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Listings are
in the opposite order of appearance: headliner is listed at the top,
next is the support band(s),
and the last band listed is the opener.
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Tuesday March 24
2026 8:00PM doors -- music at 8:30PM ••• 21 AND OVER $17 in advance / $20 at the door Howling Giant howlinggiant.com Indie Rock Insomniac insomniacvibes.com heavy psych The Spiral Electric instagram.com/thespiralelectric heavy psych Howling Giant -from Nashville, TN -Tom Polzine - Guitar/Vocals Zach Wheeler - Drums/Vocals Sebastian Baltes - Bass/Vocals Adrian Lee Zambrano - Guitar/Synths Nashville’s Howling Giant has nothing to prove. Music City’s preeminent heavy jamming psych-wizards formed more than a decade ago, and have been on an enviously productive upswing ever since. With four EPs, a split, and two full-length albums under their belts, not to mention a relentless touring ethos that finds them spreading the gospel of the riff far and wide, Howling Giant can transfix you with a gorgeous, harmony-laden vocal hook while hitting you square in the gut with the snaking, progressive groove you never saw coming. So, if they have nothing to prove, how do they still sound so hungry? The solidified trio of Sebastian Baltes (bass/vocals), Tom Polzine (guitar/vocals), and Zach Wheeler (drums/vocals) have honed their craft to a diamond-hard point, but they still bring the fire to every audience with a fervor like every show is the first show, and with a wisdom like any show could be the last show. Since the 2023 release of their exquisite and widely acclaimed album Glass Future, Howling Giant has taken to the open road again and again, co-headlining a European odyssey with fellow Magnetic Eye Records vibe-hounds Heavy Temple and entrancing North America in support of heavyweights like The Obsessed, Black Tusk, and Mars Red Sky. As if that weren’t enough, Howling Giant has recently expanded to a four-piece with the permanent addition of Adrian Lee Zambrano on guitar and synths. With that dual-axe attack and an absurd wealth of hook-driven, hard-driving melodic metal in their arsenal, the band is again poised to work with Magnetic Eye Records for the release of their third album, the massive and mercurial Crucible & Ruin. These are difficult times, and more than ever we need music with the vitality and passion of Howling Giant to knock us down and then lift us back up, electrified and ready to meet the day. Crucible & Ruin finds Howling Giant embracing even more ethereal textures and wide-open spaces, which makes the hammer-drop of each churning riff and whip-crack drum fill hit even harder. The mellow parts are smoothly psychedelic sailing, like the pensive restraint that opens “The Archivist” or the contemplative instrumental “Lesser Gods,” but then they turn out a stuttering bruiser like “Beholder I - Downfall” which is built around such a massively heavy groove that it might have its own weather system. More importantly, though, at the core of each tune are such impeccable songwriting chops that you’ll quickly feel like you’ve known these songs forever. Having brought their thunder to hundreds of audiences, each player lays down their licks in generous, sympathetic lockstep. Baltes’s bass lurks and then lashes out with huge, twanging swings, while Wheeler’s drumming lands in a perfect sweet spot midway between Dave Grohl and Neil Peart. Polzine’s and Zambrano’s guitars paint a widescreen palette of laser-focused hooks and beautiful atmospherics, from the heaving bounce of “Melchor’s Bones” and the nervy dual-guitar overlay of “Scepter & Scythe” to the mile-wide grin of a groove that pops up toward the end of “Hunter’s Mark.” Across the entire album, three voices mingle in golden harmonies that often float atop the earthbound pummel of the instrumentation. If you’re the kind of person who’s still trying to figure out if Howling Giant is for you, the surest solution is to plug yourself into Crucible & Ruin’s heavy rocking hymns. They echo such fellow travelers as Baroness, Elder, and Mastodon, but if you close your eyes, you might also hear a dream vision of King’s X and Corrosion of Conformity playing with Dozer while the Allman brothers nod their approval. This is heavy music in pursuit of lightness. Howling Giant has nothing to prove, yet they’re still out here doing the damn thing. Maybe we could all use some escapism these days, but Crucible & Ruin points the way to a better world by staying deeply present in every tricky fill, every songbird riff, every canyon-deep groove, every desperate refrain. It’s a good time to be together, and Howling Giant’s gorgeous, knotty, searching new album is like the daybreak just poised to crest the horizon. Let’s get out there, together. Insomniac -from Atlanta, GA -INSOMNIAC coalesce onto our plane like a third eye opening into the beyond. A bouncing ball on the rhythm of the universe. An aural guide past the edges of perception. The band took form in Atlanta, Georgia, like-minded explorers of sound and mind writing songs in the frequency of the earth. Featuring members of Zoroaster, Deceased, Brass Knuckle Surfer, and The Buzzards of Fuzz, the outfit’s transcendent, mind-expanding psychedelic heaviness casts light on the magic and strange beauty, balanced between unconsciousness and dreams. Available September 1 via Blues Funeral Recordings, the band’s debut record, “OM MOKSHA RITAM” or “Liberation through merging with the Universal Rhythm”, is a concept album guiding the listener through an aural and spiritual journey across multiple extreme environments that test their resolve, principles, and commitment to adhering to the path. Their newest single, “Awakening,” is the synthesis of this trip, and the climax of both our collective spiritual journey and the record. After enduring, and ultimately triumphing over, the trials and environments traversed across the seven songs, we find ourselves with the time, space, safety, and gained experience to finally connect, with all our focus and intention, to the universe itself. Adrift between this world and the next, INSOMNIAC release themselves into the ether, spilling transportingly heavy brilliance in their wake. Like a third eye opening into the beyond, the transcendent, mind-expanding psych-doom of their debut album illuminates the strange beauty between unconsciousness and dreams. The Spiral Electric -from San Francisco, CA -The Spiral Electric are a heavy psychedelic rock band from San Francisco, bringing a mixture of roaring guitars and orbiting synthesizer not heard this side of the galaxy since HAL 9000 dropped acid with Brian Jones and Tony Iommi in the windmills of your mind. |
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