The Vultures had taken their places on stage, instruments in hand.
“Do you guys want to try something?” the sound person suggested, to make sure everything was working. None of the band members said anything.
“No?” the sound person said. “Okay!” She had read the band right, as the Vultures, with three words to say to the audience (“we’re the Vultures”) kicked into a set of fuzzed-out guitar, driving drums, and rumbling low end that immediately made the mood on Wednesday night, as the New Haven-based surf-punk heroes opened up for the skatepunk-dub duo Cardiel, originally from Venezuela and now on tour from Mexico City.
The Vultures — Warren on guitar, Will on bass, and Dave on drums — have been long-running favorites of the New Haven scene, and Wednesday night’s set showed why. Will’s rumbling bass grounded the sound in laying down tempos and giving just enough harmonic structure. Warren used reverb-drenched tone to expert effect, alternating between one hooky melody after another and blistering solos. Dave’s drumming, meanwhile, hit hard yet was full of precise details and moments of finesse that added color and depth without ever not rocking hard.
Skipping vocals altogether, the Vultures’ instrumentals swung between fast surf-inflected punk and slower, doom-laden numbers that let the band stretch out even more. It was hard to say which the audience liked better, as every song was met with screams and applause. After a particularly sludgy jam, the band went out on a searing surf number. By the end of the set, the Vultures collectively had said maybe 10 words to the audience. The music did all the talking.
Brian Slattery Photos
Cardiel — Samantha Ambrosio on drums and Miguel Fraíno on guitar and vocals — parked their equipment close to the front of the Cafe Nine stage, to be that much closer to the audience. “We’re from Venezuela but we come from Mexico City, so thanks so much for coming to see us,” Ambrosio said in a friendly voice. The sheer size of Fraíno’s amps gave a hint as to what was coming, but it was still hard to prepare for the onslaught of the duo’s first four notes, precise, full of crunch, and played at the kind of volume that seems to move the molecules in your body.
This reporter must apologize, for that volume managed to completely overload his camera’s microphone. Cardiel has albums on its Bandcamp page that offer a sense of the range of the duo’s sound, which shifted from punk to dub in a heartbeat and sometimes visited a few points in between. But the records couldn’t capture the assault of the band live. On guitar, Fraíno was adept at shredding riffs, laying down rhythm, taking solos, and sometimes just letting the guitar unleash drones; with the deft aid of a looper, he also used it to lay down the occasional throbbing bass part, while he screamed vocals into the kind of microphone you might otherwise use (in this context) on a trumpet. Ambrosio more than matched Fraíno on drums, hitting harder than any drummer I’ve seen in recent memory, creating rhythm after textured rhythm that were tight, explosive, and fatally precise.
The music only ramped up in energy as Ambrosio and Fraíno raged through their set. By the end, Ambrosio was soaked in sweat and Fraíno was on the floor, releasing waves of fuzz from his amps as he mashed foot pedals with his hands. The collision of styles and the force with which Ambrosio and Fraíno played made Cardiel’s music darkly visionary, a possible band for the last party on Earth before the waves take us — even if the congenial reggae put on as house music afterward was a reminder that we probably still have a lot of parties to go before that happens.