Tonight: Knights of the Fire Kingdom & We Were Wolves Tear Down Rudz

There’s actually a fair amount of stuff going on tonight, despite it being a Thursday (January 17th, to be specific), but the show that knocks me flat on my ass for this evening is over at Rudyard’s, where truly awesome, guitars-on-fire rockers {Knights of the Fire Kingdom} and mysterious Sonic Youth-y(?) dudes Sleuth open for Beaumont boys We Were Wolves and cool, noisy, also-from-Beaumont trio Purple.

Sadly, I’ve been able to find exactly jack shit to listen to by Sleuth — although I did spend a misguided minute listening to songs on Bandcamp by a Vancouver indie-pop band of the same name — so I know nada except that Jacob Rynearson of Steamboat AmpWorks is in the band. (I think.) But never fear, because I have actual personal knowledge of the other three bands playing, and yea, verily, they are all badass.

I caught Purple a while back at Warehouse Live, and while I only saw/heard the tail end of their set, I was in awe of the raw, thundering/crashing squall they were making — it was kind of like The Subways if they were more into psych-rock. I need to see more of ’em, seriously.

As for We Were Wolves, they’re just a heavy, snarling, stoner-y rawk band, one that wouldn’t sound out of place playing alongside Red Fang or Federation X, either one. They’re loud, and they sound like they’d happily kick back on your couch and empty the beer out of your fridge, but at the same time, they’ve got a nice, sneaky sense of melody and an undeniable energy. (And hey, any band that’ll bring rapper A.D.D. up to do a verse is alright by me…)

Check out the excellent video for “Hodo Hada,” right here:

And then, there’s Knights of the Fire Kingdom. They’re barely a year old, I believe, but in that time they’ve managed to become of my absolute-favorite bands from, well, pretty much anywhere. It kills me that they’ve only so far let slip a handful of songs, but “Chinese Dragon” is in my list of the top 10 songs I listened to (and listened to, and listened to) in 2012.

Seriously, these guys are like the conglomeration of everything good about heavy, distorted, angry, sharp-edged guitar rock while never diving over the line into the metal pool. Think Drive Like Jehu, think Jesus Lizard, think Hüsker Dü, think Trail of Dead, think Jawbreaker, think HUM, think Rocket From The Crypt (probably more than anything else, honestly), and you’ll be in the awesomely great ballpark where the Knights reside.

We posted their video for “Chinese Dragon” not long ago, so I won’t hit you with it again. Instead, here’re a couple of songs off the one 7″ the band’s released so far:

See? There. Now you know, and all that’s left is to get your ass up to Rudyard’s tonight. Do it, or kick yourself later.