On Friday, Portland's heavy-rock pianist, Machine, will pour on the Fiona Apple-style fire and storytelling. Drummer Peter Thomas (of Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil) plays a dynamic backbone to Madeline Mahrie's smoky expansive vocals and Madonna-esque chameleon aesthetic. Machine is a sultry eye and ear-catching duo that will kickoff a sprawling United States tour with an empowered and head banging set at Volcanic Theatre Pub. Opening the show will be local up-and-comers Patrimony, a throwback rock trio that released its newest offering b3li3v3 in early August. We thought we would give the homegrown artists some local love.
b3li3v3
Patrimony
Independent
Rock and roll isn't dead, and Bend's own three-piece face-melters Patrimony are here to prove it. The spiritual incarnates of the godfathers of rock, the band's gut-rattling second record, b3li3v3, came out in August and is an indication of a bright future for the rising 20-somethings. The album's opening track, "Man with Another Side," clocks in at a hefty 7 minutes, leading with a surfy riff, Jekyll and Hyde downbeats and vocalist/guitarist Trevor Martell's moaning, reverb-tinted pipes. The song is an overture of the shrieking, driving rock to come. Martell's vocals are still young, slightly staccato and at times a little shy, without the finishing phrase polish of a more experienced vocalist, but promising. Patrimony is on the right track to be a successful band outside of the banjo-lined walls of the Central Oregon music scene before they can legally rent cars. Track two, "Lose My Mind" is more stable than the title suggests. With a classic blues-influenced Elvis Presley-paced verse, the shoulder (and pelvis)-shaking ditty about lost love is laced with blistering guitar solos. The theme of lament for lost women and memory continues throughout the album, and for youngsters, the band understands full well the growing pains of the heart, and expresses that impressively well together. As the album goes on, the walking bass lines settle into a darker groove. On "One Lit Candle," a shifting tempo and a distinctly more Led Zeppelin musicality twist together into a climactic tornado. Track six, "Under the Blue Moon," takes another turn, an acoustic love song featuring a heartfelt mantra from Martell and a tinny guitar with a Pinback-like modern chorus guitar riff that builds into a screaming guitar solo, only to regress shyly back to the simple opening chords.
If there's one thing b3li3v3—and Patrimony's songwriting—does best, it's building tension, cresting and peaking, slowing and speeding, keeping listeners hanging on every sputtering drum beat and leaning into every labyrinth guitar solo.
Machine, Necktie Killer and Patrimony 9 pm. Fri., Sept. 12
Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Dr.
$5.
