SATURDAY 2 | Wedged between guitar cases in a windowless room, thunderous drums and battering thrash guitar riffs soar piercing vocals and experimental guitar melodies – or what Splitter call ‘Squeedleedees’. “Squeedleedees should be a proper music term,” says Doug, the experimental guitarist. Vocalist Sean nods solemnly and then giggles: “Pentatonic squeedledees!” Classically trained Norwegian jazz drummer Henrik, grinning from beneath a hefty ginger beard, slaps his palms on his thighs in a complex rhythm: “Drum moves have names like that: paradiddle and parama flimflam…” The others shriek in unison: “SQUEEDLEEDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Pressed to define Splitter’s sound during a rare moment when he’s not pogoing up and down in a sweat, Sean shrugs. “The short answer I give is that it’s metal for stoners but that’s not sufficient. It’s progressive but driven, I guess. Progressive in that we’ll use weird time signatures, play outside the major key, have weird instrumental breaks. Stuff you’d expect from bands like Tool and The Mars Volta, but with a more gut-level punk rock kind of force about it.” Thrash guitarist Ryan, from the neck up nothing but beard, teeth and baseball cap, leans back against the roof terrace railings and takes a slow drag on his hand-rolled smoke. “You’ve got barang bands doing covers and Khmer bands doing stuff that’s brutal as fuck. It’s nothing but pop-rock or deathcore. We offer something in between: a sound that’s heavy, but you can still groove to it.”
WHO: Splitter
WHAT: All-original heavy metal
WHERE: Slur, Street 172
WHEN: 7pm November 2
WHY: They’re heavy, but you can still groove to them