Live Review: Death From Above 1979 with Biblical at Neumos 11/19/14

Well, that was a long time coming, but I'll be damned if that could have been any better than it was. Death From Above 1979 made a great record back in 2004 - like a really great record. You're A Woman, I'm A Machine put DFA 1979 on the map like clockwork, feeding the band with plenty of live dates to tackle in the two years following, but then they announced a break. Five years later, they reconvened, and now a full 10 years after the first record dropped, we have DFA 1979 LP #2, and to no surprise, it's another really great record. The Physical World picks up where You're a Woman left off, creating a sonic hurricane with only the most minimal of instrumental setups: just drums and bass. But Sebastein Grainger and Jesse Keeler have never needed much to blow speakers - they do just fine on their own. And after melting the faces off Letterman's wind section, they headed out on tour to do the same to fans across the globe. Wednesday night, this excursion led DFA to Neumos, where they threw one of the venue's best gigs of the year. With the help of Toronto prog rock act Biblical, DFA 1979 threw a gig that made up for every year of absence and then some.

If there's anything remotely biblical about the Toronto band of the same name, it's their proportions and gambit. A bit like the grisly Old Testament stuff that your kids probably won't understand, Biblical played through about four or five songs in their forty-five minute time slot, each of them totally bombastic in both sonic scope and length, but each one made a statement a bit stronger than the last. Nick Sewell leads the band with vocals and ample amounts of ripping bass, while Matt McLaren and Andrew Scott both add dueling, noodling guitars on top and Jay Anderson fills in whats left of the sonic landscape with piles of drums. Biblical got the energy going in the right direction Wednesday night, prepping our minds for the devastation to come with plenty of apocalyptic rock and roll worthy of the lasting canon.

Biblical:

As Jesse and Sebastein took the stage and cranked into their long-time-coming return set, the crowd response in Neumos was almost unanimous. As the duo entered the stage, without a big light transition, and without a ton of hullabaloo, everyone cheered and clapped and high-fived each other and then waited. There was this moment of anticipation before anyone tried to pinch themselves. "Is this really happening finally?" Well, when Sebastein blasted into You're a Woman opener "Turn It Out", the anticipation disappeared and reappeared in the form of pure, unadulterated, thrashing joy. The Neumos floor exploded instantaneously, and from there on out, holding your spot in the room was not an option. There was no dance pit with a nice ring around the outside to catch your breath - the whole floor was a dance pit. And as Sebastein and Jesse blasted through one track after another, giving almost no crowd acknowledgement during or in between songs, an hour set felt both like an eternity of happiness and the blink of an eye.

The great part about only having two LPs over the last ten years is, there's rarely a song thrown in the mix that isn't either a famously fantastic single or a delectable b-side. Playing nearly all of the new record The Physical World and the very best of You're A Woman, I'm A Machine, including the bombastic title track of each, DFA 1979 did not have a single misstep between them. About 3/4 of the way through the set when Sebastein finally acknowledged that he was "just now starting to enjoy the set", the two broke into an older than dirt crowd request with "Dead Womb", the opener from DFA's 2002 EP Heads Up, immortalized as a sample in the Crystal Castles track "Untrust Us". "Dead Womb" was a true surprise, not seen on any of the setlists in recent weeks, and Neumos gave it every bit of the appreciation it deserved, with maybe the best mosh pit seen there this year.

Beginning to end, DFA 1979 were 100% professionalism and attitude. These dudes throw down like nobody's business, and they've always done it their way. Maybe this is the key to their continually throwing down even now. If nothing else, it just goes to show that it's never too late to make a true second record. As shown here tonight, The Physical World is not a comeback record - it's a full-fledged DFA record to the core of its being, and live, it only serves to give us more reason to be madly in love with this band and eagerly await their next return. Whether it's next year or ten more years from now, I have no doubt in my mind that much of the crowd present at Neumos tonight will be back to throw down with Jesse and Sebastein for another round in the days to come.

Death From Above 1979: