Lila Miller, A&E Editor
Last Saturday was a night not to be missed for metal lovers. Coastal Rock Productions gathered acts from Savannah to middle Georgia to hold a metal show at The Jinx in downtown Savannah. Acts included Hotplate, Dead Hand and The Death Hour.
Bands genres ranged from sludge, doom, math rock, experimental and stoner rock. The show itself was definitely one to bring earplugs to, but for punk and metal veterans it was not a deterrent.
Three-piece Savannah locals, The Death Hour, featured Danny Worsley on lead guitar and vocals, Erin Stagg on drums and David Lombardo on bass. They began the evening with Worsley thrashing in a Ramones t-shirt and continued their sludgy, doom metal set with furious energy.
Warner Robins’ based Dead Hand played next. Although they have toured the southeast and east coast extensively and have played several festivals, this was their first Savannah show. Dead Hand consists of a five piece outfit with guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, vocals and drums. Their latest venture includes a split seven-inch EP with the Miami sludge metal trio Shroud Eater they released in Nov. 2016 through Southern Druid Records.
The Savannah band, Hotplate, ended the raucous show with a set comprised of mainly instrumental math rock. Hotplate consists of longtime friends Robert Melton III, Aaron Givens and Jake Givens. What sets Hotplate apart from most metal bands is that their music is almost completely instrumental.
In between sets, Melton remarked that he had always been an instrumentalist and that their band incorporated instruments as voices rather than their own. “A: We don’t have anything to say and B: none of us like to sing. We’re open to the idea though… Our song formats are longer, so they’re harder to incorporate lyrics into, but the way they’re structured it’s just kind of open,” he explained.
“[The music] has a little more freedom, a lot of them in theory could have vocals, it’s not a priority but it’d be cool to have.” In the end, he stressed, “Mainly, we’re just musicians, we’re just trying to create music.”
Hotplate’s next show is on Feb. 28 with Bardus and Grizzlor at Starlandia’s Space Station in the Starland District. Dead Hand and The Death Hour’s music can be found on their respective Bandcamp pages and on Facebook.
