Unmaker at the Red Party at Mercury Lounge

Aaron Mitchell

Based in Richmond, Virginia, guitarist Jim Reed had written several riffs that developed into songs that were not appropriate for his heavy metal band Occultist. In 2016, he chatted about this with vocalist Aaron Mitchell , who had been singing in the black metal band Crater and the heavy atmospheric band Slowing, who also desired to sing beyond the confines of traditional punk and metal formulas. The two formed Unmaker, played regional gigs, changed their band personnel a couple of times, and released a debut album, Firmament, in 2018. The band presently consists of Mitchell, Reed, former Large Margin, Hex Machine and Brief Lives bassist Chris Compton, and former Occultist and Weird Tears drummer Brandon Whittaker.

The monthly Red Party at Mercury Lounge, a center of gravity for the local goth, darkwave and post-punk underground, proved to be the ideal event to introduce Unmaker's music to a downtown audience. Unmaker performed a hard-edged multi-textured repertoire of original songs that combined hard rock and  dark wave with distortion and atmospheric sounds. Throughout the performance, Mitchell invoked a shadowy presence, often singing in spooky-sounding minor chords, as Reed charged into shimmering guitar leads and thunderous chords, and the rhythm section supported with its own simmering contributions. During the extended instrumental portions of some of the songs, the band came close to sounding like a progressive metal band. Overall, the band captured an intense dynamic and kept it just below the boiling point. Not easily boxed into a singular genre, the band created its own sonic island. As the band matures, it will be interesting to see what it becomes.