Punkhead Reviews DCxPC Live Vol. 15 No Coffin Live at Lou’s 12”
Captured live at Lou’s, Vol. 15 gives listeners a taste of death and doom, seeing art in its rawest form. No Coffin, the heavy hitters and touring machine brings the best of the best while on the road. Vol. 15 sees them toying with noise in a way that reminds you Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Hysteric and stadium-filling, swamp mixed with hardcore filtered through metal and punk. It’s a taste of sweat and blood with immerse energy and disobedience.
“Reverse Prayer” crawls in with high contrast and flickering drone. The track pains the room black and mad, roaming with massive, commotion-staring rhythm. Race and rest, death and punch. They alter pace and soundscapes, awakening a range of drastically diverse visualizations through separate scenes. “.45” is fierce and maddening, fused with gunfire and aggression. The track catches No Coffin at their most unapologetic and vengeful, one foot into forbidden sonic lands with palpable angst and brain-melting hits.
“Fire Is The Cleanser Into All Life Must Ends” is hell-like and dominating. It puts you in full submission as if witnessing something majesty and unstoppable in full action. Destruction meets rebirth in metallic sonic world-building, while the process itself feels even ritual-like. Fire, as a symbol of cleansing, is a powerful, vivid force. There’s so much storytelling in this track that’s simply amazing to witness.
No Coffin is able to offer something different with each of their tracks. Though always heavy as hell and rock your head off, their dooming sound and noise manipulation is done with much mastery and impulsiveness. “Over By Portishead” is something else. Setting its scene in a lonesome, haunting riff, one man’s screaming cuts through all the silence and space and becoming something truly haunting and spine-tingling. When the percussion kicks in, the man’s voice is somehow covered up but still, he’s unsilenced.
The longer the show goes on, the deeper No Coffin seems to be in contact with the roots of rock—blues, with its purity and sickness, being amplified and derived in noise-coiled, electrified sounds.
In the last year, No Coffin has played 160 shows. They are looking to top that number this year. If you happen to be in the area, don’t miss the opportunity to get your ears dirty.
