Brother Ares w/Hellbender, Poor Faulkner & TG Olson: at Betty's Grill (Nashville, TN) Fri. January 11, 2013

Brother Ares w/Hellbender, Poor Faulkner & TG Olson

Pop/Rock

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

Long-lived watering hole Betty’s maintains its reputation for dive-bar simplicity and musical curiosity. Tonight’s roster takes a trip to the darker side of psychedelia, where even the sunshine can be a little menacing. Across Tundras’ frontman T.G. Olson was exceedingly prolific in 2012: Notable releases included an eerie Woody Guthrie tribute album and the last installments in a six-disc set of electric drone interpretations of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. He dovetails nicely with Poor Faulkner, an instrumental artist whose name comes from a Hemingway jibe about $10 words, and who paints haunting campfire tales in the fingerstyle tradition of John Fahey and William Tyler. Hellbender expertly uses the commonalities among auteurs as diverse as Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Sonic Youth and Goblin to foretell the end of days, and Brother Ares’ two-piece doom onslaught descends from on high to finish the job. It may be the end of the world as we know it, so make sure to grab a beer first.

—STEPHEN TRAGESER