Live Moments With Mat || The Unconscious Mind, Set To Kill, Hollow, Tyr- Montreal 5/02/10

Date: Sunday May 2nd, 2010

Place: Foufounes Électriques

Bands: The Unconscious Mind + Set to Kill + Hollow + Tyr

Tour Name: No name for this tour 

I had the opportunity to hang out backstage with the guys from Hollow. You can read the interview I had with them tomorrow – it will be posted then, so be sure to come back and read it. The show had some local bands opening up for Tyr. The two first bands were ones I’d never heard before.
          
The Unconscious Mind is a band from the south shore of Montreal. They play in the death/black metal genre and include a lot of keyboard. They somewhat remind me of Skyfire, but more brutal and less melodic/progressive. I really like the music they played, they’re pretty raw but there’s a certain potential to them. The keyboard is often use as a piano and I found it giving a nice complement to their songs. A nice performance but they had to cut it short because the singer took so much time talking in between each song. If you want to discover a band on the more obscure side, this is a good one. You can listen to them here. 

Set to Kill came in next after a short performance of 20 minutes from The Unconscious Mind. This band plays a trash metal with keyboard, but it has a lot of influences from death/black metal. Set to Kill is a bit weird, they are great musicians, they play well live, but damn it, it doesn’t fit together at all. I don’t think the keyboard compliments the music and they’d be better without it. Both guitarist are really good, especially the one doing the solos. Overall I didn’t like this band much, but you might. You can listen to some of their music from their myspace page and make up your mind. 

After another short performance by the second band, Hollow set the stage. Being with them backstage I was able to see their preparations – these guys really know what details go into putting on a good show. They all get their makeup done and even wear bracelets. Dave, one of the guitarists, was in the make-up chair for over an hour. You can see the result tomorrow in my interview with the band – pretty awesome if you ask me. Between the two bands I went down to the crowd to see the result of the preparation and fuck yeah, they gave a really nice show. You can tell these guys take their music seriously and really want to succeed. If you haven’t gotten a chance to listen to them yet, don’t wait, go to their myspace  now, it’s worth it. I can’t wait for their first CD to be released. (The band is really down to earth, go talk to them if you ever get the chance.) 

Finally, Tyr, the headliner for the show. After seeing Amon Amarth last week I had high hopes for these Viking metallers, but I only listened to a few songs from them. To sum it up in one word: disappointing. I didn’t like this band at all. Their music isn’t good, (I didn’t like them much before hand, but I thought I’d still give them a chance) but they sure didn’t do anything to change my mind. If you’re a fan of this band you might consider going to see them live, but they’re nothing exceptional. I got pretty bored and didn’t even stay till the end. This was probably one of the few shows where the headlining band was that disappointing to me, and the bands preceding them were better than they were.

Final words: Meh, Tyr is not really worth the time nor the displacement. I really enjoyed Hollow and they kicked ass; the best band of the evening in my opinion. The other two bands (The Unconscious Mind and Set to Kill) were brand new to me but I’ll be waiting to hear more from them.