There was no shortage of guttural grunting over the weekend at Battle of the Bands, but in the end, intelligible lyrics won out.
The bands played in order of how many tickets they sold, with the groups that sold the fewest tickets taking the stage first. Highest-ticket-earner Croyal took the $500 grand prize, a label contract and 20 hours of free studio time.
The band 15 Polk Street captured the lighthearted spirit of oldies music without taking away from the pop-punk style that dominated its music. The lyrics’ sometimes obscene humor had boyish charm, similar to Blink-182’s playfulness.
The leader infused his comical nature into his stage persona, which made for fun shenanigans during the performance. The songs expressed love’s woes and joys, and the lead singer delivered them in a wholehearted and endearing manner.
Blind Hatred, an aptly named band, played with discernible sadism.
The audience was its victim as the band unleashed relentless aural abuse. Its performance seemed like a cathartic experience: The band played with commitment and tapped into raw emotion. The lead singer didn’t work hard to get people to mosh, because they did so on their accord.
Fatal Tribe gave a standard metal performance: The band dropped lots of F-bombs in between songs that demanded a crowd response. The instrumentals utilized beat-and-tempo variation.
The decrescendo was like the quiet before the storm with a gradual rise that riled up the crowd. But the band’s not-so-tight timing inhibited its ability to stir a riot.
Rose Beneath had the audience in its grip with fast-paced and skillful instrumentals.
With an extra guitarist and vocalist, the band featured complex variations and some rich guitar solos. The dual vocal styles married charged growls and screams with a passionate melody. For listeners, that made words easier to extract. The audience loved the band so much that they cheered for an encore.
Officer Nasty had to work to get the crowd moving, especially since its initial stage presence conveyed nervousness. After a few minutes, the band got into it, and there was a palpable shift in its experience. The band felt its music’s power, and the audience responded effusively.
AoticEv was focused chaos — and it played with unmitigated fury.
The fast-paced repetition and thunderous bass created a malevolent sound. The band was more focused on creating a seamless hardcore sound than having an active stage presence — except a glimpse at the animated, sometimes comical drummer made up for that.
Goodbye, Goodnight was like an episode of revenge against emo music’s gloomy, tear-stained melodies. The band’s style was similar to Silverstein but with more of an edge. Its music walked the fine line between emotional expression and whininess — separated by groans and livelier instrumentals. Emo themes and lamentations were present to a lesser degree but were balanced with a potent metal wrath.
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Bomb Black’s music was just like everyone else — loud noise and fierce riffs — but its stage presence set the band apart.
Granted four of its five members had the standard long hair, scruffy facial hair and gothic T-shirts. The lead singer, however, riled the crowd into mosh pits nearly every song. Perhaps it was the taunting. He occasionally offered water but then denied it, or maybe it was the range of his voice going from lows deeper than the bass and hitting highs that were almost impossible to hear. Or maybe it just was because he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
The final band, Croyal, was the biggest ticket-earner in large part thanks to hometown support from Santa Rosa. The band’s music also had the only vocals that listeners could understand.
Beyond that, the band sounded like a modern-day version of an Iron Maiden fused with tinges of traditional mariachi music. The musicians were older, too, but they had no issue keeping with the younger guys. By the end of the night, they had the crowd roaring.
Croyal won this year’s Battle of the Bands, but the audience’s reaction was mixed, to say the least.
Croyal’s crowd was ecstatic and kept shouting long after the winning band was announced, but many people stormed out.
One of AoticEv’s members went as far as to say the event was rigged and wanted to fight Croyal’s lead singer Eric Aragon, but he was cleared out long before he could do anything.
Chris Quintana contributed to this report
