An Albatross close CMJ and kill while at it

The venerable harlequin thrash-core group An Albatross (Wilkes Barre, PA) closed the Panache Booking showcase at Union Pool this Saturday, capping off a week of excellent shows during this year’s CMJ Music Marathon. An Albatross have heavy thrasher guitar riffs, deep molasses bass lines, and break-neck drumming, but their lead vocalist, Eddie B. Gieda III, exudes a crusty glam-rock swagger and screams like a depraved Steven Tyler, sweating profusely, smiling with a false propriety, punishing his tambourine as if this were the last cry for help from a torture chamber of self-inflicted mental water-boarding.

When I walked backstage after the show to talk to Gieda, I found him on a tiny set of stairs, sobbing with his head between his knees. “He always cries after his shows” a thin blonde lady friend informed me, gently fanning him with a rolled-up shirt. “What are you thinking about when you’re performing?”  I ask him. “I think of myself as somewhere between a fetus just prior to birth and a human form just about to die. And about how absolutely dehydrated and malnourished I am” he replied. This was An Albatross’s first US show this year, and kicks off a month-long tour of back-to-back shows all over the country. Watch footage of this show here.