DHP PRESENTS

JESUS PIECE

+ Support

Tickets are on sale Wednesday from Alt Tickets. 16+ (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult)

In hardcore, the pit can be performative– clapping replaced by stage dives, cheers replaced by back-kicks or circle pitting. But you can always tell the difference between going through the motions and truly visceral emotion, especially while watching a band of Jesus Piece’s pedigree. In a recent NYC appearance, the quintet turned a typically indie live room into a warzone complete with humans as step stools, railings and wall-mounted tables as diving boards, and missiles created from anything not nailed down, including the disco ball.  “The number one thing is the live performance,” says drummer Luis Aponte regarding JP’s venomous live reputation. “You can be in the studio and make that record sound insane but if you’re not giving that same energy, that same feeling when you play live, it just doesn’t matter.”

It all comes from a near shamanistic quality in the band, where frontman Aaron Heard uses a manic, livewire vocal delivery ala Busta Rhymes to orchestrate the crowd’s kinetic energy— pushing further toward utter mayhem and culminating in a show that stands tall among their genre peers and live music writ large. Jesus Piece is a live phenomenon, only possibly held back by a heretofore limited recorded output. Their time has come with So Unknown, the new and second Jesus Piece LP, the follow-up to their white-hot Only Self. So Unknown is their Century Media debut and broadcasts what fans already knew– Jesus Piece is a fully articulated armored vehicle of metallic-hardcore obliteration. Invoking all of the swinging groove of Chaos A.D. / Roots-era Sepultura, the weapons-grade precision of Godflesh, and the terror-inducing start-stop rhythms of Meantime-era Helmet, fans have finally ascended to the apex of metal and hardcore– a mix of complex instrumentation that is unafraid to make room for a simple groove. JP has created an effort that never fails to impress, gets to the point, and never gets in its own way. And much like their live show, their patented mid-tempo sound is only a jumping-off point to chaos- ably utilizing half-speed breakdowns, left-turns into riffage at breakneck speed, and moody ambient atmosphere effectively.