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Canadian hardcore band Metz pummels Manila

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Rick Olivares

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2018/entertainment/06/03/060318-metz.jpg"/><figcaption>Metz rocks Mow&#x27;s in Quezon City. Photo provided by author</figcaption></figure></div>It’s like the calm before the storm.Alex Edkins, bespectacled, hair unkempt, tinkered with his guitar. He looked like he’d rather be working on some mad science project as opposed to being halfway around the world while prepping for a gig in at Mow’s in the sweltering summer heat. “Just give us a few minutes,” he said to the small crowd that gathered at thr alternative venue in Quezon City that has increasingly been a venue for some important shows featuring local and foreign indie and underground bands. “And we’ll get to some rockin’.”Then the fuzz and the feedback resounded. Like an air raid siren puncturing the silence of the night. The pummeling had begun. Metz, the Canadian hardcore trio who have drawn comparisons to a young Nirvana (it helped that former Nirvana producer Steve Albini produced their latest album, &quot;Strange Peace,&quot; and being signed to that legendary label, Sup Pop, added to some of the noise), then dropped the hammer.“I feel alone. I can’t go back. What have I done?” screeched Edkins in the set opener, “The Swimmer” from their second album, &quot;Metz II,&quot; while drummer Hayden Menzies gave the skins a thunderous beating. Bassist Chris Slorach bobbed back and forth with a manic fury. It’s bedlam. But Metz is no Nirvana. They are just as pissed off as the Sex Pistols were. Edkins does remind one of a snarling Johnny Rotten with equal parts Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye. And there aren’t any high and low dynamics as the late Kurt Cobain admitted to ripping off the Pixies. Metz is loud, direct, and abrasive. It’s a small crowd that gathered at Mow’s. Pedicab’s Diego Mapa and Jason Caballa are in attendance as are members of Kapitan Kulam. Emman Jasmin, impresario of underground label, Delusion of Terror, despite being unhappy about not being able to purchase any of Metz’s vinyl records (the few available were quickly snapped up) was bobbing his head. Vinyl or not, it’s a night to enjoy and kick down some doors.Why not? Metz was in town. In addition to being one of the trippiest hardcore bands around, they gained a whole lot more notoriety when Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher tweeted about them after the release of their third album, the Albini-produced &quot;Strange Peace.&quot;The name drop was welcome. “It’s a cool moment for the band,” offered Edkins before the show. “When we are able to bring in bands that we like – and not because they are hot right now in the scene – but bands we really dig, then it’s a thrill for us and local fans,” added Darwin Soneja of underground promoter Sleeping Boy Collective which was also responsible for recently bringing in Boston post-hardcore heroes, The Saddest Landscape. “When we had a chance to invite them during their Asian tour, we said, ‘why not?’”Edkins professed surprise at the unexpected response in Manila. “It was a chance to go to somewhere we have never been,” said the frontman. “We’ve been to China and Singapore and other places in this region, so why not Manila?”Manila is the band’s fifth stop in their Asian tour that takes them from Taiwan to China to Singapore, Thailand, and lastly, Japan, for four shows, before they return to their homebase in Toronto, Canada. Their 11-show tour affords them only a few nights rest in between. “Tours where we hit the ground running can be very exhausting,” said Edkins. “But it is what we love and we feel privileged to do this. We are able to carve out our little niche and it’s a luxury that we appreciate and enjoy.”So the life of a band on the run is to grab some shuteye on flights and layovers, eating and trying to put up a good show.Despite the small crowd at Mow’s, the band doesn’t shirk their responsibilities. They put on a frenetic and intense one that races through 13 songs from three critically acclaimed albums. Before the show, Edkins also admitted that he found it cool that Gallagher liked the band’s music. “We as a band have this mutual love of old hardcore and weirdo rock music. And our music is somewhere in the middle with &#x27;60s beat and psychedelic music finding their way in there. So it’s kinda cool when people say we’re like a young Nirvana but in an odd way. And it’s certainly cool that someone like Noel Gallagher likes us. It makes all these sacrifices worth it.”While it is great that fans, even the most unlikely ones, from all over the world have discovered the band’s music through the internet and social media, Edkins admitted that cyberspace is a different world for them. “We’re not great with social media,” he declared. “We came from a place before the internet. We grew up with mail-order records and finding out about new bands through zines. But if social media and the internet means kids can find new music then its good.”And the Manila crowd is no different. When the band launched into the fifth song of their set, “Mr. Plague” from &quot;Strange Peace,&quot; the crowd recognized the song as it cranked up and launched into pogos and spastic fits. “Yeah, it’s amazing when kids in China know us. And it’s amazing too when Manila kids know us.”However, having people come up to the band at Mow’s to ask the band to sign their records and to pose for pictures can be unnerving. “It wasn’t too long ago that we ourselves were doing the same thing. So you’ll have to forgive us if we look like snobs. We’re just not used to this.”“But it’s all cool. I am surprised that anywhere we go people know us. It’s a trip.”<div>Mow’s set list</div>The Swimmer Mess of Wires Get Off Spit You Out Mr. Plague Eraser Drained Lake Cellophane Knife in the Water Nervous System Raw Materials Acetate Wet Blanket