Drawback – Velvet Voodoo Dolls, Sugar Plum Dandy, Home, Skunkjuice, The Mighty Sturgeon, Camerons Way, Slowpoke, Lachrymator, Doom Nation at The Vertex – Review

Drawback

with Velvet Voodoo Dolls, Sugar Plum Dandy, Home, Skunkjuice, The Mighty Sturgeon, Camerons Way, Slowpoke, Lachrymator, Doom Nation at The Vertex
by Scott Hefflon
photo by Trevor Whitaker

Strobelight the pit. A new school heavy/hardcore band from South Hadley takes the stage. Half long hair + half hardcore haircuts and hats = total energy. The primary, primal lighting throbs, trying to keep pace with the frantic thrashathon. (Go ahead, say that 10 times fast!) The stomp tempo mosh got the arms a-flailing, the bodies a-slammin’, and the stage divers lining up. The singer never missed a word (although it’s admittedly hard to tell) even while being hand passed over the heads of the crowd. It’s infectious, it’s unavoidable… The pit beckons. Fuck the review, I’m pit bound!

Drawback played many of their faves from their quick-moving demo and a smattering of new material as well. A highlight was their “acoustic love song” that, unlike Cameron’s Way’s “Anti-Love Song,” is supposed to be a real love song. This song actually did capture the essence of love in the twisted Fatal Attraction ’90s. It sounded touchingly painful and heart rending, but that could have been just the way the singer screamed it. It’s interesting to be able to slam to a love song, but that’s half of the love deal anyway, right? The night ended with “Confusion,” a wild song that seemed to follow “Love” quite nicely. One hell of a show.