Corpse Dust, Beauty, Share, Ring Sour
Greys Ferry Courtyard
Philadelphia
July 21, 2026
Four bands playing at the Greys Ferry Courtyard this week made for an eclectic crew. Both Ring Sour and Beauty could possibly fit under the moniker of "noise," yet both sound strikingly different. Corpse Dust sang solo with electronic backing and a simple but effective light rig. He was dark, goth and absolutely danceable, whereas Share was the only group that was a full band and played with a face-melting volume with a D-beat rhythm. The groups have a lot of common ground at the intersections of metal, punk, noise, industrial, goth, electronic and ambient, and it all worked surprisingly well together.
Ring Sour is Max, who is also an awesome clothing designer whose brand is called "Cosmic Haha." The clothing they make uses interesting dyeing techniques, featuring large, simple archetypal forms of horses, butterflies, and trees mixed with sometimes very bright but always organic looking colors. Their music is stitched together stylistically similar to noise music. Using a large board of effects pedals, a sampling system, a vocal mic, and various contact mics, Ring Sour conducts an often soft-hewn and meditative soundscape that can be careful and quiet but also piercing and sometimes even painful. They often perform by candlelight, emphasizing the intimate nature of the music; tonight they've chosen two small ambient lights placed on the floor, giving off a deep orange glow. There was a decent amount of rumbling bass that coagulated next to the other sounds throughout the performance, creating a murky and mysterious tone. Max utilized a floor tom parked next to them to capture scraping textures, pops and thumps, which by the end of the performance were in full effect looping loudly — but instead of being the driving energy moving the song forward, the pulses became a textural layer to be continually manipulated and adjusted. The result sounded vaguely industrial, but diffused and ambient. The performance felt very personal and created by someone whose work is drawn to the textural value of sound.
The following acts switched gears significantly; the revived D-beat band "Share" and "Corpse Dust" hit the stage in rapid succession. Share apparently haven't played in some time, but you wouldn't know it from the performance. Before the songs started I heard the singer, Maryn, laugh nervously about how they didn't know what to do, but damn, they were definitely wrong about that! When the band kicked, they lit up like they'd been doing it their whole life. Besides this group's ability to absolutely shred, the specific drum style was distinct and would definitely fit in with what is known as D-beat which is (now) a large multinational genre that uses a specific rigid drum style coming loosely from an early '80s metal/punk group called "Discharge." Share definitely made me wish they still played on the reg. Corpse Dust plays another genre subtype called "darkwave" that takes aspects of goth and industrial influences and merges them with electronic non-band influences that, in this case, is also totally danceable. Anyone who thinks that darker styles mean that no one is dancing should definitely type "darkwave" or "EBM" into a search engine. Corpse Dust really threw themselves into the performance as a one-man group, and besides an exuberant vocal performance and stage manner, had a simple lighting rig that strobed and pulsed to the music and worked at accenting both the excitement and anxiety of the performance.
Speaking of lighting, it was lights out for the final act of the night, Beauty. Their whole set was done in near complete darkness, besides a small ambient light near the drums and a dim hue near the singer. In this uninhibited darkness, Beauty felt free to completely unleash. I'm always shocked at how much they sound like a whole band when performing. Douglas, the drummer plays a full kit and has a small cadre of electronics and effects, and sometimes sings. Dan T, the singer, (who also runs the label Strange Mono), controls most of the electronic and sound happening in the performance and often wanders out into the crowd when he's feeling particular feisty.
The final effect sounds like the meeting point between many influences coming through, but also boast a doom metal sound, kind of like sludge or stoner metal, but also like harsh-noise and featuring an electronic crackle reminiscent of English group Throbbing Gristle. Their trebly, evil, wispy aspects remind me of mid-2000s crew The Goslings. Whatever the case, they are compelling as hell and really make you feel unhinged when performing. They'd make a great soundtrack for slow-motion footage of dinosaurs fighting with big bombastic sound effects. Their songs have a low throbbing pulse to them, like a large coil or spring being plucked or a heavily amplified bass being struck with a bat. They give off an awe-like feel, kind of like you're standing outside watching your workplace burn down. You're happy, but its an evil happy.
