Geography lesson at the Capitol Garage

Monday nights are usually synonymous with sleep deprivation, exhaustion and inertia. After all, it’s much too easy to succumb to another re-run of Cops or Jackass coupled with a handful of Mrs. Field’s Cookies. However, knowing that members of the defunct Hammerhead, once signed to Amphetamine Reptile Records, would be playing a mere eight blocks away was enough of an elixir to venture out into the cold Sacramento night.

One could have easily surmised that we were in for a deafening aural onslaught when Apollo Liftoff, guitarist and vocalist for Minneapolis’ duo Vaz, started selling “Vaz Buffos”—cheap earphones that act as merchandise and, you guessed it, ear protection, during the opening act’s set.

Unfortunately, I missed the openers but arrived in time to catch the noise-core mayhem of local support act New Maps Out of Hell, which won points immediately for band name alone. Singer Albert Carranza got the festivities started in grandiose fashion like a good ol’ Davis house party, screaming and writhing among the spectators on the floor in front of the stage. His voice, akin to Gibby Haynes circa Locust Abortion Technician or David Yow during the Jesus Lizard’s formative years, made me yearn for the ’80s burgeoning punk movement all over again. Bassist Corina Truax held down some terrific, plodding bass lines while drummer Mikel Gius pounded the hell out of his small trap kit.

Sara Kolp and Christopher McCay played dissimilar guitar lines and interweaved their own little world of chaos and confusion into the sometimes sloppy yet amazingly effectual songs that make up New Maps’ repertoire. During one number, McCay switched instruments with the singer and took over bass duties for Truax. The result was a haunting, discordant slab of distortion that echoed Sonic Youth, Hovercraft or even Isis. During the end of the set, the 50 or so in attendance were treated to a feedback mantra that, in good taste, closed New Maps’ awesome set.

To say that headliner Vaz was loud would be far too kind. Still, as ominous and foreboding as the members’ former band, the two-member collective barrelled through a hyper-speed set of sonic calisthenics. Drummer Jeff Mooridian Jr., aided by a garbage can/broken cymbal contraption, pulled off some tricky 16th-note shuffles and gave a solid foundation for Apollo Liftoff’s guitar/bass combo, which successfully fused a full-sized bass and guitar rig together to make one helluva monstrous sound.

The band’s latest album, Demonstrations In Micronesia, is available on the Providence, R.I.-based micro-indie Load label. If you’re a fan of Helmet, the Cows or the Melvins, you owe yourself this one. The band’s follow-up is due this summer.

You can catch New Maps Out of Hell again at the Capitol Garage on February 1 with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Hella, whose new album Hold Your Horse Is will be released in March.Scene & heard was reported by .