Billy Howerdel and VOWWS Brave the July Cold at The Underground
Billy Howerdel and VOWWS deliver a cool, refreshing respite from a summer of hellish heat with their cool, almost icy, yet enveloping sounds.
“What’s your band name?!” yelled a member of the audience during a pause between the cold electronic beats that launched each song during VOWWS’ set. It seemed a rather cold greeting to what proved to be a band that more people should know by this point. The atmospheric waves of ice that emanated from Arezo “Rizz” Khanjani’s wonderfully jumbled-looking rack of electronic instruments matched the icy air filling The Underground’s open standing-room-only floor though. After several days of hellish heat, even for the Deep South, an overcast and cool day gave way to a cool evening that The Underground’s air conditioning wasn’t quite prepared to back off for. Audience members huddled, bundled in newly purchased Billy Howerdel logo hoodies, dodging blasts from the overhead air ducts that pumped what would have been blessedly cool air just days earlier, but now felt like a cold October blast. Nevertheless, the climate was a welcome change from the recent blazing torridity and served as a fitting barometric complement to VOWWS’ (and later on Billy Howerdel’s) aural atmosphere. The cold in the building might have been uncomfortable for some, but it served as the perfect metaphor for both Howerdel and VOWWS’ sound. Cold weather, and often cold sounds, which nearly touch on slow burn horror film score territory in VOWWS’ case, force people together for warmth, both physically and spiritually. Howerdel and VOWWS could have easily completed their icy-sounding music’s mission without the help of the air conditioning, but the temperature inside The Underground took both artists’ music, and the experience of that music, to the next level.
“We’re VOWWS,” responded Matthew “Matt” James Campbell, the guitar-wielding other half of the band, to the shouted inquiry from the audience member before Rizz launched into the foundational beats of their next song. VOWWS unique form of industrial rock is actually better described as dark wave with heavy-ish guitar. Their type of moody rock belies their onstage personas which overflowed with “thank you(s)” and smiles. During the delivery of their hard-hitting songs though, they are all business, and rightly so. They’ve opened for the Deftones and Poppy over the last several years, in addition to their tour with Howerdel, but seeing them play an extended set as a smaller venue headliner or an extended festival set would be even more fulfilling.
As their set gave way to Howerdel and his band’s performance, the entirety of which was bathed in purple, green, blue, and reddish light, the vibe went from steely ice pick chill to cool muted chill. Howerdel is an accomplished hard rock songwriter and guitarist, as evidenced from his time with A Perfect Circle, but that band’s quieter moments, especially as their sound progressed through each album, is now revealed to be Howerdel’s contribution as much as the guitar crunch of APC’s early days was. Howerdel’s moving solo release What Normal Was, is a perfect embodiment of an evolution of dark wave that incorporates his talented guitar playing as well as unique sound. There are echoes throughout of the types of guitar lines that make so many APC songs instantly recognizable and complex, but here the guitars often take on a more atmospheric aura. Playing every song off of What Normal Was, Howerdel, and his band ushered in an almost autumnal mood filled with the challenges and contemplations that his brilliant lyrics and compositions invoke, which are often indicative of the atmosphere that the season engenders. Standout performances of “Poison Flowers” and “Free and Weightless” of the album proved primordial, embodying the unique feelings of hope and dread that this type of music, when done with the type of artistry Howerdel applies, can stir in the listener-which is akin to the type of musing and feeling autumn itself as a season can inspire.
Closing the set with the outstanding and uplifting album track “Stars,” Howerdel left the crowd with a sense of hope that, like the album title suggests, even though we might constantly be looking back at “what normal was” in our lives (and not just in a post-pandemic sense) there is always hope as we are not only all made of star stuff, we can shine like stars as well. With a little help from the weather, both the man-made climate and the natural one, VOWWS and Billy Howerdel provided a respite from a hot, infernal summer, hinting at the cool yet rapturous introspection that lies before us just around the calendrical corner.
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Photos by: Kris Engelhart
