Coliseum

It’s a shame that “hard rock” is such a loaded term, so burdened by oceans of post-grunge gruel and the Woodstock ’99 knuckle-draggery it has inspired. It’s a shame, because it makes discussing bands like Coliseum—a Louisville trio whose heft never hinders its agility—more difficult than it ought to be. The band’s third album, last year’s House With A Curse, was released by the heavy indie rock outpost Temporary Residence Ltd. It offers 12 powerful tracks. It’s too heavy for punk, too straightforward and hook-laden for metal; really, it’s perfect for a hard-rock landscape starved of ambition and anything resembling an edge. The Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age might offer occasional excitement, but there are bands, like Coliseum or the similarly-minded Fucked Up or Torche, who offer a more thoughtful and engaging alternative to, well, alternative rock.

Nobody would accuse Coliseum of shedding its hardcore roots; as long as vocalist Ryan Patterson is at the helm, hardcore will be in this band’s DNA. And as long as Patterson’s guitar crackles with Kurt Ballou-informed bristles, and Coliseum’s rhythm section (bassist Mike Pascal and drummer Carter Wilson) offers such a reliably nimble pummelling, they’ll not be accused of sacrificing their heavy metal density. But at this point, Coliseum is operating beyond its influences, carefully texturing its songs, borrowing the loud-soft dynamics and deliberation of post-rock, and playing to the cheap seats like a band more used to playing arenas.

It’s easy—and accurate—to point to House With A Curse’s lead single, “Blind in One Eye,” as representative of what Coliseum has to offer. For all its tangled guitars and roiling bass, “Blind on One Eye” is entirely about the hook, rushing in like water through a blown dam and consuming everything in its path. Really, it’s a shame this isn’t the first thing that comes to mind whenever somebody mentions hard rock. —Bryan Reed