Show review: Form and Fate @ El Rio 1/5/08

A spell of wicked winter let up just as San Francisco's Form and Fate took to the stage of the Mission dive paradise El Rio on Jan. 5. As the city lay strewn in mangled fences and shredded trees following a Friday tempest, the five-piece bass/three guitars/drums combo proved a mighty force of their own as they crafted a brief but compelling set of all-instrumental post-rock. The genre has always had close ties to nature and weather - both build slowly and organically progress into an affecting and powerful climax - and Form and Fate brought the same unignorable presence of a storm into their loud but lush epic-length songs. Their music, still fresh to my ears besides a few MySpace samples, conjured a meatier Mogwai, metal heavy but also evoking the same dreamy and dramatic splendor. Touches of psychedelia and the avant-garde - guitarist Adam Myatt wielded a theremin during the first song which mimicked the shrill wail of a banshee - crept into the mix, coalescing into a colorful prism and alleviating black-and-white predictability. The band seemed to focus on rocking out rather than note-perfect technicality (they overtly faltered during a melody change on one song). But with their palpably intense energy, the end result was a shockingly impressive set by five talented Bay Area musicians. To check out: their latest EP "Recirc" and 2007 full-length "The Form and Fate of Lakes."