The Wily Filipino

Om / Asunder, Bottom of the Hill, SF, 7/29/06.

Some time early during Om's set, Al Cisneros stepped on an effects pedal for his bass, and the sky cracked open, showering slabs of cosmic concrete from the vaults of space on the headbanging masses below, momentarily revealing the yawning black hole of consciousness with blind mutant creatures gibbering in the Ur-language. Om's recipe for its resinated rock is simple: take the thickest, mud-encrusted Sabbath bass riff imaginable; pair it with relentless, exhausting drumming from Chris Hakius; repeat the serpentine riff for 20-odd minutes (make it about 60, for the length of the set); deliver the fractured poetry of your vision-afflicted lyrics in a bizarre chanting monotone (think of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine," only less tunefully); and channel the entire steaming sonic sludge through a wall of Green amps set up so loud to make your teeth chatter. On record, Om is intense, but necessarily muted; heard live, the Om experience -- the annoying distraction of couples making out and the constant flicker of lighters as flame is touched to weed notwithstanding -- is absolute, both within you and without you.

The opening band, Asunder, was worrisome at first: despite the fantastic gut-quivering bass rumble that preceded the musicians, the ultra-slow drum beat and chanting for the first couple of minutes just wasn't what I wanted to hear. But then the pace picked up, the deathgrowl vocals (from the drummer) began, the downtuned guitar chords crashed in, and what you had was doom metal, distilled to a simple purity.