A Place To Bury Strangers

It's rare that I make a distinct effort to catch a band every time they're in town. But tonight at the Middle East, one of the best – and loudest - bands on the planet takes over the Upstairs room, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Brooklyn’s A Place to Bury Strangers play insanely catchy pop songs coated in waves of distorted feedback and white noise. Part shoegaze, part punk, part head-splitting aural assault... Shit is just relentless. I get inspired when I see shit like this. Hell, even Pitchfork gave their new album an 8.4 or something ridiculously un-Pitchforkian like that.

Here’s what I wrote about them in January, when they played Great Scott on a snowy Saturday with the December Sound.

<< A Place to Bury Strangers is on the other side of the spectrum - piercing, noise-layered sonic booms that echo a modern-day Jesus and Mary Chain. They've been aptly dubbed New York's loudest band.

"I'm gonna turn it up, and then after the first song we are gonna turn it up more," singer/guitarist Oliver Ackerman warned the Herald. "Then you're gonna be yelling in your buddies' ear, `Hey, this hurts.' Then it's just gonna get louder."


Somewhere, Manowar is weeping.

"Then you're gonna want to leave, but we'll have locked the doors," Ackerman continued, without missing a beat. "Then we are gonna play this, like, 20-minute feedback jam and the owner is gonna be like, 'Turn it down.' And well, we aren't gonna listen and then that's when we start turning on the other amps.">>