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Kick Out the Jams

Curl Up and Die at the Huntridge, Jan. 2

Whoa. You'd've thought the Huntridge opened up a Hot Topic in the lobby Thursday night, what with the herd of roosterheaded mallpunx taking over the place, whirling in the pit and bumming smokes in the cage outside. It made for a strange disconnect with the night's headlining act. The future of punk may look a lot like 1976 London--all boots, spikes, denim and leather--but it sounds like a Caterpillar frontloader stripping its gears in an acid bath. Some call it tech-metal, others dub it calculus-core, but my pet theory is it's a sliver of punk that sidestepped the shrink-wrapping of the genre in the '90s--and learned that the only way to continue to ward off the corporate beast was to mutate into something even louder and uglier.

Look where it got Curl Up and Die--signed to indie Revelation Records, numerous nods as Vegas' best musical hope, and the headlining spot in its own hometown Thursday night (preceded by two utterly uninspired Cali punk acts, Clit 45 and A Global Threat). All the bluster and hype sure didn't go to CUAD's heads. The four-piece made its set a macrocosm of its songs--nasty, brutish and short. Opening up with its four intro blasts, "We," "Are, "All" and "Dead," CUAD--fronted by a reserved Mike Minnick who, when not snarling and frothing away his songs, asked the crowd to flash peace signs and thanked everyone "for not fighting"--sped through a batch of Unfortunately We're Not Robots standards. The highlight: "Ted Nugent Goes AOL." Marked by Matt Fuchs' sputtering, neighing guitar work, this blistering tune--just one of CUAD's bleakly humorous stabs at post-history ennui--wound up in a rousing roar-along chorus. Yeah, CUAD's music may be as technical as it is brutal, but the cool thing is you don't need to know the lyrics: a throaty blaargh-blaargh will do just fine.

Perhaps the weirdest thing, though, was the silence that reigned between songs--it was a cousin to the polite, slightly awed quiet that reigns at classical concerts. Even more funny, the pit--yep, that hormone-fueled fixture at rock shows that is part-seizure, part-mating dance--failed to muster a decent whirl during CUAD's 20-minute set. It was the best compliment the crowd could pay: This music's got a beat, all right, but you can't dance do it.--Andrew Kiraly