AUGUST 2-4, 2024

PLUOT

@ METRO BALTIMORE

A flurry of Post Punk delirium, Pluot’s rippers are fuel for unlikely dance alongs. Sax plies over screams as the band intertwines jagged guitar riffs with mid-tempo brass lines worthy of the most satanic marching band imaginable. Summer Band Camp this is not: be ready for all-in, interactive assault. 

THAT WITH TUSKS

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Wrenched from a single, looming stack, That With Tusk’s epic guitar peaks encompass all things enormous. Whether building Earth-level ambience or Sonic Youth-style screech, the songs simultaneously caress and enlighten. This is core-building music, the kind that works the deep tissue while you quietly sweat all the evil out..  

MOWDER OYAL

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Post-pandemic, Mowder Oyal have distinguished themselves as both the best hardcore punk band and motley-est free jazz skronkers on the scene. Their oddball amalgamation of heavy hitters and sordid insanity behind the bleachers makes for true-blue Baltimore maniac music.

OVERCALC

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Overcalc meld post-punk tropes with experimental ambience to create barbed, wildly noisy tunes that are utter original. Baltimore-bred experimental sensory overload of the greatest sort.

CHOKING BOYS

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Baltimore synth-punks Choking Boys lean HEAVY on the punk. The three-piece’s harsh noise atmospheres take a carnivalesque ride through post-punk rhythms before descending into all-out chaos. Under it all glitters a haunting church organ atmosphere that ALMOST brings us back. Heavy, bracing, and well worth the ride. 

D.O.V.E.

@ METRO BALTIMORE

D.O.V.E. (disciple of a violent entity) make good on their moniker, delivering body-shaking blasts of hack-and-saw hardcore. This is a front-to-back, non-stop storm of absolute pit insanity. Sweat-stains are a given: approach this pit with love, but also with the intention of letting all things out. 

$2 ROMANCE

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Baltimore native Alex Strama’s $2 Romance uses contact mics, guitar, voice, micro cassette, Casio SK-1, and amplifiers in a chaotic blend of Noise, Psychedelics, Experimental electronics, and Performance Art. Live sets are sometimes interactive, usually intense, always CHEAP, and ALWAYS RECKLE$$. 

DARSOMBRA

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Heavy psych with an uplifting attitude, Darsombra are simultaneously heavy and transcendent. Epic lights traverse the band’s bodies as bold, unwieldy riffs slick bolts of acid-tinged lightning across severed skies.

PROBLEM SOLVER

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Beatdown hardcore is one way to describe Problem Solver… but we prefer “head meets karate kick.” Pit stompers of unquestionable power, their trad HC credentials are all in order. Heavy verses, heavier choruses, and breakdowns worthy of all kinds of aerial antics. Play nice, kids.

DICKGIRL

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Words to not encapsulate the pure chaos that is a DickGirl outing. Imagine Suicide mixed up in a cacophony of harsh screams and dance electronics and you come close the the aesthetic. The performance is something else entirely: a raw, audience-penetrating attack that leaves you breathing heavy without ever moving a muscle.  

RAGDOLLZ

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Ascendent stalwarts of Baltimore heavy alt super scene, Ragdollz usher grunge into a new age. Large, uncompromising, and tinged with a sense of 90s sludge, the live show is fierce, in-your-face catharti-core for people living through the digital apocalypse.

LUXURY TEETH

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Heavy hittin’ hardcore punk for the real ones. Luxury Teeth aren’t just amongst Baltimore’s best and brightest: they’re angels sent from Jesus Christ to resurrect us with loud-as-hell punk platitudes. Seriously, live, they’re maniacs: Baltimore is beyond lucky to have a source of such salvation.

SICKLE CELL

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

What if New Order were caught, jaded and angry in a looming, echo-y cavern? The dancey synth punk solo project of LIP’s Alex Briscoe jr, Sickle Cell is groovy, introspective and often experimental. Precise systems cascade into echo as jittery vocals ease your body frantically forward to shake the night away. 

