Astronoid and Moon Tooth played Great Scott – 2/2

A co-headlining tour featuring Boston’s own metal genre-benders Astronoid and Long Island’s Moon Tooth, along with openers InAeona, swept through Boston’s Great Scott last Thursday. 

Astronoid have garnered a buzz following the release of last year’s Air. The quintet specialize in a radiant strain of black(ish) metal that belies the pitch-darkness of its influences. They’re blistering but melodic, with a touch of emo and post-hardcore influence. It’s a sound that’s bound to really irritate the sort of people who hate Deafheaven, but for everyone else, they’re doing something special. Their live set, consisting of the record in full, was astonishing in its technical precision and sweeping in its emotional heft. This was a show I checked out on a whim, and it ended up being one of my favorite live sets of this young year.

Moon Tooth’s party-starting heavy metal was less my thing, but they undeniably put on a hell of a show. Singer John Carbone expertly riled up the crowd and played ringleader, but the whole crew was clearly having a great time.

InAeona, also hailing from Boston, opened things up with a set of their industrial, goth-tinged heaviness. They struck a comfortable balance between the retro and the modern, and scored points with their dramatic custom light show. Speaking of which…

Shooting Notes:

Yikes. Astronoid also brought their own lights along, but the rotating floor-mounted LEDs made them remarkably difficult to get a decent exposure of. Moon Tooth fell victim to Great Scott’s typical black-hole light deficit, worsened by how much everyone moved around. InAeona wound up being the easiest shoot of the night, in relative terms. All that said though, it was a fun set of challenges for the evening, and proof of the virtues of ISO 25,600.