AlasNoAxis @ Public Assembly, Williamsburg

AlasNoAxis @ Public Assembly

The first band in the triple bill featured Hilmar Jensson on guitar, Andrew D’Angelo on alto, Chris Speed on tenor, Peter Evans on trumpet,  Jim Black on drums – line-up pretty close to AlasNoAxis, but this band sounded much more heavy – Hilmar Jensson and Jim Black holding a thick heavy groove and the horns burning on top of it most of the time. It was a good band, no doubt, but I guess I’m one of those new age people who feel heavy metal is bad for my system . Didn’t hear much of the second band (guitar-violin duo), because went to check out Zebulon a couple of blocks away. What I heard there for the 5 seconds I dared to go in for was quite horrible. Some avantgarde saxophone duo hitting the highest notes possible – that was pretty scary ( I’m sure it was all great in the context, of course). Actually Eivind Opsvik’s Overseas band was supposed to play there but they planned to start a little later – exactly the same time as AlasNoAxis at Public Assembly, just to make people choose, I guess .
But AlasNoAxis (Jim Black on drums, Chris Speed on tenor, Hilmar Jensson on guitar, Skuli Sverisson on bass) was great, very interesting music (they have a new album out). And Public Assembly really does have good sound, just as they keep saying, but once again, better to bring along some earplugs.