Jagged Overtures
In The Flesh with Car Bomb
Written and Photographed by William Saunders, @fourthmedianyc
Brooklyn, USA
The power and raw emotion of heavy music has always kept my cold, black heart beating.
Car Bomb have been wreaking havoc in the East Coast mathcore scene for many years and continue to produce pummeling, jagged overtures on their latest album "Mordial". Unsettling drum rhythms coalesce with savage chug-laden riffs and snarling yet soaring vocals to produce an overwhelming sonic assault.
I had been a fan of their earlier band Neck and have been following the progression into their current form. Their only US show in a year was this album release party at The Kingsland in Brooklyn and was actually the first time I'd laid eyes on them. The venue was packed with ravenous fans, younger than I expected, for such a long running outfit. It's one thing to rock out to a recording in the safe bubble of your headphones on a morning commute but quite another experience to see them rip through songs in the flesh with surgical precision in a room full of people eager for catharsis.
I grew up in the grunge era and the photography of Charles Peterson as well as my Father's old camera gear led me to start photographing my friends bands. Soon after, I found myself in the front of the mosh pit for more prominent hardcore and heavy metal bands developing an addiction to the abuse needed to capture the music I love. As 35mm film gave way to digital it became much easier to dial in photographic style I was looking for. Long exposure lets the ambiance of the stage lights blur the image while the hard flash captures the moment in time.
