photo by Mike Rosati

There is a tension that rises as the fall darkness and leaves settle.  In the quiet contraction, the silent turn of colors and forms descending to retreat, there is a persistent shudder, ascending in the frenzy of birds and squirrels and holiday shoppers, in the wind and rains when they come.  One last assertion of movement and warmth, violent with the anticipation of stillness, disturbing and undeniable: beautiful.  It is the fall, the last convulsion, the last offering of oneself before this round is done.

One cold November evening in the dim belly of Annie’s Social Club I witnessed a string metal band perform as if in the throes of the last cell shattering triumph before the end.  They call themselves Judgement Day.

Anton Patzner stood as long and wiry as his hair lifting the violin to his bow, blowing the audience with its cries.  Jon Bush crouched behind his drums beating to feed the voracious melodies pouring from Lewis Patzner and his cello.  There are no guitars, no make-up, no costumes.  Theirs is not a force fed by the gaudy fear of dark fantasy, Goth or oversexed vampires exaggerating their suffering for the sake of the show, for the delight of the audience.

It is a power that can only be forged in the coming together of pure exertion; the exertion of the man on himself to raise a sound of his own, the exertion of himself on the instrument, the violin, the drums, the cello, the exertion of wood and wire on the air and breath of previously empty spaces, now filled with exultant and inescapable vibration. Where there is purity there is truth, so perhaps the power of Judgement Day lies in the visceral truth of their sound, which is a force with or without an audience.

Their latest recording rightly alludes to their elemental qualities, Judgement Day: Out of the Abyss, Live on Tape. They have just returned from touring Europe with Dredg, and leave on a Northwest tour November 30^th.  On the night I saw them they were celebrating the five year anniversary of the release of their first album, Dark Opus.

Out of the Abyss begins with cello: percolating, tenuous, unrelenting.  The first low glow before the screaming flash of violin chaos.  Then it all rises together, riding the drums: each of Judgement Day’s individual entities, in crying themselves out, raise one great gorgeous roar as an entirely new and whole and very alive thing.  Like the last desperate release, like the fall itself.