A Place to Bury Strangers @ the Corner Hotel

The fact that the band from New York City arrived to Australia after an U.S. tour sharing the stage with iconic noise-pop band ‘The Jesus and Mary Chain’ -whose album Psychocandy became a reference point for many later ‘shoegaze’ bands- explains a lot of what we saw at the Corner last Friday night.

A loud distorted sound-wave was pushed from the stage -at times juts drone, other times melodic and sweet-  to hit the audience to the point of numbing their senses, presumably so they could forget about the notes –and themselves- to remain focus on the raw musical experience.  

To see A Place to Bury Strangers live was simply breathtaking: by the end of the show the noise and the lights became overwhelming, slightly painful. The trio then stepped off the stage, walked towards the mixing table and -surrounded by a curious audience-, transferred the residual noise from the last few chords still buzzing on the stage to a psychedelic trance-like beat that went on for at least ten minutes.

When the beat stopped, a feeling of emptiness was left in the room, like something exploded and could never be put back together again.

I left the Corner with a smile, and the feeling that I witnessed something extraordinary for the last 90 minutes.

Thanks for reading.