Bass Drum of Death was the only non local band performing at the Echo on July 4th, but their sound blended perfectly in the overall punk energy of the night. The trio (they are actually a guitar-drums duo, but another guitarist had joined them on stage) brought their southern muddy twist on garage rock (they are from Mississippi) with played fast songs, with vocals drown in the tough, fuzzy and aggressive sound, incessantly beaten by a steady drumming.
John Barrett, bent on his guitar most of the time, hair banging, as his hair was hidding his face most of the time, was channeling a mix of grunge psychedelic rock, thanks to Colin Sneed’s drumbeats, possessed by a violent energy and a certain urgency. It was fast, tight and dirty, like they had taken some root-elements of rock’ n’ roll of the 50s or 60s and made them more efficient, with a blasting distorted sound determined to do some damage,… a little bit as Hanni El Khatib does it. But the melodies were catchy and would I dare to say I heard some Kinks-like riffs on some tunes?
So now, a guitar-drums duo, we have seen it before! Obviously, the Black Keys? However, they did not sound at all like them, they were far less bluesy, with a much more punk rock sound, direct to the point and songs that would start like a bad engine and then stopped only to restart with more aggression. Release and assault would fit with any of their tunes, something characteristic to punk, but Bass Drum of Death were not doing it with a sunny side, it was a nervous and anxious loud scream.
They curiously teamed up with the Odd Future gang for the song ‘64’ after meeting them at SXSW, and discovering they had the same publicist. Now that would have been great if Tyler and his friends had showed up at the Echo on Monday night, but no luck! However the badass attitude was there, and they left the stage the same way they had taken it, without a word, after having blurred the barriers between many genres.