Drummer Noah Leger’s FUCK IT T-shirt betokened great things, and Chicago trio FACS did not disappoint. My pick for the most interesting act of this event, FACS come at you with tense, terse post-punk with guitar that strafes with no-nonsense clangor and anger. Guitarist Brian Case specializes in an aggressive form of Morse code anti-riffing, emitting sulfuric sparks of wiry angst.
Playing to a sparse Vera Stage crowd (it was 5 pm, after all), FACS exuded pitiless No Wave menace. Their brutal, rust-belt rock songs are stripped down and ready for conflict, chronically on the verge of exploding; that they don’t just adds to the music’s potency.
The last song FACS played, "Others," carried the pre-apocalyptic aura of Pere Ubu’s “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and Hovercraft at their most taut. Fuck. Yeah.
This set was every bit the grim, grinding gash into festival frivolity I was hoping for. As soon as it was over, I bee-lined to the merch tent to buy the band's Negative Houses LP.
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