Nine Inch Queens Defy Death.
Monsters of new rock to storm Wachovia

www.zwire.com - 10/27/05

They're long enough and pointed enough to pierce your skull. They're tall enough to Lord over you. They drop from the sky and unleash the greatest unease. They come With Teeth, slinging Lullabies to Paralyze, and they may or may not be Machines. They're more galling than gall, more massive than mass, more mauling than many a mauler.

They are Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Death From Above1979, and they are coming for you.

And you're children.

That's right, folks, on November 6th, the Wachovia will wild with three of the most menacing monsters of new rock. The walls are gonna shake to their knees, the ground is gonna rumble into a roar, and the thousands upon thousands who find pure joy in blind fury and much love in pretty hate are gonna get got. Real got. We're talkin' 'bout volume, dig? The kick in the heart that is Loud. Way Loud. The trespass of beautiful noise, the transgression of transcendence. Something woundingly wonderful.

We say: Be not afraid. Be not very afraid. But whatever you do, whatever you have to do to do it, be there.

In fact we'll tell you thrice: Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Death From Above 1979. Three rad acts, a trio of tickling torture, triple-plus fun. Mayhem as a menacing menage a trios.

You dig NIN. Always have. Always will. That's why they're still filling arenas. Reznor and his nervy Nailmen have been slashing and burning through all the lands since 1988, leaving scorched earth and bloodied ears wherever they've fleeringly set fierce foot. Sometimes you see 'em, sometimes you don't, but you can't not hear 'em.

NIN can't ever be missed. Nor should they.

With Teeth is the newly-clean Rez's first full slab in six years, cut to a keen, stripped to a lean, and buffed to a filthy dirty sheen. Carnivore compounded, flesh made whole then bitten to shred, and a rocksome reminder why the muscle on the bone still very much matters, how sinew stays strong, stronger, strongest.

And sharpest. According to a New Times talk with Trent, "With Teeth really is about different degrees of finding out who you are in a new world." Sure, "[it']s a big analogy about getting sober," but the sobered scorcher is nonetheless sobering for his now sobriety. Unless of course you find your face being seared off just a little bit sobering.

Equally seary and probably not at all sober are Queens of the Stone Age. Dave Grohl may have helped make 'em famous, but it's Josh Homme who made 'em reign. Forget that the manly-man named man has connected with everyone from Screaming Trees to Soundgarden, Monster Magnet to the aforementioned Foo Fighter, or that he's twained with Distillers front-chick Brody Dalle.

Remember that his merry-mad band come from the ashes of stoner heavies Kyuss, indie worthies Gamma Ray, and stage-front side as Eagles of Death Metal. A little bit Dazed, a whole lotta Confused, Queens are like Montrose bleached with Blue Cheer after some lye had been thrown in the eye for sheer pleasure.

Speaking of Blue Cheer, the Woosome twosome Death From Above 1979 could've been bleached from the same holy cloth, only this time everything came out but The White Stripes. Like the Whites (and like we said), they're two.

And like the Whites, one of the two does drums. But unlike those Detroit darlings, these careening Canucks sling no six-string. Instead they sling four, and from the boom-heaving bottom weave the wickedest drum and bass to ever dope a speaker.

Or a stage. Sounding more noise per pound than any two men should be able to without breaking, DFA 1979 make mincery of all that MC5 wrought and serve it fresh from a vat of red hot grease. Let it hit your skin and you will scar.

The ruggedly raggedy-tagged team is Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger, who either met in prison, on a pirate ship, or at a Sonic Youth concert, and may or may not be lovers. Most likely they were shackled to the galley of a prison ship that just so happened to be harbored at a Sonic Youth concert and while at sea had been forced to become severely intimate.

Whichever. Whatever. Who cares? As Vice men, they're pegged to carry on Toronto's rad art tradition of hustle and go, as a duo they're deemed to be dynamic.

Like a bouquet of dynamite, lit and delivered to the every neighbor's back door, DFA '79 always seems just about to blow. All over the place.

Sizzle.

Crackle. Snap. If sulfur had a sound, it'd sound like this. An electroclashing concoction of Chic-y Deep Purpling in speed. And thensome.

The boards blare that on this tour no band is better than another, but that all bands are better than most. That Trent's on fine time, that Josh has found his home, that the bastard twins can hold their own with this best.

That the world's a better place for the onslaught.

Need we say more? Nine Inch Queens and the defying Death. By far and away the most brutally beautiful bill to come up 81 since forever, a date that is destined to throb in arena history. If you're into racket, if you dig blast, if you can't get enough of bright white bombast, you owe it to yourself to hit this show. Just don't be mad at us if the show hits back. Hard.