Concert Review: METZ Is The Clockwork Orange of Punk At MHOW
I love Clockwork Orange. I love the play, film, and book. I am obsessed with its challenge towards notions of redemption, reformation, and altogether repentance. I mention this because METZ’s Music Hall of Williamsburg show was like the Clockwork Orange of concerts; a noise-punk rock galore of disdainful images and wasted youth gathering under one, music hall to bash through songs that ponder over said notions.
Just call Alex Edkins, Alex DeLarge as he could have stepped out of MHOW with a cane, tophat, and a lashed one-eye like the titular, Clockwork character. Okay, I know I am going off on the analogy, but I cannot help it. Yet, it was hard not want jolt out your inner frustrations and rage as Alex sings “Mr. Plague” or “Raw Materials”. His voice is a particular blend hopeless and relaxed, which is strange to see how the two can sound alike. An apathetic person and a peaceful person share common-ground in that they feel and seem so distant from the usual middle-ground humanity struggles to step from, which is why METZ feel feel like a sonic, constructions crew meant to obliterate such ground. Each chord is a saw, each key is a nail-gun, and each drum is a giant screw-driver plucking and punching in the bolts you call thoughts, which is why you will feel like their lyrics are piercing probes into a serious question: do we make discord or does it make us? Are we born wicked, do we choose it, or, in fearing it, do we become it? This chicken or the egg scenario bulleted through tracks for their new album, Strange Peace.
Tracks like, “Eraser”, “Cellophane”, and “Drained Lake” felt like opuses for everyone struggling not to join the chaos of this world. The sentiments along with the images of hands clawing over each other behind them felt befitting to these crazy, current times. It is hard not to feel hopeless and even a little urged to say, “Screw it world!”. Yet, METZ may be the best band to have ever compacted that emotion into a sound that will basically leave you head-banging you head off. I kid you not, literally, everyone was as the giphy below:
Yes, that was a Beavis and Butthead giphy, and I am very proud of that. Yet, more importantly, that was pretty much how that entire concert went. I even saw one guy helicopter his head in robust, round motions, but not ONCE spill his beer ( A True American Hero!). Watching guys like him or seeing METZ bend and keel over their instruments as if their were music axes chopping their souls for worth was darkly fascinating, which gave a whole new meaning to the term/ title Strange Peace. Whenever I go to punk concerts, I am always vigilant to fans connections the music because if there is one genre that does not mind a pained verse or gruesome lyric, it is punk. Thus, what I love about METZ’s concert is that beneath images, sounds, and words withering and warning humanity over its penchant for insanity is an empathy. We all could relate to the feeling of giving up, and the sheer desire to headbang that thought out of us. For More Information On Metz Click Here.
Me After Leaving The METZ Concert
