Plaque Marks, Wreath and Throwin Up at Will’s Pub, Feb. 16
Shining yet another bright spotlight into the heavy rock netherworld, Orlando promoter Endoxa Booking just featured Plaque Marks from Philadelphia, the capital of heavy music it seems these days. Of all the bands in the collective résumé of this group – a CV that also includes acts like Creepoid, Ecstatic Vision and the Powder Room – Plaque Marks mainline the most stylistic juice directly from the bulging veins of exhilarating thug rockers Fight Amp. And that is a very fucking good thing.
Their attack is a heavy, hairy mongrel of noise rock and punk. It’s the kind of scuzz and sepsis that’s earned Plaque Marks a spot on the roster of Minneapolis label Learning Curve Records in the good company of Amphetamine Reptile-certified noise-rock legends like Hammerhead, Vaz, Gay Witch Abortion and Seawhores.
In concert, they bash out their raging, tar-thick songs with all the requisite overdrive and bloodthirst, dredging noxious grooves like an even more polluted Pissed Jeans. But their stage show proves they’re more than mere blunt force trauma. Sharpening all that full-frontal nastiness and danger into a blade of gutter glory is a deadly-efficient band of real skill and high-wire flair. Relative obscurity notwithstanding, Plaque Marks are looking like one of the most endowed and locked-in noise-rock bands in the game right now.
Bao Le-Huu
Plaque Marks at Will's Pub
Rounding out the night were local powerviolence group Throwin Up. Their dirty hardcore prowls the fringe with metal extremity, showing fangs of thrash and grind. Add in their singer’s crazed energy and guttural retching and you’ve got the soundtrack to a stampede going over a cliff.
And in a very respectable turn, Alien Witch’s Dee Crittenden made an impressive guest vocalist with Throwin Up for several songs, showing the goods to front an extreme band of their own.
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