The husband/wife duo of Amber Valentine and D.C. native Edgar Livengood, aka Jucifer, don’t really tour so much as they live their lives on the road. Of the many bands out there that seem to tour constantly, Jucifer probably has them all beat. So it makes sense that their live show is a completely different animal from their recorded output.

On record, Jucifer’s music is song-based heavy alternative rock with the occasional curveball thrown in from sources as diverse as sludgy metal, pseudo-grindcore, neo-folk balladry and more. But live, Jucifer is, pure and simple, a volume fetishist’s dream, with enough amps to play an arena show without a PA. (At the Ottobar, the venue PA was used, and hilariously, all but one of the stage monitors was turned to face the audience.) They play all the loud and heavy stuff and none of the poppier stuff, with no breaks between songs, such that the entire concert experience is a visceral exercise in noise. This is either a beautiful thing or a supremely annoying thing, depending on who you ask.

The small but enthusiastic crowd on Monday night at the Ottobar seemed to fall in the former camp. Jucifer’s short set was satisfying, cathartic, and well-received. A band that tours this much and regularly plays to tiny audiences has to love what they’re doing, and with Jucifer this comes through in the almost joyful intensity they exude onstage. It’s the loudest live show this side of Sunn O))), and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to boot.

More photos after the jump, and check out the full gallery including the three opening bands.

Read More “Photos: Jucifer @ Ottobar” »

If you’re confused, Volume 11 Tavern is not anywhere near D.C.; it’s a club in Raleigh, North Carolina, somewhat near where I spent my Thanksgiving weekend. I snuck out to catch Jucifer, a noise-rock/metal duo who play in front of a massive wall of amps and who will be destroying the Black Cat on January 2. Consider this your early preview of that show.

Jucifer’s latest release, L’Autrichienne, is a concept album about the fall of Marie Antoinette, which is pretty nerdy, but live they dispense with all nuance and nerdiness in favor of obliterating any and all eardrums in the vicinity. They do the noise thing very well indeed; a couple attempts at grindcore are less convincing on the record, but live they come off a little better. The fact that Jucifer managed to get a crowd of less than 25 to start moshing at 1am on a Thanksgiving weekend is indicative of the firepower they pack.

There were a bunch of local-ish opening bands that also put on real good shows, and the whole thing was a dream to photograph, so here’s a little photo dump—or you can check out the full set at Flickr.

Jucifer:

Black Skies (stoner metal from Chapel Hill, NC):

Transient (Raleigh, NC, more stoner metal type stuff):

Sloburn (Danville, VA “redneck metal”):