Funny how bands change over time. There was a time not too long ago when all the bands sharing the bill at Logan Square on April 7th would have sounded quite similar. Given some time however, each has mutated into a very different organism. The lineup was as follows: Bastard Noise, Cattle Decapitation, Daughters, and the Locust. Every year and a half or so, as some mawkish and completely unintentional ritual, I see the Locust in a completely different state. We've got Indiana, Washington, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Illinois at this point. I have now seen them six times, in as many states, in case you needed a little help with the counting portion of the last sentence. I don't know why or how, they just seem to always be there, and I always like them enough to go to the show. I have had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand their evolution as a band. From snotty audience-bashing tyrants, to sweaty noise mongers, to violent jazz provocateurs, to their current form of indecipherable and menacing technicality.

The Locust are arguably one of the tightest bands around. I can't think of anyone I've seen that can stop on a dime and then blast into the audio equivalent of 700 miles per hour with the precision of these guys. Even when their shtick was being a bunch of fucks, and they made the incredibly sweet owner of the all ages club they played in Indianapolis cry, I found them to be incredibly nice young men when I chatted with them after the show. Same thing after their show in Tuscon - happy and polite as you could reasonably expect someone to be after doing anything that fast. The point is that they're an easy band to discard, but there's really something going on there. The fact that the insanity of the Locust has moved from their performance to their music only makes them that much better. There are plenty of snots out there, but after all this time, and after all their imitators have died off or moved on, there's still only one Locust.

www.thelocust.com