Kultur Shock and X-Ray Press Rock Chop Suey

Last Friday, before X-Ray Press took the stage at Chop Suey, we ran into an acquaintance who described them as "math rock, circa 1994." After their set, another friend described them as "intellectual" musicians. Both are fair assessments: we wouldn't credit it as "original," but "skillful"? Hell yeah. Jumping between jerky time signatures, with a jagged, frequently dissonant guitar opposite thundering bass-lines and fuzzy keyboard melodies, X-Ray Press got down old-skool Don Cab-style.

And then there was Kultur Shock. For those who have yet to experience Kultur Shock live, their shows register somewhere between riot and complete anarchy on the intensity scale. Like fellow gypsy punks Gogol Bordello, Kultur Shock delivers schizoidal music that careens wildly between oompah-like Balkan trad and flat-out hard rock. Lead guitarist Mario Butkovic delivers blues-like melancholy melodies from the sevdah tradition, while Val Kiossovski operates in more familiar territory, with AC/DC-like riffs. Violinist Matty Noble was, as the band announced early on, expecting his first child at any moment, so he sat out the show clutching a cell phone except for two new, as yet unreleased songs he took the stage for. Replacing him temporarily was a talented young woman (we missed her name) who shredded her way through Kultur Shock's catalogue with so much finesse that lead-singer Gino Yevdjevic's claim that she learned it all in one day was doubly unbelievable.

The new material was, as Gino admitted onstage, rough, but shows the band continuing to expand and explore new musical traditions. One song was a country song, actually, and Gino's accent gave it the feel of some sort of crazy karaoke accident. Kultur Shock has taken off for Europe (with the odd East Coast date) for the summer festival season, but hopefully the fans and the unitiated out there will have the chance to catch the band by fall or early winter, with (hopefully) a album of new material following shortly.