Call me a fish out of water with this review. I have no history with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, whom a friend pointed out as a logical ancestor to the Blackwater, and I have even less history with the gothic/trance bands that must have inspired Shallow. And, yet, we’re living in a time of such dramatic musical fragmentation that, while a perspective from within a certain musical grotto may say all the right things to others who live there, maybe the most valuable reviews are those from outside, from someone who listened to Albert Ayler on the way to the show and drove home listening to DJ Timbaland.

Both Shallow and the Blackwater have some things in common (besides an overlapping fan base). Both have distinctive lead singers--Shallow’s Julie Shields maintains a searching, ethereal soprano that may be the perfect counterpoint to Shaun Hamontree’s deep, edgy howls. Both bands also counter their depressive vocals with manic, groove-based accompaniment. Both are flavored gothic.

But that’s where the similarities leave off and the remarkable differences begin. Shallow’s set, which was being recorded for an upcoming EP, worked like a musical whirlwind--with Julie Shields’ almost stoic and reflective (at one point playing a brilliant three or four note, piano-synthed guitar progression) while the rest of the band frenetically weaved more and more intricate textures around her center, sweat dripping from their brows and hands--like a wonderfully ornate top threatening to fly off stage. The performance was first rate, but the band’s standard shtick grows a little tiring for the uninitiated after awhile. Some of the simpler, more melodic songs, such as "I Want to Know Where the Night’s Gone", provided welcome fresh air in a set that typically seemed so focused on its centrifugal source that it drove listener’s out of the mix rather than drawing them in.

The Blackwater, on the other hand, promised to be the more austere, off-putting band. When I reviewed them for *The Note* the best comparison I could come up with was Joy Division, and I must admit that I most often thought of the band’s most punishingly bleak album, *Closer.* My expectations couldn’t have been much farther off the mark.

Unlike the whirlwind of Shallow, the Blackwater drags the listener into the deep right away. The space in the mix is the key--Terry Moore and Shaun Hamontree’s guitars offer delicate infrastructure to the ceiling-high waves being kicked up by the push and pull of Brent Kinder’s bass and Brian Kincaid’s drums. The result is this massive sense of wide open space and turbulence in the sound. You find yourself rocking on your heels involuntarily. Highlights of the set included the opener, "Whore", and the archetypal example of what I am talking about, "Crescendo", both set to be released on the band’s upcoming second CD.

And in that wild, dark storm, Shaun Hamontree doesn’t sound so much like a Nick Cave or an Ian Curtis as he does some more understated gothic, like Johnny Cash, a Johnny Cash willing to push his voice like Bono, landing somewhere between Roy Orbison and Glenn Danzig. And yet it all comes down to this groove--this rockabilly tossing at sea, forcing you to ride along or be consumed by the dark waves.

--Danny Alexander