Live review: S U R V I V E at the Earl
The Austin synth quartet wowed Stranger Things' hometown crowd
On Oct. 26, the four members of Austin, Texas’ synth outfit S U R V I V E took the stage amid dark hues of blue and red lights and a supernatural rumble at the Earl in East Atlanta. It was a dense atmosphere; similar to the scene that marked the Demogorgan’s unexpected arrival in Netflix’s sci-fi/horror thriller Stranger Things. Fittingly, the scene where the vile demon crashed through interdimensional boundaries to wreak havoc on this world was filmed just a few miles north along Moreland Ave./Briarcliff Rd. According to the show, the incident took place in rural Hawkins, Indiana circa 1983. But anyone from these parts knows that Dr. Brenner’s psychic experiments took place in the former Georgia Mental Health Institute building looming over Emory University's Briarcliff Campus.
S U R V I V E members Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein created the haunting score for Stranger Things, leading to an abrupt spike in popularity. But Wednesday night at the Earl, the group summoned the dark ambiance of its 2012 debut Mnq026 (Holodeck Records), and its recently released second album, RR7349 (Relapse Records).
On stage, Adam Jones, Michael Stein, Kyle Dixon, and Mark Donica stood in a half-moon arc behind a wall of synthesizers — their faces emerged and sank into the darkness as they took a collective dive into the eerie, hypnotic arpeggios of songs such as "A.H.B.," “Floating Cube,” and “Copter.” They played the title cut from vol. 1 of the Stranger Things’ soundtrack (Lakeshore Records) toward the end of the set to cheers from the audience that broke the intense ambiance of the show, but only for a few moments. The roaring sound in the room was perfectly abrasive and hypnotic; the group’s slacker-esque take on a Kraftwerk formation along the front of the stage brought a change from the typically raucous environment that most touring rock bands bring to the Earl. Some in the audience complained that it wasn’t much to look at, or that more lights, and more smoke might heighten the experience to match the spacious keyboard resonance the group unleashed from the stage. But the show was sold out, and everyone stayed put — even craned their necks as they searched the room. Word had spread that actors from Stranger Things — Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers) and Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler) — were in attendance.
The spectre of a celebrity presence in the room drove home a strange sense of homecoming. Atlantans feel a sense of civic pride over Stranger Things, and a show like this gives rise to the rare phenomenon that occurs when folks from the horror movie scene and the music scene co-mingle in a moment of pure celebration. It happened when Goblin played its North American debut at the Loft in Sept. of 2013. In the midst of a scene such as this, there is always a lot of catching up to do. But at the Earl, amid the smoke and light, the audience hung onto every note and every percolating synthetic sound that projected from S U R V I V E’s wall of synthesizers. Demogorgon be damned.
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Setlist:
"Floating Cube"
"Hourglass"
"Omniverse"
"Sorceror"
"Parousia"
"Copter"
"Cutthroat"
"Wardenclyffe"
"Black Mollies"
"A.H.B."
"Stranger Things"
"Holographic Landscape"