L’Antietam, Age Sixteen, We Were Skeletons

Last Friday I was lucky enough to see L’ANTIETAM , AGE SIXTEEN, and WE WERE SKELETONS, 3 bands that I’ve been pretty excited about.  L’antietam totally blew me away.  They were so heavy live, so much more than I expected.  I bought their newest release, Arthur Carr, and have listened to it a few times but not enough to pass a final judgment. I think the record sounds weaker than their live performance but that’s the case with most bands.

I first heard We were skeletons when we played a house show together in North Carolina.  A show that initially looked like it was going to be a huge bummer turned out to be our favorite show of the entire tour due in large part to WWS.  These guys are super nice and put out tons of energy when they play.  They are also super young, Rafael (their bassist) just graduated high school.  Their songs are full of short spastic riffs and shouted dualing vocals.  Cool stuff.

Age Sixteen is a band that is going to rule so much.  Kris’ vocals remind me of Marc Paffi from Bear vs. Shark – not really singing but more of a clear yell.  You can hear strong influences from a bunch of European screamo bands.  I  think this style of mid-90′s spastic screamo is starting to come back into style and I really really like it.  They have a demo out now with a few songs on it.  It’s a limited pressing of 100 so get on it.