Live Concert Photography: STATIQBLOOM with Fliege and Member at Saint Vitus Bar 1/29/20

Live Concert Photography: STATIQBLOOM with Fliege and Member at Saint Vitus Bar 1/29/20

Founded in 2013 as a solo project by its creative mastermind Fade Kainer, and eventually expanding into a duo with the addition of Denman C. Anderson, the Brooklyn-based act STATIQBLOOM has developed a hard-hitting and aggressive sound that draws from early industrial and EBM through the release of 2014’s Statiqbloom/Zex Model, 2016’s Mask Visions Poison EP, 2017’s Blue Moon Blood, 2018’s Infinite Spectre EP and last year’s Asphyxia.

The act has also released attention-grabbing remixes of singles by Hide, Corrections House, Atriarch, Secrets of The Moon, Plack Blauge, Hot Guts and others.

Statiqbloom wasn’t the headliner at Saint Vitus; I had left after their set. But the night features Brooklyn-based metal act Fliege, who were celebrating the release of their latest effort The Invisible Seam and punk act Member. Check out photos from the show below.

Formed in 2016 by its founding duo, Coleman Bentley and Peter Rittweger, the Brooklyn-based metal act Fliege began as a shared inside joke between the pair: a metal band based upon David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly. Although they wrote and recorded their self-titled debut for a laugh, the effort eventually received praise from Decibel, who called the six song demo infection and went on to write “Every once in a while, a band comes along, transgresses all genre boundaries and cuts a demo that stands as a genuine demonstration of a singular sound.”

With the addition of Chris Palermo (synths), the band expanded into a trio. And as a trio, the band wrote and receded their full-length debut The Invisible Seam earlier this year. The album finds the band moving on to more serious cinema as an influence — Ingmar Bergman’s existential masterpiece, The Seventh Seal.

“Our demo tackled The Fly, but we soon realized we had to expand from that universe in order to have anything new to say,” the band’s Coleman Bentley explains in press notes. “So for this one, we chose Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, the story of a Swedish knight returning home from the Crusades to find his homeland ravaged by the plague. He challenges Death to a game of chess, staving off his advances long enough to make it home one last time — questioning mortality, the meaning of life, and the existence of God, while trekking across a dying countryside. Within the framework of that film, we tackle the nihilism of modern life and the paradox of depression – not wanting to live but not actively wanting to die.”

Musically, The Invisible Seam finds the members of Fliege expanding upon their sound and approach: Bentley’s vocals take up a more central role on the album. And while Palermo’s synths add an ethereal and atmospheric air to the material, it’s arguably the heaviest, more heartfelt and more cinematic of their two releases. The album also draws from an expanded range of influences including Immortal, Nine Inch Nails, Judas Priest, Cloud Rat, John Carpenter and a lengthy list of others.

Their Saint Vitus show was an album release show, in which the band played the material off The Invisible Seam for the first time live — and of course, the set included the Headbanger’s Ball-inspired headbanger “The Invisible Seam,” the brooding, industrial metal-like ripper “Four Suns” and the proggy “Love Plague” among others.