Minsk, Coliseum, Baroness. Three mismatched Relapse Records acts who occupy distinct spheres of heavy music, they span a wide spectrum from dirge-like drones to hoarsely delivered shouts to harmonized twin guitar solos.

Chicago’s Minsk led the night, playing to a nearly empty room that filled up with a gradualness that matched their glacially paced music. Their music defies traditional song structure; the two leads created a dense swirl of darkly opaque atmosphere between a mini-moog stack, a severely down-tuned guitar and dual vocals that alternated between baritone melody and gruff, uninhibited shouting. You could see the veins popping out from keyboardist Timothy Meade’s neck with every ripping scream.

The use of extreme dynamics was refreshing: for every chugging power chord there were two intricate passages of delicately fingerpicked arpeggios; for every daub of Neurosis a stroke of Pink Floyd. Underneath it all, the rumbling bass riffs and driving tribal beats propelled otherwise formless songs with a strange urgency. Melodic but without a need for hooks, Minsk come close to sounding like the scorching of cities. By the end of the set, there was nowhere to stand. The barflies had come up from below, beckoned by the band’s otherworldly call.

Guitarist/vocalist Chris Bennett tells me a new album is in the works for a mid-2009 release. Fans of heaviness, take note.

Rounding out the rear as headliners, Baroness have developed quite a following for a band with only one award-winning full-length and three earlier EPs on their resume. Hailing from Savannah, GA, they look like a bunch of hairy young woodsmen, all gangly posture and wildly unkempt facial hair. Their sound is inimitable, a crazy blend of southern blues, shameless prog-worthy virtuosity, hushed shoegazey glimmer and flat-out stoner doom that’s every bit as heavy as High on Fire and tight as Mastodon. They can sing in major thirds so high you’d swear they were a schoolgirl choir or growl low enough to make your bowels move.

How do these guys keep going song after breakneck song, each with seemingly endless passages of complexly harmonized counterpoint and shifting time signatures? Watching them was exhausting, even without touching the mosh pit.

“My voice just gave out,” singer/guitarist/album artist John Baizley admitted between songs toward the end of the marathon set, and I could identify: my own voice was shot just from cheering them on.

So it’s easy to forgive Coliseum for getting a bit lost in between their stagemates. Maybe the best thing that can be said about them is that they almost kept up, simply by not letting up. As one of their fans says on last.fm, “JUST PUT GODDAMAGE INTO THE CAR STEREO AND GET RIPPING DOWN THE HIGHWAY, RAM A FUCKING PIG AND HEADBANG UNTIL YOUR SKULL FALLS OFF.” Lacking a car, a pig and the desire to lose my skull, maybe I just didn’t get to experience them as they’re meant to be experienced.

Tracks to try: Minsk – “White Wings” (The Ritual Fires of Abandonment), Coliseum – “ HYPERLINK “Defeater” (No Salvation), Baroness – “Rays on Pinion” (The Red Album)

Photo by Derrick Koo

Luckily, between the tepid sing-along singles and painfully earnest near-acoustic ballads, they occasionally let some surprising influences shine through, filling the makeshift auditorium with lengthy instrumental passages and washes of reverb-soaked distortion. These moments, accompanied by banging heads and stage acrobatics, showcased Lifehouse at their most absorbing—and demonstrated a rawer, jam-influenced side of their sound that’s rarely heard on their overproduced studio albums.

The audience knew the score. Their choruses were sometimes as loud as those of frontman Jason Wade, whose laid-back demeanor and friendly patter make him resemble Charlie Pace from Lost’s fictional band, DriveShaft. Throngs of adoring fans lined the front of the stage with cell phone cameras, adding their own constant camera-flash lightshow. The feel of the show was steadfastly civil and polite, a rock gig devoid of all negative power or edginess.

The squeaky-clean arpeggios and lovey-dovey lyrics crooned with closed eyes sparked a passion in the audience that seemed largely missing from the band’s own staid presence. It was only when they cranked up the distortion and stepped away from the mics that they really got invested, whipping up the audience into near-frenzy before soothing them back down to that steady, civil hum. It makes this reviewer wonder what kind of band Lifehouse could be if they abandoned the firewall and gave into that wilder, more aggressive sound. Could they bring the rock if they wanted to?

But then, they don’t claim to aspire to that, and their many fans like things just fine the way they are. After four chart-topping studio albums and hundreds of successful radio-sponsored shows, you can’t blame Lifehouse for resting on their laurels.

Tracks to try: “Broken” (Who We Are, 2007), “Blind” (Lifehouse, 2005)

Lanegan possesses the voice of God, if God chain smoked and had a penchant for single malts, and his gravelly, rumbling baritone—capable of dipping so low you can feel it in your chest—is The Gutter Twins’ single best asset.  But Dulli’s melancholic, chameleon-like vocals complicate the texture, frequently layering over his partner’s voice in thick harmony.  This complex sound—like a slab of dangerously black marble with a beautiful sheen—is what transforms this band’s otherwise pretty generic grunge rock songs into something special.

