There are some bands for whom you can tell will have a pretty significant and wide fanbase across sub-genres and even entire genres of music. And then there are some bands you know are excellent at what they do but know that their musical style and execution is likely to limit their overall reach and fanbase to a (oftentimes very dedicated) niche subgroup. The two bands featured here, Maryland’s Full of Hell and Portland’s The Body, certainly belong to the latter group. Though in style and execution the two are quite different (the former taking the more fervently-paced grindcore/powerviolence route and the latter a slower, sludgier experimental route), they are also quite sonically compatible with the other in their emphasis on noise and non-traditional musical forms. It makes sense then that the two would be touring together, especially as they intend to enter the studio soon and record a full-length collaboration album.
At the tail end of said tour, the two bands played an impressive double-header in NYC, spending the afternoon at downtown Manhattan’s infamous ABC No Rio and then jetting over to Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus for a nightcap. Heavy Blog photographer Mark Valentino was present for both shows (shooting opener Water Torture as well for the latter show), and editor/videographer Nick Cusworth was there for the second show to capture the heavy mayhem in multiple formats. See all of it after the jump!
Water Torture
Full of Hell
The Body
No setlists for these two I’m afraid because 1) trying to determine setlists for bands like these is a largely fruitless task, and 2) if you’re concerned about setlists for these two bands you’re probably missing the point. Also of note are the stylistic choices I went with for color on these. When at full capacity, Saint Vitus’s lights can be overwhelmingly bright or hyper saturated, which works better for some bands than others. In the case of Full of Hell it largely washed them out and didn’t really at all match their performance, so I decided to do away with color completely and go full-on “ART” in black and white. For The Body I went with muted, cool colors that I thought evoked a faded retro film look, which I found oddly appropriate for their raw sound. Also, on a purely technical note, bless Adobe and their latest updates to Premiere. Their new native color grading interface for the program is surprisingly advanced and delivers an incredible amount of control without having to transport the project into either Speedgrade (which I always found clunky and buggy) or another 3rd party color-grading program.
I’m ALMOST through my backlog, though with the show I just shot over the weekend, that will likely take precedence over the remaining May show I have yet to cut. Expect to see that either late this week or early next week though.
For more from this photographer, visit Mark Valentino Photography on Flickr, and you can see new videos we put up before anyone else by subscribing to our Youtube channel! You can also follow all of my personal video doings at Arpeggia Media!
-NC