Preview - The Sword Tonight @ Rudyard's

Starting tomorrow I will be moving to a Friday to Thursday format for my previews but I didn't want to overlook this show.

Thursday, May 29
The Sword / Torche / Stinking Lizaveta
@ Rudyard's
The Sword are Austin's central rallying point for Metal glory. Much like Houston's weapon of choice (Golden Axe), The Sword don't simply peddle in Metal tropes, they take them and eagerly dive head-first into its heady waters and don't come back up for air. It's metal that both stupid and smart without winking with irony and thank god for that.

The sunshine state's Torche demand to be seen as well. Check out a stream of their new album Neanderthal here ( http://www.torche-meanderthal.com/ ). Is that not the shit? That opening track is progtastic! Then Grenades has it all - the heavy, the bombastic drums, the great vocals, and the guitars with touches from indie rock, shoe gazer, and, of course, metal. And then... well, this isn't a review of the whole goddamn album. Stream it for yourself while you're toiling at work. Eat up your bosses bandwidth and be hypnotized by the cool flash animation. You know what it's telling you? "Don't fucking show up late you goddamn poser!" You have your marching orders!

Openers Stinking Lizaveta has quite the fan base - Steve Albini, Greg Ginn, and Joe Lally (Fugazi). The band describes itself as an "eclectic style of music [that] incorporates post-rock, metal, sludge, prog, stoner and doom with jazz stylings and eastern influences." I wish I could agree with that characterization or even find them interesting but it's pretty dull and wanky rock that compositionally goes nowhere with solos that sound like a day at the floor of Rockin' Robin. The other two bands on this bill play with tropes and make them new and interesting but this band brings nothing clever or interesting to the table - it's just a rock band with no vocals. Two words - smoker's patio!