Their Thursday show at Greenpoint’s Warsaw mostly showcased the band’s darker side, roaring out the gates with the crunchy triple-guitar attack of their debut album Saturnalia and rarely letting up until some light piano balladry toward the end. Songs from previous lives, including updated cuts from The Afghan Whigs, The Twilight Singers and Lanegan’s prolific solo career, mixed well with the Twins’ bluesy, mid-paced, minor-key anthems of failed love, loneliness and desperation.

The many fans packed into Warsaw’s small theater seemed not to mind the sameness that sometimes crept into the long set, jumping and flailing limbs with each heavy groove, egged on by Dulli’s sarcastic bravado and Lanegan’s quiet brooding. The Twins are all about atmosphere, and their music approaches a gothic bleakness that seems more profound than their lyrics of longing and lost loves suggest. That inky, irresistible blackness, as they sang in unison during a cut from their recent Adorata EP, “comes creeping, comes swallowing everything in its wake.”

Tracks to try: “The Stations” (Saturnalia, 2008); “Belles” (Adorata [EP], 2008)

About fifty devotees of all ages gathered in costume at the Webster Hall float, some arriving hours before the Halloween parade began. The day before, several hardcore supporters, led by the band’s web designer Brian Carter, had painted a giant banner, proudly displayed on the side of the float and proclaiming, “WORLD/INFERNO F.S. HALLOWMAS”.

As the band trickled in, rather than rush their idols, the Infernites continued to coolly chat amongst themselves. They shared covert swigs of rum. They smoked cigarettes. They seemed totally normal. I was naive.

The float took a long time to get rolling. We rounded a corner, stopped, and then waited. For an hour and forty-five minutes. Did the fans complain? Bail out? Riot? No. None of the above. Until the music began. And then, so did the riots.

As the band—still waiting for the float to progress—started to play, a mosh pit formed around lead singer Jack Terricloth. Sandwiched between the Inferno float and the Dreamland float staffed by house DJs and drag queens, the Infernites crowd-surfed in the street. They yelled, rather than sang, the song lyrics. Within nanoseconds, they went from calm, nonchalant float attachés to feral, euphoric, musically possessed maniacs.

At one point, a cheer broke out: “Tonight, we’re gonna, fuck shit up!” This is one of the anthem-like chants that Infernites know by heart. Another: “World Inferno, fuck shit up!” When repeated in combination with rampant moshing, the “fuck shit up” part becomes disturbingly believable.

At about 11:30 p.m., thinking I would be late to the show, I ran into drummer Brian Viglione and a small Infernite entourage exiting the A train in Brooklyn. I was relieved; clearly, a concert cannot start without the drummer. Brian, however, was jogging in a half-frenzy—understandably so—with fans trailing behind. Everyone shouted different opinions about which exit was correct, so getting out of the tunnel took a few minutes of trial-and-error. Upon reaching the street, the motley crew charged ahead, led by Viglione in his zoot suit and skeleton makeup.

And the concert? The eight-piece band took the stage. The audience became a writhing, swirling amoeba of madness. Vocalist Terricloth projected a friendly swagger that seemed to infect fans with worship. He was unafraid of standing on the edge of the stage, being constantly petted by adoring hands. Fans climbed onto the stage and dove back into the masses. No one tried to stop them. Over time, this took on the appearance of trust falls. There was simply no doubt that the jumping fan would be safely caught, welcomed back into the throng. Even Terricloth joined in the ritual.

I could say more in an attempt to further document the chaos, but instead I will end with an honest confession: I did not have the stamina or the courage to last through the entire show. Near the restroom, I overheard a young man complaining that he had lost his eyeglasses in the crowd. Moments later, in the hallway, I glimpsed another guy crying and holding one-half of a pair of glasses in one hand, the second half in the other.

I am a glasses-wearer myself. And so, taking my cue from the misfortunes of others, I left. However, I am not implying that the music of World/Inferno is not worth hearing. It crosses genres at every turn, and when the lyrics aren’t obscured by screaming fans, they are remarkably smart. If you’re curious, check out the band’s MySpace page. If you live dangerously, go to their concerts. If you survive, consider yourself blessed.

Behind the scenes, of course.

Political hopeful and renowned funnyman Al Franken took some time off from his campaign for a Minnesota Senate seat in order to reprise his role as an SNL writer for Saturday’s opening skit. The bit features Darrell Hammond as John McCain, recording his approval message for some less than accurate campaign spots. Truly hilarious and terrifyingly accurate, Politico has more on Franken’s role and the problems comedy has posed for his own political career.

An amazing skit, to be sure, but let us take this as further proof that Saturday Night Live owes its sustained cultural relevance to the internet. No one watched this live on Saturday night.

Around the time of Will Ferrell’s departure, the show became utterly unwatchable and you would’ve been hard-pressed to find anyone willing to sit through the weekly train wreck.

Now, thanks to a handful of stellar digital shorts and the magic of online streaming video, millions are under the (false) impression that show is somehow funny again, conveniently ignoring the fact that five good minutes of an hour show still leaves something to be desired.

In the next five years, we could very well see an online only version of SNL when some good soul has the kindness and audacity to wake Lorne Michaels from his extended, unfunny dream state.

Photo by Flickr user Aaron Landry used under the Creative Commons