Saturday, March 4, 2006

Claustrophobics and those prone to migraines were wise to steer clear of DC9 on Thursday night. The club was mobbed with fans eager to catch avant-noise groups Whitehouse and Wolf Eyes. Elbow room was scarce but, dollars for decibels, the audience got its money's worth.

Wolf Eyes trampled through a cinematic song cycle that boasted an equal awareness of death-metal and dub. The Ann Arbor, Mich., trio used samplers, bass guitars, gongs and vocalist Nate Young's piercing salvos to create something blunt and hyper-masculine, yet nuanced. Watching this band march through the din with such finesse elicited an equal share of chin-stroking and head-banging. Or in the case of one overzealous stage diver, getting oneself crowd-surfed into a low-hanging ceiling fan. Ouch.

Whitehouse was just as loud but far more brash. The U.K. is recognized as a noise pioneer, thanks to innovative '80s albums such as "Erector" and "Right to Kill." These days, William Bennett and Philip Best use laptops and samplers to belch out their ear-splitting noisescapes, and, the gray hairs notwithstanding, they haven't mellowed much over the years. The pair took turns at the microphone, spewing hostile diatribes over a waterfall of digital clamor. It made your vintage Sex Pistols gig look and sound like an episode of "Teletubbies."

By the end of Whitehouse's blistering 45-minute performance, both blokes were shirtless, visibly agitated and presumably a little hoarse.

-- Chris Richards