Arriver

Do you ever see names of metal bands—Atreyu, Darsombra, sunn O)))—and wonder what the hell they mean? In what might appear to be a satire of metal lexicon but is more likely an ass-whooping revitalization of it, the local rock quartet Arriver openly admits the inspiration behind its genesis and its fanciful lyrics: voice-recognition software.

In 2004, “lead bassist” Rob Sullivan came across a paragraph of text that VR software had attempted to translate, and in a flash of creative genius, was struck with the inspiration to start a metal band. That same paragraph pops up again as the complete lyrics for “The Verse of Halon Hong: Sighting the Verse,” one of ten triumphant slabs of hard rock on Vanlandingham and Zone, the band’s new, self-released debut: “…Among the long, as in the?/?new version?/?of removal was a phase?/?of the lining of the long?/?Vanlandingham?/?And zone.” When these bizarre words are sung, though, Arriver shifts from a Dadaist joke to a daring and frequently thrilling metal band.

Opening tonight for Dave Pajo’s new metal project, Dead Child, the quartet, all veterans of fringe local rock (Butchershop Quartet, Magnolia Electric Co.) combines the compositional discipline of Iron Maiden with the prog artiness of Slint.A recent show at the Note proved the scraped and bruised engineering of Electrical Audio’s Greg Norman was no studio fabrication. After the sequence of harmonized guitar solos and a cappella sea chanties, what are most memorable are drummer Bill Murphy’s relentless engine and Sullivan’s thundering double-stops.—Matthew Lurie