Hull at Vacation Vinyl, Monday, November 7th, 2011

These guys were synchronized-hair-banging furies, and their extra-long songs, probably the longest I ever heard, were hurricanes in a room with pounding drumbeats, monstrous doom guitars, and roaring agonizing vocals. With brief post-rock slow-downs in the middle of their tempests, the five of them, who go under the moniker of Hull, were performing an in-store at Vacation Vinyl on Monday night.

I mean, it was these little breaks that were the most surprising as they seemed to venture into something else than Metal with layered guitars and bass, making me think about some of Mogwai’s tracks, whereas the rest of it was alternating between long doom metal parts and faster rhythms, almost classic rock style, that would arise from nowhere, before more guitar assaults would kick again; the songs were sprawling like a beast put to death that would not let go, and would go through many transformations, before dying for the longest time in front of your eyes.

It seems that the Brooklyn band only played two songs from their new and second album ‘Beyond The Lightless Sky’ released in October, but it was epic and vast, exhausting and powerful as they were extremely loud, creating a sound as strong as a mighty tornado and vocals coming from several of them, the next one being more raucous and grating than the previous one. I keep calling what they play songs, but it was something else, it was a strange adventure they were riding drenched in sweat.