Death from Above played a heart pounding set to a lively crowd at the House of Blues in support of their new album Outrage! Is Now.
Death From Above
I was thrust into their manic dance punk the moment I arrived. The crowd was wildly gyrating to the band’s heavy pulsating rhythms. In today’s music scene you apparently only need a badass bassist and a dynamic drummer to create a pummeling wall of sound.
DFA’s drummer, Sebastien Grangier, is also the lead vocalist. Singing and playing drums is superhuman, and the people who do it well are few and far between. It takes an incredible amount of concentration to not get lost in the intricacy of a song, and Grangier impressed all night.
The incessantly driving beat of “Freeze Me,” my fave of the night, reverberated through my body as I danced. A savage drum guided the song and the distorted bass made way for lyrics wonderfully juxtaposing the melody against their backdrop. The album’s namesake song could be the rallying cry of 2017: “Outrage! Is Now.” The bass line pours over the track drenching everything in deep, dark reverb. The chorus is filled with splashy cymbals that shatter and ricochet against the echoes of Grangier’s howls.
Some say rock’n’roll is dead, but Death From Above showed they made the right choice in no longer being stuck in 1979, as they’re clearly here to make it stay.