Sunday was the final night of the 14th Cold Waves Festival which was held at the legendary Metro. This night featured a mix of some Cold Waves regulars and a few new to the fest acts. While it may not have been as well attended as the previous two nights, the quality of the evening was on par with them.
First up was Insula Inscariot. This was a hard edged, experimental industrial band. They had just the right amount of abrasive noise and aggression to match the distorted, processed vocals. They played only under a pair of strobe lights and the whole presentation and musical approach bares a little bit of resemblance to the early Street Sects material, but less tuneful. If you liked harsh, noisy music with electronics, and you should, then these guys would be right up your alley. Great stuff!
Black Cross Hotel made a return to this year’s fest and sounded even better than last time. Industrial post-punk with a hint of metal thrown into the mix. Harsh vocals, loud guitars, and layered electronics made for a really great and powerful 30 minute set. It was nice to have them back again, and I’m quite certain many in the audience would have them back again anytime.
Spike Hellis was a two piece act who performed together on opposite sides of this tower of gear that sat between them. The main singer was on a pedestal to make her twice as tall and the entire contraption was really impressive looking. Equally impressive was their really solid set of their dance floor friendly EBM. Lots of cool electronics and catchy hypnotic beats had a lot of people in the audience dancing. This is a band that you need to check out, they were that good!
Lead Into Gold, the solo project of former Ministry member Paul Barker, made yet another return to the fest this year. It’s always a great time when Barker performs and the recent Lead Into Gold output of the last few years has been really killer. Paul played a set that was comprised entirely of the recent material, and didn’t play anything from the Wax Trax era, not even “Faster Than Light”, and truth be told, the recent material is so good that the old stuff wasn’t that missed, especially since he wasn’t going to play “Hatred”, so if you’re not going to play your best old song, play the best new songs! This was the best set of the evening if you ask me.
What do you get when you cross hardcore punk with industrial music and put a badass woman in there as your lead singer? You get Youth Code, a band who hasn’t played here in more than a decade! I wasn’t sure if they were even still active so if they weren’t they reactivated for this night, or maybe they just haven’t toured. Either way, this duo played a bunch of stuff spanning their discography while lead singer, Sara Taylor intimidated the audience as she stomped around the stage and even jumped out to sing a song in the crowd. That lady demands attention, and she could probably kick the ass of anyone in that room. Their songs are super intense and aggressive, the perfect blend of hardcore and industrial/electronic music. Hopefully they don’t wait another decade before coming back and it was good to see them again.
King Woman closed out the final night of the festival. The lead singer of this band, if you could make out anyone in what little light they played under, was Kristina Esfandiari who was performing as Nghtcrwlr the night before. This band sounded nothing like that project however. King Woman was a full band that played rock/metal which was a pretty big departure from all the acts that preceded them. They had doom elements in their sound too, which really added to the enjoyment of it. It was as if all of a sudden you were teleported to a different show than you were at up until they started playing. The songs were really cool and Kristina’s voice really went well with those songs, adding an almost haunting element to the music. It was heavy in just the right places, but also very tuneful, a great blend. Their one hour set was a unique way to end a Cold Waves, yet a cool one.
And that brought the 14th Cold Waves to a conclusion. It was a long, but enjoyable four nights that offered a pretty diverse range of music under one big umbrella that was enjoyed by a lot of like-minded people. If you had to welcome in the fall season, this is certainly the best way to do it.
