I’ve heard a few post-show gripes about Sisters of Mercy. Ok, they did do about ten new(ish) tunes when six would have proved they were still creating good music and left some room for a few more crowd favorites. Even with ten new tunes, they never lost my ear. Ok, Andrew E’s voice has changed a bit, but how do you suss that out given his great, sepulchral baritone? Ok, the sound was more Vision Thing than First, Last, and Always. I’ll take the guitars thank you. My personal pet peeve was missing the female vocal but, hey, you can’t have everything.

"Ribbons", "Dominion", "Alice", "More", "Dr. Jeep"/"Desolation Blvd.", More, and the joint shaking encore of "Lucretia", "Temple of Love", and "This Corrosion" left most of the dressed to impress crowd grateful for the Sister’s gothic ministrations.

Black Cheers, Scumbari, Modern Faces - Kyoto

Black Cheers is an occasional local hard rock supergroup wielding a loose-limbed blast of just wing-it, revved-up punk.

Scumbari - another hard rockin’ supergroup of hardcore brats upped the tempo and ante. The singer brought the shambolic, eyes rolled back, froth and howl onto the floor and into your face. Not too shabby.

Modern Faces looked like they might have trouble following Scumbari's slam-bang but they won the skeptical over with variety. Throw in some Sugar, short blasts of intricate interplay, and blast furnace punk to show they could call it up at whim.

Fucked Up - The Sinclair

Fucked Up are a Toronto crew with at least ten discs, singles, and ep’s to their credit. They take an expansive view of post-punk. They mix its hardcore roots with psych, personal and public politics, long-form narratives, recurring characters, terse, but elongated solos, and lots of pithy stabs of musical punctuation. This juggernaut is bullied by the shredded roar of lead singer Damian Abraham with occasional, surprisingly pop-punk breaks on vocals by drummer Jonah Falco. Their most recent disc, One Day, was all written, as the name implies, in one 24-hour period. They were, perhaps, wilder in their youth but they remain forever Fucked Up in their (and our) inexorable maturity.

Fuming Mouth, The FU’s, American Nightmare - Middle East Down

Fuming Mouth kicked off a blazing night of local roots hardcore, punk, and metal at the ME Down. The crowd built up slowly until the room was almost full. FM incited the crowd to move forward and most complied. Their lead singer had recently beat leukemia. They attend the black metal church and slither between speed kings and sabbath dirge. The slammers are circling the pit. It starts slowly but, like the night, builds in intensity.

The FU’s have a new disk, Death Squad Nostalgia, their first in 37 years. It sounds great, and live, the new tunes invigorate a set of well-curated older tunes. Sox and the band were on fire from the first notes of "Warlords." His vocals were inspired, barking and biting left and right. The new tunes, particularly the title track, and "Mexican Coke" jump off the stage like jackboots mid-flip. Grab the disc. Catch a show. This kind of work is what becomes a legend most.

American Nightmare is on the third or fourth of their nine lives. The rebirth process hasn’t slowed them down. Lead singer Wes Eisold is as sick of it all as he ever was. Live, his vocals and gangly, stage-lurching body are a conduit for projectile bile. It is obvious that many in the crowd have been dreaming of this dream since the beginning. They sing along to Eisold’s pissed and depressed lyrics. He’d be a sad sack of shit if the lyrics didn’t touch a big or small place in all of us. The gravity of the music and vocals is irresistible. Even if it pulls you into a black hole, the catharsis sets you free.

American Nightmare is a soundtrack for a personal and existential dystopian dream. The light at the end of the tunnel is flickering. There are no rose-colored glasses on the bedside table. The event horizon collapses again and again and again and.....