Concert Review: METZ Brings The Noise In Ottawa

By: Luke Ottenhof –

Metz. (Photo: Sub Pop)

It was a damn good night for home-grown noise-punk in Ottawa.

Hometown heroes reigned, as local boys METZ, now based in Toronto, demolished the Babylon Nightclub last night, alongside touring partners and self-titled “avant garbagé” outfit The Soupcans, and local punk rockers Pregnancy Scares.

Pregnancy Scares took the stage at around 9:30pm, bashing through around 15 minutes-worth of hardcore thrashing. Short and semi-sweet, it was enough to get the juices flowing for a baby moshpit.

By the time Toronto’s The Soupcans performed, that baby had grown into a pissy, sweaty, head-banging youngster, as more and more people joined the rough scramble at the front. Even more remarkable than the relentless savagery on the instrumentals was singer/guitarist Davod Blevans’ ability to pull just about every face possible, with a manic craze that could get him mistaken for Jim Carrey.

Clutching beers and nursing drinks, at first most of the viewers stayed a safe distance from the chaos upfront, awkwardly sipping and offering a smattering of applause when due. During The Soupcans’ set, the sips turned to gulps, and before long cold, delicious brew was being guzzled as inhibitions frayed. What before was a nervous shoulder bump became a friendly nudge, an invitation.

After a short break, the headliners booted up and away to grunge heaven. Bathed in bright but shadowy lights, and a smoke machine sputtering behind them, the trio pounded the packed room.

“We’re from here,” grinned the shy but sweat-ridden METZ frontman Alex Edkins halfway through a vicious display of thickly distorted new-wave goodness.

Touring in support of last year’s self-titled debut on Sub-Pop, METZ churned out a wall of sound so hostile and violent it could slash jagged fissures through concrete. Edkins, sporting a button up shirt and thick-framed glasses, looked the part of a tame brainiac before unhinging and stamping out any doubt that he was master of his domain.

Though the musicianship was solid, after consecutive hours of the same dish served by different faces, the shock-effect of the nonstop eardrum punching of the guitars took its toll. It would take the most hardcore of punk junkies to appreciate the distortion shtick without a break.

METZ blazed a path that left ears ringing, sweat dripping and adrenaline pumping. The raw, primal energy that they pumped out sonically, when paired with a solid physical atmosphere, resulted in an engulfing mosh pit full of bashing bodies.

The tic-tac-toe of noise-grunge talents nestled across Ontario was effective and proved for a raucous Wednesday evening. But with over two hours of relentless fuzz and clash ultimately proved tiresome. Not that that’s a bad thing; that’s actually the point, METZ underscored it in style.