The goth/metalcore unit, Motionless In White, out of Scranton, PA has surpassed a decade of popularising their brand of music, mixing screamo and clean vocals. With all the bands that come and go from the Warped Tour genre this is no easy feat. Their ability to pull in a female audience has much to do with that, appealing to a wide range of melodious metal enthusiasts. MIW is due to release a new album, Graveyard Shift (on Roadrunner Records), in May, recently putting out their single, “Eternally Yours” and currently touring with the likes of Issues and Falling In Reverse. The band has gone through some personnel changes over the years, but the constant presence of lead singer Chris Cerulli remains steady. For the most part, the lineup Wednesday night in Pittsburgh was the tight group that has been slugging it out on the road since 2012.
With a jack-o-lantern spotted, candle filled, graveyard type setting MIW launched in quickly with “570”, a spectacular opener due to the intensity, and followed it up with “A-M-E-R-I-C-A” (off of Infamous) accompanied by guest vocals from Michael Vampire of Dead Girls Academy, who opened earlier in the evening. As they went into “Everyone Sells Cocaine” their influences ranging from Nu-metal/industrial to New Wave to mainstream metal were readily apparent. Their rabid fans sang every word and security guards quickly had their hands full as the crowd surfing went full throttle. Of all the bands that performed it seemed that the energy level peaked with MIW. As Chris ‘Motionless’ worked the crowd, Devin ‘Ghost’ hammered his bass and let his red dyed flocks fly in abandon, Ricky ‘Horror’ Olson showed his tremendous prowess as a rhythym guitar player, Ryan Sitkowski stoically synched perfectly with Olson as he shred lead guitar, and newest member of the band Vinny Mauro on drums held down the low end. “Abigail”, “Undead Ahead”, “Death March” and “Devil’s Night” came in quick sucession.
Having witnessed MIW numerous times, it became readily apparent that they have matured not only in their sound, but their stage presence as well. The theatrics are still there via a dancing pumpkin head and a woman who throws out candy and shoots squirt guns, but the reliance on makeup and cliches from their genre has waned drastically. The latest release “Eternally Yours” certainly has the signature MIW sound of aggressive and light flip flops, but the vocals have progressed as well as the guitar and synth presence.
The highlight of the show though may have been their cover of System Of A Down‘s “Chop Suey”. With Devin and Ricky trading instruments, Chris did an amazing job impersonating Tankian (admittedly he’s no Tongo), and Devin handled the hush backing vocals of Malakian. The crowd went berserk and frankly, this one needs to be committed to wax because it is that well done. Check out a sample here:
Motionless finished off their set with “Dead As Fuck”, “Eternally Yours” and “Reincarnate”.
Motionless In White continue to prove themselves as not only a ‘stage’ entertaining band, but a band that is evolving musically without losing their identity and fan base. The new release on May 5 should be interesting to say the least.
photos AWeldingphoto ©2017
Pittsburgh Music Magazine 