To make it really pop off, Outline is teaming up with Saint Vitus, the long running, currently shuttered venue that has become the spot for metal in New York City. Vitus is the undisputed spiritual NY home to every artist on the bill. For starters, each act has played there, often many times. And owner David Castillo has been a major fan of each act. Discussing the bill with him, his enthusiasm is palpable. “It’s a very complete and awesome lineup. It really hits from top-to-bottom without feeling one note.”
Detroit’s The Armed headlines indoors, while LA/NY doom group King Woman take the lead at the Saint Vitus stage in the Ruins. They’re joined by an array of forward thinking groups: Chat Pile, Cloakroom, Ragana and Couch Slut. “They’re all great artists,” says Castillo. “From the smallest bands to the biggest. They share a great common thread.” When pressed about what that thread is, he describes it as “Heavy music that feels left of center. No band is like ‘we are a death metal band, period. Or a doom band, period. They’re using those contexts of heavy music and warping them in different ways. That energy is present throughout the lineup, no matter the context or genre. It’s an ethos.”
“I saw the Armed and it was so maximalist and wild…” he continues “There was, like, outfits, and insanity, there was a table in the pit and this dude doing something nuts like shucking oysters.” This kind of WTF energy permeates, with each group skewering expectations in unique ways. King Woman’s music walks a line between alt rock and screaming, harsh metal. “You could listen to a song for fifteen seconds and think it’s a lost grunge ballad” says Klingman, “and then fifteen seconds later it’s black metal.” (Check out their outstanding performance in the recent breakout A24 horror flick I Saw The TV Glow for proof of King Woman’s live impact.)
“I’ve been a Couch Slut rider forever,” says Castillo of the exquisitely-named band who’s opening their stage.”They’ve made some really important music, and they’re getting more notoriety.” That’s putting it lightly — Couch Slut’s mix of lacerating punk and antagonistic metal feels downright scary, even dangerous. Their recent “Ode to Jimbo” is a slab of venomous, charred noise rock. It’s “the first love song that we’ve ever done,” says singer Megan Osztrosits, and it’s “for my friend’s bar that I go to every day.” Nice.
The rest of the lineup easily matches the energy. Cloakroom balances sludgy perfection with the soft brutality of shoegaze and the concept-driven approach of prog rock. Ragana magnifies the impact of a simple guitar-vocals-drums setup, tapping into threads of stark, ecologically-inspired anarcho-black metal and running with it into fresh terrain. And Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile embodies the writhing, malevolent mania of ‘90s icons like Jesus Lizard, Hoover and Shellac (RIP Albini), paying loose homage while transcending the source code.
Discussing the lineup, Castillo muses on the collaborative nature of the work. “We cooked the dish together.” Klingman had begun work on the initial concept before approaching Vitus to collaborate. “He went to the market and had some ingredients, and it’s like, ok cool we can do this. Granted, if he had, like Cannibal Corpse, we could have gone that way and that would have been great.” Instead, they opted for bands whose vision and fearless experimentation defies expectation. “It’s an awesome collaboration with Knockdown and Jeff specifically.”
The Armed, King Woman, Chat Pile, Cloakroom, Ragana and Couch Slut play Outline x Saint Vitus, June 22nd at Knockdown Center.