Review by ÆRæder
Venue
https://www.facebook.com/pilllarforum / https://www.pilllar.com/ – 2300 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
Another great show at Pilllar (3 Ls). A small venue with fantastic sound. A decent amount of offerings at the bar. Split into two spaces, the showroom and the cafe, it can be a tight squeeze to navigate and there was a lot of incidental bumping as people tried to navigate between the ropes and the line at the bar. Also, there’s plenty of Sidewalk space for groups of folks to hang and chat during set turnover.
We took my son to celebrate his 16th birthday with his guitar buddy. In my experience, the venue has been all-ages friendly. We were full from an earlier birthday dinner at Smack Shack, but there is a market next door (Supermercado Latino), and a bunch of street food being offered for sale from cars parked out front. It still made me hungry checking out what was being offered. I would definitely look into picking something up from one of these folks at the next show.
And, it was a chilly day and evening for June, but the showroom was HOT! Needed to get out to the cafe or out on the sidewalk or risk passing out.
Crowd
The house was packed for the majority of the show. The mosh picked up during the Die Hard Corps set and kept up a ferocious tempo throughout the night. This pushed non-moshers further and further to the back, which only made it hotter away from the airflow of the pit. Lots of Deterioration paraphernalia, and a number of representatives of other local bands were present (Jim Kahman of Deteriotion joined up on bass with Mellow Harsher!); seeing that support is cool. All ages show, but my kid and his buddy seemed by far to be the youngest until Mellow Harsher went on.
Band Mix and Performance Flow
The bands on this bill were all very different, but had enough similarity in aggression and heaviness to prove cohesive and keep the entire show fresh. Groove, Heavy, Thrash, Death, Grind and more. Each group brought their own distinctive flavor that made it memorable, both in terms of the whole and the individual parts.
Slag kicked things off with a groove, heavy metal, thrash party feel. They had the venue packed up to the front of the stage with plenty of headbanging.
Die Hard Corps came up second, and it seemed the drinks were starting to kick in with those in the crowd. This coupled with Josh Kellerman’s stage presence and audience engagement, and some heavy participation from the dudes in Slag, really got the pit rolling and it didn’t stop for the rest of the night.
Show promotions mention a CD release party for Inhuman Scourge’s latest EP, Charnel Winds, released 05/25/2025. I heard this mentioned briefly on stage, but it could have been touted a bit more – This thing absolutely bangs! It is more of a double-EP (or just a full album?) pairing up Charnel Winds with Haunted By Apocalyptic Visions (01/15/2024). I saw the amount of quality tunes packed into one CD, and needed to pick one up at the end of the night. More to come on this album from the MNBleeds camp shortly!!!
Mellow Harsher closed up the show at just about the peak of the heat. Seriously, it was hot in the showroom; band members were desperately seeking water and were looking in rough shape. This did not take away from the musical performances; lots of energy, movement, and heartfelt playing and screaming!
- Slag – https://linktr.ee/slag_official?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=165c9ed8-fd7d-41a9-b48c-f7b0dadbd813
- Montevideo, MN
- 5 Piece (Vox, guitar, guitar, bass, drums)
- Die Hard Corps – https://diehardcorps.bandcamp.com/
- Minneapolis
- 5 Piece (Vox, guitar, guitar, bass, drums)
- Bandcamp tags: metal, d-beat, hardcore, thrash, Minneapolis
- Inhuman Scourge – https://inhumanscourge.bandcamp.com/
- Minneapolis
- 3Piece (Vox/guitar, bass, drums)
- Bandcamp tags: death metal, death, thrash metal, metal punk, old school death metal, grindcore, Minneapolis
- Mellow Harsher – https://mellow-harsher.bandcamp.com/
- Minneapolis
- 4 Piece (Vox, guitar, bass, drums)
- Grind
Highlights & Shade
The band mix and being able to experience 4 completely different takes on metal was the highlight. Each band came ready to put on a show, and the crowd and participation was fun to watch. Big kudos goes out again to the sound person at Pilllar. The musical style/voice of each artist was accurately portrayed, in volume, tone, feel, and clarity. Impressed with how the thick grind sound (which can get muddy) came across with Mellow Harsher. However, maybe it was the heat, but Mellow Harsher had breaks and audience chit chat that were much longer than their songs. 30 seconds of playing and 2-3 minutes of talking got weary. The pit tried to pick up, but just didn’t have enough time before they had to wait again. (Bring some water bottles up on stage, maybe?).
Summary
My son and his buddy had an awesome time. We talked about it and Inhuman Scourge stole the show for the three of us; his buddy even picked up the Charnel Winds CD and a T-Shirt! My wife picked Die Hard Corps as her highlight. Both of us dug a little more into what is going on at Supermercado Latino and the food cars lined up. Overall fun experience, right to the very tail end when we were all borderline feeling sick and dehydrated due to the heat. The funny part we laughed about was how chilly it was outside (we all wore hoodies, but needed to take them off early). Either way, definitely a memorable show with some bands that are worth checking out again.