The beginning and the end

Local festival Suoni per il Popolo’s definitely wrapped up in style when it hosted the final show ever by hugely influential psychedelic metal band Isis, at Club Soda on Wednesday, June 23. Having played their first show ever here in Montreal 12 years ago, this genre-defying Boston/Los Angeles band chose to end their storied career in the same place where they first cut their teeth. Openers Cave In were more than respectable with a set list that cherry-picked from their four records, but the sold-out room was really there to pay respect and witness one of underground metal’s greatest pummel and provoke for one last time. Knowing full well this would be the band’s final offering, Isis dug all the way back to their debut Celestial with “Collapse and Crush,” Wavering Radiant’s “Ghost Key” and “Threshold of Transformation,” “Not in Rivers, but in Drops” and “Holy Tears” from In the Absence of Truth, and Panopticon’s “So Did We” and “In Fiction,” while Oceanic’s “From Sinking” and the aptly titled “The Beginning and the End,” respectively, opened and closed the night. This emotionally charged evening was certainly not lost on the band as they put on the most animated performance I have ever seen from them, while the audience response between songs was at a fever pitch throughout the hour-and-a-half-long set. Best of luck to the members of Isis in their new musical endeavours, but as a unit they were unstoppable, and will be sorely missed.

Now that summer is starting to sizzle, there are some great shows happening this week to help put some sweat on the walls of our local haunts. Starting tonight, July 1 (yesterday, if you’re reading our print edition), there is a wealth of shows to choose from. You can check out ex-members of le Tigre, Men, who team up with ex-members of the Organ, Lovers Love Haters, at Il Motore, or you can check out the raucous rock of the Desert Owls with El Fuego and the prog tendencies of Genesis Climber at l’Escogriffe. Red Mass, Meta Gruau and Devil Eyes play for free at Petit Campus tonight while Tam, AmericaFell and Toy Kult play at Barfly.

Friday night hosts what’s for my money the best show of the week when ex-Man is the Bastard trio Bastard Noise wage holy war with the demented noise and power violence of the Endless Blockade, with fellow purveyors of power violence Vile Intent, the doom of Ghast and the Rita providing the local support, at Casa del Popolo. This will kill!

On Saturday, you have a chance to check out Montreal’s most, uh, resilient band American Devices with young bucks Futensil and a special screening of the 1978 documentary on one of Montreal’s earliest punk rock bands, the Normals. On Sunday you can make it down to la Sala Rossa for some greasy, trashy rock ’n’ roll from ex-Flat Duo Jets member Dexter Romweber with Dirty Wedding, Skip Jensen and DJ Pat Meteor.

Finally, on Wednesday, you can check out the Flaming Lips at Metropolis with openers Fang Island, who make up for their no-show a couple months back when they were slotted to support Red Sparowes at Sala. Also happening on Wednesday night, at Friendship Cove, is the bill of Halifax’s Pig, with Ultrathin, Halifax’s Shinobi, Rape Faction and Drunk Dial.

RIOTING, THE UNBEATABLE HIGH… JONATHAN.CUMMINS@GMAIL.COM