One of the biggest shows to come by the small yet unfairly overlooked Scarlet and Grey Cafe in Columbus melted faces and challenged the venue’s no moshing rule. This show included Pittsburgh’s The Letter Black of Tooth and Nail Records, and Ohio bands To Kill a Monster, Mayfly and Substance.

A theme of straightforward, catchy hard rock permeated the evening. Substance opened the show with the most rough vocals we would hear the whole night. I would say this Lima, Ohio band has the best dressed growling frontman I’ve seen – it was borderline humorous at times to see a guy in a dress shirt and tie screaming entire songs, including a cover of “Bodies” by Drowning Pool. Make no mistake though – these guys are good at what they do. Sadly, their wishes for a mosh pit were prohibited by the environment but everyone made the best of it. The Trivium and Breaking Benjamin influenced band is worth looking at for meat and potatoes hard rock fans, though.

Troy’s Mayfly brought their Chevelle and Deftones influenced sound to the venue next. What they lacked in effective cleans they more than made up for in on point musicianship and raw energy. Jared Lacey was an animal onstage, constantly flailing, head-banding and getting his lanky frame in the faces of the onlookers. If only there were more things to climb on. Undoubtedly this band has a good career ahead of them.

To Kill a Monster, good friends of IATU, provided the evening’s direct support. As of the time of this writing, it has been announced that they will play the Ernie Ball Stage at the Cleveland stop of the Vans Warped tour, and for good reason – these guys are quite simply a ton of fun, tight performers, and write about whatever the heck they want – whether that’s the American Revolution, video games, or even Futurama (all three of these songs made an appearance in the set that night). I’m not sure what it was, but this was my favorite To Kill a Monster set I’ve seen thus far. Maybe it was the cowbell. Maybe it the set ending drinking song. The world may never know.

The Letter Black had never really struck my fancy but I was really surprised by their headlining performance. Sarah Anthony delivered in a way that can only be described as fierce, from set opener “Fire With Fire” to their runaway hit “Hanging On By a Thread” toward the end of the set. Sarah’s tiny frame coupled with her sweet offstage persona makes her growls and screams all the more surprising. And, she’s not a bad singer either. Maybe we found someone to help fill the void left by Lacey Sturm after she bowed out of her duties with Flyleaf. Suffice to say The Letter Black delivered a rousing set of rock that had kids (and their parents) bobbing their heads and singing/screaming along. I defintely dug the live energy of this band.

Photo album credit goes to Corey Leaman Photography. The full album can be viewed on the official Facebook page.

THE LETTER BLACK

TO KILL A MONSTER

MAYFLY

SUBSTANCE