High On Fire / Planes Mistaken For Stars

live in Chicago (2005)

Jesse Raub

Sweet Cobra took the stage slightly after nine and proceeded to destroy it completely, setting the standard higher than anyone could ever hope to reach. For around twenty-five minutes, I had my socks rocked completely off by their heavy, simple riff-based rock. While the riffs have more of a classic metal feel to them, all in all it's one big hardcore rockfest that made me wish I could grow a beard. They rocked so hard that they deserve a 10/10.

Kylesa played some spaced out sludgecore next. Guitar effects, reverbed vocals, and a huge wall of sound. All the songs flowed together extremely well and the fact that they had three different vocalists, one of them being female, added greatly to their spectrum. Jesus Christ, that last sentence sounded way too sissy. Basically, they rocked pretty hard with some killer riffs, when you could discern the riffs from the general sludge that I got for most of the time. Definitely a band that deserves the hype they're generating. 8/10.

And now the show took a turn for the worse. Planes Mistaken For Stars took the stage, and while they had the long and/or facial hair to be the most metal band I heard, what I instead got was a smattering of crappy hard music that reminded me too much of nü-metal. Didn't this band use to be emo? Either way, they still have a shitty emo name, and a bunch of metalheads outside the club were making fun of them. Know why they were making fun of them? Because obviously they were there to see…(5/10)

High on Fire. Who totally were insanely awesome kickass metal in the vein of Motörhead and Black Sabbath. For the two songs I was able to stay for, I totally thought they were awesome. Why didn't I stick around, you say? Have you ever been in a small club full of metalheads? Especially when you're under 250, have no beard and your hair isn't past your shoulders? It's a scary place for outsiders, my friends. Plus, I was dying from all the second-hand smoke. But they totally get a 7/10 just for how awesome those two songs were.

Pretend that PMFS didn't play and this show gets a 9/10.