Bonus Haiku for those without the patience to read the review:

boys are back in town.
get into the sledgehammer.
take off all your clothes.

Cursed
May 4^th 2007
The Underground, Hamilton ON

Andy Harpoon

My boys were back in town after 7 months in battle. But the spoils of war were clear. It was our first drive together out of town. Put more faith in me than I maybe deserved. A favor for a friend became a spectacle for everyone.

Walked in just in time for drinking and watching from the back, where all the sound goes. Forehead vibrations and internal harmonics made me praise the inventor of earplugs, while feeling terribly sorry for my less-prepared companion. This was the loudest I’d heard since Hella. Dan’s bass alone sounded like sunn o))).

Walked to the bar and got slammed in the back by a raucous, drunken post-teen woman with aggressively bleached hair. She exclaimed, “I just kicked an Emo in the head!” I feigned interest and told her, “That’s great! Congratulations!” while silently being happy that she didn’t think of me that way. Her companion was an equally young and drunken woman who wore a black, push-up bra and a hot pink mesh top.

Chris proclaimed “I like this place! What do you call it? Sledgehammer!” yelled the coolest dude in the world from the floor of our collective minds.

Soon these inebriated women made the night for me. Sway, rock, heave, scream, yell. Get up to the front. Shake your bodies and hair. Get up onstage, dance like go-go dancers at the request of the clearly impressed vocalist. Stagedive to no one.

Cursed did their part: made the seven-month absence worth it. They struck with an equal blend of old, older and new; they ripped and rocked through their unique brand of stoner/thrash/jam/grind/drone/punk for an hour. Mike was sick from continuous exposure to the sound. Christian the Wizard Professor made guitar sound like bass and noise sound like space.

Then for the moment deserved of the most praise: the obligatory drunken on-stage scene-stealing make-out by the two girlfriends from earlier. There was cheering and the hour passed quickly.

As we loaded out, one of them sat on the curb. Her ass to the road facing someone against the wall. Thong exposure for the passing crowd. Gross. I love the hammer.

You showed appreciation, patience and endurance. It was a good night.