Plaster

After not seeing Seattle rock band Plaster perform live for over a year, I've seen them twice in the past few weeks. Wow, are they fucking heavy now! Remember that era in the early '90s when the AmRep bands seemed about twice as heavy as anything coming out on Sub Pop? Brutal, crushing rock with both metal and punk lurking in the shadows? Helmet and The Unsane come to mind. I hear a lot of "Strap it On" era-Helmet in Plaster's guitars and frontman Peter Litwin's stage stance even reminds me of that of a lot of those AmRep bands that played the OffRamp back in the day. Even if his guitar sounds tougher, Litwin's voice is immediately recognizable to most Seattle music fans from his day's in Coffin Break. But Litwin isn't the only recognizable face in Plaster, guitarist Todd Ohashi was in the RC5, bassist Jason Bordeaux was in F-Minus, and drummer Dana Sims was in Jet City Fix. All these guys have been in established bands for years and know their shit, so the resulting tight live performance comes as no surprise. Their Helmet meets Motorhead meets Coffin Break sound is heavy, precise, and rockin'. And while the band has been around since 2003, the current line-up fell in place towards the end of 2006, and that's when things really clicked for Plaster. The band has been recording a CD with Steve Carter (HIMSA, Cradle of Filth) which we should hopefully see in the next month or two. Until then, you can catch a few songs on their website: plastertheband.com. These photos are from a show a few weeks ago at King Cobra.