Wayfarer, Sonja, Valdrin
Piranha Bar, Montreal QC
May 16, 2024
As a Generation X music journalist who grew up listening to so many metal bands that could sell out a big arena in a heartbeat, part of me wishes the generational talents emerging from the American underground could connect with mass audiences like those old bands did. Sure, the appeal of being one of the few, loyal, true devotees of an obscure artist can be irresistible in a smug, selfish, gatekeeping sort of way, but when my job is to help shine the spotlight on bands that deserve a little more commercial success, I want everyone to hear it. Not just the same scenesters again and again. I want to see new bands become the next Metallica or Slayer or Slipknot, and to be seen by thousands, not dozens.
For innumerable reasons, from a dysfunctional music industry to a metal scene so fractured and splintered that mainstream appeal and critical acclaim don’t exactly intersect anymore (someone, anyone, please explain Sleep Token to me) there’s no shortage of tiny club shows featuring bands that are far too accomplished to be playing in rooms that small. It also means, if you’re someone like myself, that you’ll find yourself walking through a bumpy concrete hallway to the cozy basement of the Piranha Bar in downtown Montreal to join 150 other people to catch one of the more intriguing metal tours in recent memory: USBM phenoms Wayfarer, sleaze upstarts Sonja, and fantasy-driven black metalers Valdrin.
Tiny but friendly, the Piranha is an appealing little bunker not unlike any basement club in another city, save for one thing: the Montreal metal fans, who know talent when they hear it, and when they like something, they go all-in. So on this Thursday night the vibe had that unmistakable combination of intensity and positivity that defines live shows in the city, and even at the early hour of 7:30 PM there was already an eager throng to catch openers Valdrin kick off the night.
Starting with the blazing “Golden Walls of Ausadjur,” which fuses Dissection-style Swedish black metal with prog-leaning melodies, the Cincinnati foursome leaned heavily into tracks from their excellent 2023 album Throne of the Lunar Soul. Guitarists Carter Hicks and Colton Deem displayed plenty of dexterity navigating the labyrinthine passages of such standouts as “Seven Swords (In the Arsenal of Steel)” and “Vagrant in the Chamber of Night,” but it was drummer Ryan Maurmeier who stood out the most thanks to his extremely taut drumming, steering the band into unexpected and thrilling directions that flirted with death metal and grindcore but never betrayed the glorious grimness of it all. And I’ll give bonus points to any band that explains the mythos and storyline of the track they’re about to perform. “This song is where our hero Valdrin confronts his enemy,” Hicks announced at one point, prompting the Québécois dude next to me to yell in broken English, “Booooooo, bad guy!” American black metal needs more nerds like Valdrin, who made the most of their half-hour set.
Some 20 minutes later, it was time for something completely different. Loud Arriver, the 2022 album by Philadelphia trio Sonja, wowed many of us at Decibel two years ago to the point where it was named the second-best album of the year. I’m even tempted to declare Loud Arriver the best metal debut since Ghost’s Opus Eponymous. Old-school yet forward-thinking, the way guitarist/singer Melissa Moore combines sharp, mid-’80s West Coast riffery with the dank, brooding tones of mid-’80s L.A. gothic rock is intoxicating. Try to imagine Black N Blue covering the Cure’s “A Forest” in 1985, and you’ll have a good idea of what Sonja’s music is all about.
As good as the black metal would be on this night, nothing gets a club jumping like some wicked riffs, and as soon as Moore launched into the opening bars of “When the Candle Burns Low” on her powder blue semi-hollow body Telecaster, she had the entire room’s attention.
Backed up by drummer Grzesiek Czapla and bassist Ben Brand, who matched their rhythm section cohesion with onstage energy, Moore was afforded a perfect backdrop against which she could showcase her guitar and vocal chops. Better yet, the threesome possesses one hell of a groove together, as they showed on the album highlight “Pink Fog”, whose martial, Killing Joke-adjacent cadence had the room dancing. Released in conjunction with their signing to Century Media Records, the Nephilim-esque “Discretion for the Generous” leaned into a more nocturnal, sinister atmosphere, while signature tune “Nylon Nights” brought the set to an orgastic climax. Sonja weren’t through, though, as Moore and mates tossed in an inspired cover of Iron Maiden’s oft-overlooked deep cut “Deja Vu” that caught everyone by surprise. As soon as folks heard that memorable intro segue into the double-time opening riff, the fists started pumping. Moore might have been singing, “Feels like I’ve been here before,” but she and Sonja are taking traditional heavy metal into exciting territory. They’re the American metal band to watch right now.
In the five years since they last played in Canada, Denver, Colorado band Wayfarer have not only emerged as the stalwarts of a strong local underground scene, but as the latest big thing to come out of US black metal. As albums like 2018’s World’s Blood and 2020’s A Romance With Violence attracted increasing attention, yours truly was a little skeptical. Is there actual substance beneath the shitkicker cowboy hats? I do appreciate Wayfarer’s dedication to depicting “the death of the American dream”, and 2023’s American Gothic does a wonderful job exposing the dark, seamy underbelly of the North American plains, specifically the effect industrialization had on the region more than a century ago. The blood in the prairie soil is closer to the surface than a lot of people assume, an important fact that Wayfarer convey well.
Like 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand, American Gothic channels the darkness of that history vividly in the music, filtered through a more orthodox black metal approach, with smart touches of Americana added for effect. While not as fully realized as, say, Panopticon’s Appalachian black metal masterpieces Kentucky and Autumn Eternal, Wayfarer are on to something very significant, and if their music could delve deeper into why the Western myth was a grift, it could be revolutionary. There’s already plenty of truth in their music, but there’s far more to be told.
From a strictly visceral perspective, though, the power of Wayfarer’s music in a live setting is something to behold: waves of atmospheric black metal passages blow one’s ears back like a gale force wind, only to be punctuated by moments of eerie stillness, like the silence right before a funnel cloud approaches. American Gothic rightly got the bulk of the attention during the band’s hour-plus set, starting with the mournful “The Thousand Tombs of Western Promise” and launching right into the swinging “The Cattle Thief” followed by the unsettling “To Enter My House Unjustified.” For those craving the more intense side of Wayfarer’s work, “The Crimson Rider” – from A Romance With Violence – kicked things into high gear. It all built towards a stunning, climactic triptych, starting with “Black Plumes Over God’s Country,” the pummeling “The Iron Horse” and the ferocious “False Constellation,” arguably the best track on American Gothic.
Capping the night off with a blistering performance of “Animal Crown”, and then exiting to Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song” – a little on the nose, but it still made this Lizzy fan happy – Wayfarer disappeared in a cloud of dust towards the western horizon, the thunder of their music replaced by the thundering hooves of their team of horses, heading towards parts unknown. Or so some might have wished. Truthfully, they quietly packed up their gear and said hi to fans at the merch table as the rest of us resurfaced on Rue Sainte-Catherine, jolted into reality by the happy nighttime bustle of traffic, clubgoers and dance music at street level. I probably wasn’t the only person who wanted to tell the trendy couples dining al fresco that they missed out on a transformative underground metal show, but who would listen to a raving 53-year-old wearing a Possessed T-shirt? So Decibel, it is!
