LIVE REVIEW: Chlorine w/ B.O.G, Mudgoose. 17/05/24, Valhalla, Wellington.

LIVE REVIEW: Chlorine w/ B.O.G, Mudgoose. 17/05/24, Valhalla, Wellington.

 

i must admit, i have my own problems with valhalla as a venue. i hate vaping, i hate hoodies with writing on the arms, i hate dudes who wear shorts and i hate hardcore, still, i must concede that they have one of the best sounding stages in all of wellington, plus cheap drinks and a nice vibe, so when they put on bands that aren’t usual crapola metal garbage, i like to be there. i mostly went to catch Mudgoose, to be fair, and because i knew some of my friends would be around, but i was open to new things. informants told me that headliners Chlorine are a shoegaze band from some part of auckland that no one else i know is from, and that they’re hitting it big on spotify thanks to some careful playlist promotion. cool, whatever. i intentionally didn’t listen to any of their music because i wanted to go in raw for this, and i got the sense that hearing them before i head out would discourage me from ever making it to the show.

Mudgoose impressed, like always. i won’t go on about them because there’s only so many times i can say “good show”. the band was a little less tight then they normally would be, thanks to a last minute ringer filling the bass role, but the band soldiered on. they ended their set with a gloriously out of tune cover of Grandaddy’s AM180 that was so ramshackle it’s brilliant. it sounded more like Slayer jamming with Wesley Willis than anything indie rock. you just had to be there. 

emo scuzz rockers B.O.G (that’s Burnt Out Graduate, if you were working on a list of the most shockingly mediocre band names to ever make it to a show flyer) put on a respectable showing. as one of the many easily digestible indie rock type bands working in central wellington, they go down well with a crowd, but one wonders about their lasting appeal. a few days after the gig and i’m struggling to recall their songs. good gear and impressive musicianship make them a decent spectacle but unless they come up with a single original idea they’ll be doomed to eternal support slots for bands that sound just like them.

Chlorine are either a metal band that wants to be shoegaze or a shoegaze band that’s just gotten into metal, and they’re equally lackluster at both genres. bad musicianship, negative charisma and songs that don’t really go anywhere lead to a less than positive reception from a crowd that was noticeably thinner than the one for the last two bands, which only got shakier as the band stood as still as possible and played their short set. some of the drunker and more committed audience members started a mosh pit after repeated requests to “come up the front” (if you have to ask, you’ve already lost.) but the energy just drained out of the room as the night went on. sonically, they’re shitty, trend riding Deftones fans. as a society, we failed when we allowed bands like Deftones and Korn to become cool again, and mixing an already awful sound with midling, suburban, reddit-core shoegaze results in a dreadful show. i won’t signal out any particular musicians for letting the band down, but let’s just say there’s definitely some very supportive parents in this world, because if their career moving forward depended on them making actually good music, they would have split up ages ago. i’m told this is one of their first shows outside of their hometown, and i think it’s time they head back and stay back.

i must apologise for my recent absence. i’ve been in and out of the studio working on something you’ll like, and there just hasn’t been much in wellington the past week or so. we’re back in full force, i’m telling you. 

~O.