Given my blogging frequency, I really shouldn’t name posts ‘Pt.1′….ever.  Just so there is some semblance of continuity, here’s my review of the Lesbian/Pombagira/Tiger Warsaw/Naisian gig that I wrote ages ago and never posted:

First up were Naisian; unfortunately I keep catching half their set and tonight was no different but what I did hear was just as good as last time – dynamic, sweeping tracks that seamlessly shift between progressive death metal and sludge.  Next was Tiger Warsaw, who just seem to keep getting better and better.  Their brand of mostly instrumental epic post-rock/metal was sharp, clear and incredibly tightly executed – reminding me of Pelican on more than one occasion, but with more than enough originality to avoid them being labeled a clone.  The touring support came from Pombagira, who impressed with their unholy combination of brutal sludge and drone.  They came across as quite similar to bands such as Sea of Bones and Arachnotaur (two favourites of mine), although the fact that Pombagira have only three members gives their songs a slightly more sparse, stripped-down feel.  Good stuff, but tonight was always going to be about Lesbian.  I initially got into the ‘les-bros’ through downloading songs by bands with amusing/interesting/silly/awful names; this exercise yielded a selection of truly awful goregrind/porngrind bands, a few mediocre death and black metal bands and Lesbian, who are just really difficult to categorise in any way and blew me away on the first listen.  The closest I get to describing Lesbian is psychedelic sludge with black metal influences, but that doesn’t really cover the enormity of their sound.  They opened with a very sludgy instrumental track that I hadn’t heard before (possibly a new one) before the singer/bassist stopped playing in what seemed like the last quarter of the song.  I think he just changed his mind about playing that song, so after a brief discussion with his bandmates and a change of bass they launched into ‘Irreversible’, the last track on Power Hör and the ultimate slow-burner, which undulated seemingly endlessly around the walls of the Casbah, completely engrosssing all within earshot for 25 minutes.  They were then coming up against the curfew but after a lot of noise from the crowd they went for another song – an absolutely storming rendition of ‘Black Forest Hamm’, which crammed all the epic vibes of the previous song into a blisteringly brutal 6 minute cascade of progressive blackened sludge.  Gig of 2008 so far…easily.

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