The Marmits, Rollerball, Party Killer, Inside Voices

[FREAK SCENE] Masks: They're not just for Slipknot anymore. Portland
freakazoids the Marmits also like to play dress-up onstage, and the
members' nightmarish costumes look like they were purchased from a
Troma Studios yard sale. The band's grotesqueries don't end there,
either. Its music exists on the same plane of weirdness as spazz
merchants Man Man, actively testing the patience of less adventurous
listeners. In fact, the same could be said for most of the bands on
this bill: Party Killer's electronics-heavy sound rests somewhere
between noise guru Merzbow and a robot having a nervous breakdown, and
while Rollerball is a bit more accessible, it's not against the
occasional outbreak of nonsense. Only Inside Voices plays it somewhat
straight—by the skewed standards of indie rock, anyway. MATTHEW SINGER.