Photo Credit: Joseph Mauro
Minneapolis has always been one of my favorite cities to play in; its local bands always end up being the highlights of the tour, and the people there are genuinely friendly. Also, the diabolical Brian Downs will give you warm Gatorade out of the trunk of his car and make the best show fliers you’ve ever seen! (https://brianddowns.carbonmade.com)
Our first time through we played with locals Tips For Twats—terrible band name, but sounded like a violent cage match between U.S. Maple vs. Harry Pussy and totally blew my mind—as well as Skoal Kodiak (members of Sea Whores and the Cows), the likes of which I have never seen or heard anything since. It kind of made you want to dance but also headbang while vomiting up your internal organs from the subwoofers that were jostling your guts around.
Our next time there, we played with Hasps who were 2/3’s of Gay Beast and played a mathy attack of angular riffs and drums that you couldn’t help but be mesmerized by. Up next was our tour mates Doomsday Student who obviously ruled, and then headlining was the 2 piece killing machine Weakwick that turned the crowd into a frenzied, sweat-drenched whirlwind of hair and limbs.
Throughout the night everyone was talking about these guys, and it was evident from five seconds after the first stick-count what the hype was all about. The amount of momentum that Weakwick built through their set and released on the crowd was merciless; the songs got heavier and heavier without dropping the weights. It is hard to describe what this band sounds like; imagine the grimier and infectiously catchy riffs that early Death From Above 1979 and Pink and Brown used to crank out, but with more brains and a more menacing, grittier guitar that at times becomes dizzying and dissonant, setting just the right amount of tempo shift before the next round of sonic maulings. The drums are blood-thirsty, and their barrage is endless, squeezing as many punches into one riff as humanly possible. It is bands like this that make me want to get off my ass on a weeknight, suck up the shitty sleep I will get and rock the fuck out.
For Show is a nauseating whirlwind of precipitous guitar work that at times sound like a rusty carnival ride that should have been retired circa the Van Hagar fairgrounds tour. The drum work is still just driving and complex, filling in every gap with acrobatic fills and keeping the songs pretty fast-paced throughout the entire album. Distorted vocals ride atop the endless riffage, adding another layer of carnage to the onslaught. Like the live show, no ferocity is compromised on For Show; it’s raw and grating and one of the heavier noise rock records that has come out in awhile. For Show displays the band evolving in sound, yet maintaining their complexity and style; so far this is my favorite release of theirs. Have fun getting “Sitting Still” and “Resin Man” out of your head.
I saw the boys of Weakwick play this record live in the beginning of June, and they still remain one of the best live bands around. All of their albums are available for donation on Bandcamp, and if you decide to download them, throw these guys a bone or send them a dick pic or something, which I guess is the same thing.
Rating: 5 out of 6 Doves Prince’s Minnetonka Tea Time was interrupted when he overheard Weakwicks’s For Show and thought for a split second that it may almost be as good as one of his own. After splashing his cup of tea into his ankle masseuse’s face, he went downstairs into his studio and wrote the best mind-melting neo-funk-jazz-fusion box set known to man.