SLOT

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Self-styled Industro-Punk project SLOT’s don’t pull any punches. Hard hittin, peachy keen synth punks, the group go hard on the floor, with beats as frantic as a decoupled cable car. They’re unwieldy dance divas, elastic with ass-shaking guitar riffs that shimmy you closer and closer to the crash.

KNUB

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Knub’s seismic riffs are epic enough to sink the city. Add a singer with pipes lifted from a church organ and you’re ready to full-body handbag.Heavy? Yes, but you may end up cursing them for how stupid catchy it is. 

EMMA WRATH

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Digital glitchcore meets wild industrial ruckus, as the inimitable Emma Wrath breathes harshly on the mic. At times bracing, at others dissociative and dreamy, it’s a digital dreamcast with the kind of dark undertones that make the dance party simultaneously intense and ethereal. 

GRUDGE

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Epic soothsayers of the most aggressive order, Grudge manage both meat-and-potatoes hardcore and grind-speed thrashers. The band’s breakdowns are borderline beatings, heavy, sludge-y and unmistakably aggro. 

NATURAL VELVET

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Long-running Baltimore shoegaze/dreampop institution Natural Velvet shift between gazey indie pop and guttural “wall of sound” post punk. Dark existential waters are traversed through soaring pop choruses, heavy noise punk antics, and a flair for the dramatic. The 90s is strong with this one. 

KRIME SLUGS (SOLO SET)

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Hyper-energetic cartoon punks Krime Slugs slosh in and out of sludgy garage and frenetic synth pop without missing a monster. Or as they’d say it: Only in silence the word / Only in dark the light / Only in dying life / Bright the Krime Slug’s flight / On the Empty Sky (translated/adapted from ancient LeGuinian proverb). So yeah, that.

DELETIONS

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Superstars of last year’s Shakemore (every record store owner in town was clamoring to hear more), Deletions are a post-punk outfit of the highest order. Pere-Ubu meets post-post-punk electronics for a show that’s both technically brilliant and jittery, off-the-rails insane. 

POWERWASHER

@ METRO BALTIMORE

Evoking post-punk’s past (see Pere Ubu / Gang of 4), Powerwasher kick up discordant post-punk for the dispossessed. The band’s melodies are modestly that – angular, awkward, polyrhythmic and loud – evoking the aforementioned 80s angst while paying equal tribute to similarly hyperliterate screamers of the 90s and early aughts.

CANNIBAL BOOM

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Goth drones break into dark synth pop as Cannibal Boom’s shirtless, tatted singer rages and writhes. Equal parts unnerving and ecstatic, the act’s contortionism is both literal and aesthetic, a sweaty mixture of tonal restraint and all-out abuse. Truly a dark, bracing, avant-garde original for goths of all order.   

CHIAROSCURO

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Chiaroscuro is a converging point of careful study and artistic impulse conducted through an interpretation of melodic, extreme metal forms. The result grinds through an aesthete’s range of obscure metal influences, ultimately crushing black/death metal tropes into new, unlikely catacombs of aggression. 

PLOY MACHINE

@ METRO BALTIMORE

While Ploy Machine bill themselves as “genre fluid noise” we’d say they’re more akin to a meticulously planned car crash. The group’s cacophonous riffage spins in and out of structure, courting the edges of sonic anarchy before sludging back into waves of electric body rockage too dynamic to be denied.

SWITCHBLADE PORTER

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Three Six Mafia meets Sleighbells in this deranged noise-pop deviant from Frederick, MD. Full body contortions, clown colors, dark humor, dissociative beats, and utter shock horror electronics. It’s not just an stompdown, it’s an all-body experience. SERIOUSLY, DO NOT MISS THIS ONE. Switchblade Porter SHOOTS TO KILL. 

BLIGHT BEAST

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Ageless, seemingly invincible Baltimore metal warlords Blight Beast evoke an evil aura that inflicts 1057 shadow damage to all enemies within a room. How epic will your quest into the pit be in the end? That depends largely upon your personal stats and the strength of the party you bring into it. 

