March 26, 2003

MENTION YOU'RE GOING to a show at Curve Bar, SoMa's own sports bar-part-time metal club, and people look at you like you have some sort of skin disease. Why are people so afraid of this place? Sure, the bar's not exactly situated in a hotbed of nightlife action – the most prominent nearby spots are Pac Bell Park, a McDonald's, and a depressing, open-late donut shop that gives you chips and potato salad with your sandwich – but it's still not a bad place to see live music. It's easy to get there by public transportation, and once you're inside, it doesn't feel like a sports bar (at least, not in the off-season). Plus, as the seminew home of the weekly night Lucifer's Hammer, it's one of the few places in the city to see local metal bands.

The sparsely attended March 4 Lucifer's Hammer show featured Carniceria and Morbosidad, two Bay Area bands who play really fast and have Spanish names but are otherwise completely different. Carniceria have only been together for about a year, but with ex-members of Plutocracy, No Less, Capitalist Casualties, and the recently disbanded deadbodieseverywhere among their ranks, their roots in the Bay Area hardcore-grindcore-"powerviolence" scene go way back. (See the label 625 Thrash, tonight's show openers Utter Bastard, or anything Chris Dodge has been involved in – Spazz, Slap A Ham Records, or the zine Short, Fast and Loud – for other reference points.)

Not surprisingly, Carniceria's music basically sounds like a combination of its members' old bands: in other words, really fast and grindy, with some convoluted songwriting structures and the occasional slow, Sabbath-tinged boogie breakdown. But with vocalist Jesse Quattro in front, things take on another slant. She's easily the band's dominant stage presence, and she comes from a different background than the other members – she studied at Mills College and played in East Bay improv-based outfits such as Saint of Killers and the Abstractions. Quattro has an amazing voice, capable of going from guttural growls to Gregorian monk-like chants, and her delay- and reverb-pedal trickery enhances that range.

The most obvious comparisons are to Boredoms-Naked City screamer Yamatsuka Eye and especially to the love-him-or-hate-him Mike Patton, although Quattro is far more willing to let things hang out emotionally than Patton is. While his efforts can seem staged or even purposefully insincere, there's nothing play-acted about Quattro's doubled-over howls and verging-on-tears (yet decidedly not "emo") screams.

Still, Carniceria are walking a tough tightrope, trying to balance the direct, cathartic aspects of hardcore and grindcore with the – cough – artier, more experimental impulses of Quattro's vocals and songwriting contributions. But despite some awkward moments, that tension ultimately keeps Carniceria's music interesting. Their newer songs, which they played toward the end of the set, came closer to bringing it all together, as the music was finally getting as out-there as Quattro's singing. So give them some time.

Morbosidad, on the other hand, were a different story in just about every way. Devoid of any hardcore-scene ties or avant-garde leanings, this all-Mexican American quartet are metal to the hilt. After all, no one but a genuine metal band could get away with wearing the bullet belts and spiked armbands these guys had on, let alone look comfortable doing so. Their stage presence is intimidating enough, but then there's their music, a colorless, tuneless wash of bass and guitar sludge held together by 200-mph drumbeats and topped off by raspy Spanish-only vocals by a guy who howls like he's got scabs covering his throat. It sounds, as with any good death metal, like something barfed up from the pits of hell.