Live Reviews

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By JANSSEN MCCORMICK  |  January 27, 2011

PRACTICE-SPACE PARTY Motherboar’s cover of Metallica’s “Hit the Lights” pushed the pit into the red.

Celebrating the release of sophomore album The Beast Becomes the Servant (Born of Fire Records), Motherboar had a thawing crowd headbanging at full clip Saturday night, proving they won't be resting on their 2010 Boston Music Award for Best Metal/Hardcore Band. A thrashing Allston audience packed 20-deep threw and spit tallboys of 'Gansett and PBR at vocalist Kenny Irwin, who soaked up the scene and beer like a Frank Frazetta Cimmerian by way of Lemmy.

Songs off the new album revealed a tremendous progression in Motherboar's sound, from the workmanlike metal/hard rock of 2006's Raise the Death Toll to a fist-shaking prog-tinged behemoth that brought Baroness's first two EPs to mind. But Motherboar still know how to party. They pushed an already vicious pit into the red with a furious cover of Metallica's "Hit the Lights" before closing out with the pummeling "Raise the Death Toll," undoubtedly inspiring many to make a stop at the merch table on their way out.

For most of the night, the show felt like a practice-space party, with each band - Razors in the Night, Acaro, and Livver setting up Motherboar - shouting out to one another, the revolving cast of openers jumping on stage for gang vocals during the headliner set. Led by Troy Schoeller, an absolute monster of a frontman in archetypical working-class skin, Razors in the Night would have stolen the show on any other bill. A powderkeg in braces, Schoeller spent most of the set leading vocals in the pit, briefly jumping back on stage to introduce the Razors' next blue-collar hardcore anthem. With a Gothenburg metalcore straight out of a VFW show circa 2003, Acaro's kinetic vocalist Chris Harrell and shredding guitarist Felipe Roa went a long way toward winning over the early crowd; they even inspired a few nostalgic bursts of moshing. The sludgy hardcore of Livver left little time for stage banter, but on a night like this, it was about action, not words.

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