One listen to the conscious “War Pigs” reference that caps off “Controlled by Lunar Forces” on White Summer/Black Winter (Translation Loss) and it’s all too obvious that Philadelphia instrumentalists Serpent Throne know full-well what they’re doing. Their third album overall following last year’s The Battle of Old Crow, White Summer/Black Winter is not only a continuation of the four-piece’s fetish for vinyl-ready ‘70s-style LP artwork, but is also a tour de force of classic rock, dropping riff-led nods like the above-mentioned with ease while integrating them seamlessly into the sans-vocal Serpent Throne sound. The pace varies throughout, if not the approach, and though they never quite hit the same kind of unhinged bluesy playfulness as the first Cactus record or the same cowbell-ly vibe of some of their Mountain climbing earlier work – their strengths more evident here in the Iommi-driven “Riff Forest” – they pull off an individualized sound within a well-established aesthetic.

That’s thanks largely to the guitar work of Demian Fenton and Don Argott, who trade leads fluidly throughout White Summer/Black Winter without ever losing sight of the groove thanks to the stalwart efforts of rhythm section Colin Smith (bass) and Sean-Paul Fenton (drums). The percussive Fenton and Smith make a highlight out of a break on the six-minute “Pagan Eclipse,” showing some versatility from the straightforward rocking earlier into White Summer/Black Winter, as on opener “Headed for an Unmarked Grave” or the extended and stylized title track which immediately follows it. Acoustic guitar work blends well among the electric leads, which are prevalent enough so that I don’t find myself pining for vocals or feeling like they should be somewhere they aren’t. That’s a double-edged sword, though, because it makes a song like “March of the Druids” busier than it might need to be – at least until the cymbal-wash/percussion break that presumably represents when the titular march is taking place – but is also one of Serpent Throne’s greatest strengths. If those leads weren’t there, they’d be missed.

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The deal was basically that I was going to drive back from Maryland to catch one of two shows, though even as I made my way out of Sparks where I’d been staying, I wasn’t 100 percent sure which. Short story shorter, Pentagram in Philly won out over Mighty High/The Brought Low in Brooklyn, and given the events to be detailed in the second part of this review, I’m glad it did.

We’ll get there.

I’d never been to the Starlight Ballroom before, but its name being so similar to Jersey‘s own Starland Ballroom, I was perhaps prejudiced against it from the start, even if only on a subconscious level. Any regular attendees out there should be well familiar with pre-made excuses for being an asshole. Well, there’s another one.

Serpent Throne was on when I walked in, the native instrumental stoner act chosen from out of the ether to open the show. It was early, around 8:30, and the place was mostly empty. The Solace guys were hanging out in the crowd, The Gates of Slumber too. Both bands waiting their turn to kick ass as the audience grew in number and intoxication.

In the second part at least, I also count myself. And though it started innocently enough with living the High Life, all smiles and laughs and appreciation for what was to take place on the stage, by the time The Gates of Slumber were finished and Pentagram were getting started, my buzz had morphed into that special kind of belligerence and nastiness that’s both embarrassing and shameful. I was at the show with a friend whose patience I’ve tried far more times than intended. It’s hard to be an asshole.

I’m getting ahead of myself. When Jersey natives Solace were on stage, it was still the land of smiles and good times. As ever, Solace were amazingly heavy, the double guitars sounding massive through the surprisingly large Starlight Ballroom, and Keith Ackerman‘s destructive force on the drums not to be forgotten. It wasn’t the best I’d ever seen them (though if you asked me what was, I don’t think I’d have a specific answer; likely it occurred in a smaller room), but they gave a great showing as few bands can.

All the while, more beer. Hadn’t been my original intent to drink myself to a point much past sobriety, but I did, and while The Gates of Slumber were on stage, once again impressing is a way that I’m beginning to see more and more as their own, I and my compadre began handing out fliers for a show of our own back in Jersey that’s coming up. Seems simple enough.

We went outside and put them on cars, came back in and put them on tables, etc. Normal flier protocol. By the time The Gates of Slumber finished, the word had been spread. Soon, shortly after Pentagram went on, a young woman in a Kill Hannah hoodie (minus points) came up to my friend holding several of the fliers and said, “Are these yours?” He said they were, and was promptly told that we couldn’t hand them out inside the building because they advertised another venue.

Sounded like bullshit to me. And even more right then. I’ll cut to the end (in no small part for my own sake) and say I didn’t make enough of a scene to get kicked out, but having paid $25 for a ticket and already spent over $100 on beer and merch, leaving some pieces of paper around at the show didn’t seem too much to ask, especially when the “other venue” being advertised was more than two hours away from the Starlight Ballroom. But you know, some situations just don’t call for being a dick.

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