I braved freezing rain to travel to Kansas City not to see a wintry black metal band as you might expect but instead to see Wanderer, Thin, The Wind in the Trees, and Sarin Reaper. The freezing rain was predicted, and I hadn’t realized it until I left my house to drive from Lawrence to Kansas City, but I decided to make the journey anyway. On my way there, I saw the aftermath of two wrecks that brought traffic to a near standstill: one accident was on the opposite side of the highway so I was able to avoid it. The second was on my side and backed up what seemed like a mile. But it was just two exits away from the venue, Farewell KCMO, so I was fortunately able to get off the highway and complete the journey through some city streets. Nonetheless, I hope everyone was ok! It was a dangerous night to be out!

Because of the weather and accidents, I was about 20 or 30 minutes late to the show and essentially missed all of Wanderer, who was for some reason playing first. Besides The Wind in the Trees, Wanderer was the main band that I wanted to see, so that was kind of a big bummer.

After Wanderer, New York’s Thin performed a lightning-fast mix of grindcore and mathcore. It was difficult for me to latch on to their performance, though, I think a lot of that had to do with the sound quality in the venue. From where I was standing, the guitar sounded really thin, which was not representative of how the band’s recordings sound. Having the sound lack in quality drove my focus to the song structures, which often seemed to lack fluidity as they were littered with awkward tempo changes and riff juxtapositions. Several powerviolence bands are experts in applying abrupt tempo changes by utilizing the right types of transitions, even just momentary musical rests, but Thin’s songs just sounded as if they were disparate riffs thrown together. However, I don’t think their recordings necessarily sound as if riffs are thrown together without much thought. Once again, I’m guessing it’s because I could really only hear the bass clearly. If I had been able to hear the guitar better, I think the song structures would have made more sense in the live setting.

The Wind in the Trees features guitarist David Gill formerly of the band The Heads Are Zeros. The Heads are Zeros‘s 2017 self-titled album is one of my favorite grindcore albums of the last decade, and The Wind in the Trees has largely continued that band’s technically complex and dissonant grindcore. I think one of the most impressive things about the band is that they are a bassless trio, but, like Cloud Rat, the guitarist splits his sound in a way that the guitar is emanating through one amp in his arsenal and bass sounds rumble through the other amp. As someone who has played guitar for 25 years, I’m still incredibly dumb when it comes to understanding how guitar gear, but it was clear that he had split his sound – maybe with an octave pedal or something.

In any case, The Wind in the Trees was incredibly tight, especially as a band playing music that fast and complex, and the drum talents of Wade Civitarese were what really stood out in terms of the band’s technical proficiency. He appeared to be having some possible wrist issues because, between every song, he would flap his wrists while expressions of mild pain flooded his face. I hope that it was simply temporary pain rather than chronic because, in my opinion, you can’t have a quality grindcore band without a quality drummer, and Civitarese fits the bill for The Wind in the Trees.

The last band to play was Sarin Reaper as the local support. I’m guessing they played last because they were expected to bring the most people out to the show. The touring bands seemed to stick around, so I don’t think it was because those bands had to leave early or anything like that. In any case, I was a little perplexed as to why Sarin Reaper was put on this bill because they seemed to play more of a caveman bestial war metal style à la Archgoat (although Sarin Reaper is listed on Metal Archives as crust punk/death metal). Knowing that Wanderer, Thin, and The Wind in the Trees are all bands that play different manifestations of dissonant grindcore, it would have made more sense to have a local noise rock band like Abandoncy or Nerver perform. Or, even better, noisy post-hardcore purveyors Big Water would have been an excellent fit on the bill.

Regardless, it was apparent that Sarin Reaper is still a very young band, and I’m sure they’re all still developing their craft. But I remember playing in bands when I was young and we did the same things that Sarin Reaper did on stage: we engaged in endless and aimless stage banter, various band members would miss their cues, and guitars wouldn’t be tuned properly or equipment wouldn’t be working properly. Despite that, I’d be interested to hear these guys in a year or two after they have some time to grow as musicians.

On my way back from Kansas City I thought I was going to run into a lot more danger, but luckily there was only one spot under an overpass where it was really slick. I had slowed down dramatically right before that area because I saw that there was an accident where a pickup truck had gotten turned around one hundred and eighty degrees. Despite having slowed down, my car still slid somewhat before I regained control.

Diving headlong into chaos and barely retaining control. What better metaphor for grindcore is there?