“I’m hav­ing a ner­vous break­down on stage, if it was any­where else you would think I was crazy. But I’ve some­how man­aged to trick you into think­ing it’s cool. Unless you think we suck, I guess, that’s okay too,” says lead singer of Mall Goth on stage at San Fran, where the band is becom­ing a sta­ple act.

These words apt­ly describe the band’s approach to their par­tic­u­lar brand of goth inspired, alter­na­tive, and at times explo­sive­ly heavy rock. Dis­il­lu­sioned, and raw emo­tion filled, scream­ing vocals are accom­pa­nied by chunky heavy hit­ting per­cus­sion, dark, sin­is­ter riffs and basslines, and at times light­ning fast solo­ing by their lead gui­tarist, who when I saw them per­form, was adorned with one black glove on his shred­ding hand after an injury, some­how enhanc­ing the evil tones deliv­ered by the band.

Even with only one week to rehearse with the addi­tion of a new bass play­er, the band man­aged to put togeth­er an impres­sive setlist and at no point fal­tered, show­cas­ing their dynam­ic range between loud and qui­et, keep­ing the crowd on their toes as they moved from twinkly melodies to evil, hard hit­ting sludge, with one song util­is­ing just one note as a break­down, but some­how through this bare bones approach they actu­al­ly gained impact.

Lis­ten to more Mall Goth on Sound­cloud