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.

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Seems like a lot of interesting metal shows are hitting Baltimore this spring but not D.C. Case in point: The Acacia Strain at the Ottobar last Thursday. Although pigeonholed as metalcore, much to their chagrin, this band plays a brutal, complex brand of death metal that’s pretty far from the dumbed-down stuff that “metalcore” often makes one think of. It’s kind of hard to take seriously a frontman who says things like “this next song is about… killing… everyone!” but the live renditions of songs off The Acacia Strain’s latest album, Continent, were tremendous.

Headliners Bleeding Through, unlike The Acacia Strain, are metalcore through-and-through, although they have their own unique twist in the use of keyboards both for orchestration and the occasional clean piano run. I frankly thought they were pretty terrible until last year’s Declaration, which surprised the hell out of me by actually being fairly listenable. The vocal style still isn’t my bag, but like any good and well-practiced metal band, Bleeding Through are energetic performers and had folks stagediving and crowdsurfing with the kind of reckless abandon I’m beginning to associate with Ottobar crowds.

Maybe this is why all these great, young metal groups are bypassing D.C. these days: I have a hard time imagining a crowd at, for instance, the Black Cat (or any other D.C. rock/metal club) getting quite as worked up. That said, I now eagerly await fans at the upcoming Mastodon show at the 9:30 Club to prove me dead wrong.

In any case, visit the full gallery to see more of last Thursday’s mayhem (including openers As Blood Runs Black).

The first track on The Dillinger Escape Plan’s latest album is called “Fix Your Face.” This title likely refers to what anyone who attends their concerts will need to do at some point during the set. For instance, myself: about three-quarters of the way through DEP’s insanely intense show at the Ottobar last night, guitarist Ben Weinman kicked me square in the nose while doing one of his spin/jump/stagedive moves. I’m surprised it only happened once. With crowd surfers, stage divers, Weinman, and vocalist Greg Puciato flying over my head all night, emerging unscathed was a minor miracle.

If you’ve never seen DEP live, well, go check them out on YouTube, because even if you’re not into their dissonant, mathy brand of metal, you’ve gotta respect a band that spazzes out as completely as this one does the instant it hits the stage. (Relatively tame example: this one.) I will never understand how they—Weinman in particular—can be human pinballs all night while still nailing every single crazy time change and off-kilter riff in their twisting compositions.

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