SLIK LEASH

@ METRO BALTIMORE

When we talk about Baltimore’s heavy music scene, it can be hard to pin down the proper punk taxonomies in plucky prose. Noise rock? Post-metal? Post-punk? Nu-metal? Industrial? Just put on the damn record, listen to the songs, and draw our conclusions with this one. All words lead to one: unbelievable. 

SLEEP TALK

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Black metal tinged in avant-garde industrial, Sleep Talk evoke a nightmare state, only to pound back at it until the ghouls run away. Yes, the killer is in the house. Yes, there will be blood. But, stick with the guitar’s unceasing attack and we promise you’ll always be the last girl out.  

REVVNANT

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

One of several solo projects by Black Lung’s Elias Schutzman, Revvnant is an unearthly (and otherworldly) drive through the darkest waves. This engine drives on a precision drum machine, kicking up a punk ethos in the guise of epic and enthralling goth ambience. 

P111AR

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

P111ar packs so much into their unassuming personage that you’re forgiven for being a bit alarmed (and taken aback). Black metal spirit meets electro gloss as glitchcore bleeds into powerhouse growls worthy of the grumpiest goblin. Power electronics slide through r&b beats, room-shaking screams, rise and, as is their wont, they always tear dangerously into the audience.  

NINTH REALM

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Labyrinths of steel collide around thrones of amber as swords are raised at epic amplitudes. The creatures in Ninth Realm’s dungeon bleed with riffage as thrash metal mutations course through shattered veins. Who’s ready to raise a horn in homage to the lords of this lost labyrinth? We are. 

THE EXPANDING MAN

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Carlos Guillen explores the edges of electronic music through spontaneous synthesis, sample-sonics and power electronics. Sometimes jubilant, sometimes sublime, always expanding. The Expanding Man is exactly that, a wild atmospheric synth journey into terrains at the outer edge.

EYECATCHER

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Grind-and-burn metal with and eye to the epic, Eyecatcher are a frenetic, deep-digging powerhouse. This one causes body shocks, the kind that leave you with fists in the air, horns for fingers, and the blazing burn of absolution.

JENN TAIGA

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

The reigning empress of dungeon synth, Jenn Taiga weaves exquisite soundscapes and eerie synth with shivering limerence. D&D meets bondage basement as atmospheric synth counterpoints the VERY REAL sword on stage. 

VOSH

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Vosh kicks up smoldering, hi-octane darkwave lightening in tight leather. Their heavy synth-driven siren songs thrum from the darkness, vacillating between a John Carpenter soundtrack Sisters of Mercy, and Siouxsie Sioux.

THE ARM

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

The Arm’s epic noise/ambient ensemble transmutes acoustic emissions into electric mysticism, landing somewhere between a brass chorale and broken distortion pedal. Wooshing, ethereal, and utterly epic. 

HAZE MAGE

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Our second Saturday Night Headliner, Haze Mage forges riff-driven anthemic fantasy metal from dark rituals and sacred mystic haze from the ancient dark forests of Baltimore City. Self spelled Sword and Sorcery Doom for the dark magicians!

PTSD + SLAB OF MEAT

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

PTSD x Slab of Meat is a collaborative harsh noise set from Pony Payroll Bones and Slab of Meat. Both acts deftly toe the line between upper echelon avant garde and the most abrasive (and  unpalatable) of attacks. Moonless night vibes where the howls dig abrasively through your skin… all in search of escape. 

BLACK CELEBRATION DANCE PARTY

@ THE CROWN PINK ROOM

Beloved Baltimore Djs Jerrod Bronson & DJ Hell O’Kitty’s monthly Ottobar masquerade is legendary for its devilish mix of Goth, post-punk, industrial, electro, and funk. The deadly duo delight with an eclectic mix of dark and dancy music in this rare, unusual outing in honor of subScape.

CONTACT MIC ABROAD – OPEN EXPERIMENTAL JAM SESSION

@ THE CROWN BACK BAR

Wax Atlas’ popular CONTACT MIC series goes bigtime, offering an open-stage experimental jam session for subScape bands and fans alike. We bring weird instruments, break the crowd into groups and everyone gets up to raise a ruckus.