Goes Cube is the best metal band no one knows yet. This rather audacious claim became increasingly obvious as their 40-minute set last Friday at the Red and the Black wore on. There were five people there: me, my guest, the guitarist’s wife, the bassist’s wife and some scary guy with a skull on his shirt. This isn’t particularly surprising, as the band has yet to release an album but I’m fairly certain that’s about to change with the release of their The End Records debut, Another Day Has Passed. They rocked all five of the faces present into oblivion, not even particularly caring that almost no one had showed up.

            Which is weird because earlier in the night, the place was packed in comparison. I arrived midway through the set of Make Love & War (after thankfully missing the performance by a group that actually calls themselves Drunken Banshees), who had to be one of the funniest and worst amateur bands I’ve ever seen. Actually, I don’t know that they’re amateurs, which kind of scares me because someone might have very well told this band they should go on tour. Yikes. They had a female singer who straight up sang out-of-tune harmonies the whole time; that’s it. Their drummer played with the skill of a 12-year old and their guitarist/singer looked like he wanted to be in Between the Buried and Me (yet played like Edwin McCain). Yet people were there! I can’t believe Make Love & War has prompted me to write an entire paragraph about them.

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            Constants, the third band, actually had me really excited, since I’ve been a big fan of theirs since hearing their split with Caspian, another awesome Boston post-rock band. They set themselves apart by adding vocals to their dreamy, heavy music, though admittedly, the singer’s voice was noticeably off-pitch of all night, which really ruined it for me. Recorded, they are muscular and varied, but their limited resources (one guitarist who also sings) made everything come off really same-y. It also didn’t help that the guy basically switched between two guitar effects: distractingly mushy and spacey and METAL, neither of which sounded very good. Disappointing.

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            So, Goes Cube. After reading about them on a Stereogum “Band To Watch” post a year ago, I got my hands on as much stuff by the Brooklyn band as I could, which wasn’t much. The wait for this album was excruciating but the record makes it clear early on that it was well worth it. They wield a particularly fiery hybrid of metal, hardcore, post-hardcore and the like. There’s screaming, but just as much of the vocals are sung, beautifully by frontman David Ochubowski. This was the first show with new bassist Matt Tyson, but you’d never know from the tight, locked-in dynamic the band had already. They tore through much of their new album, Ochubowski smiling like a buffoon the entire time in a totally endearing, infectious way. The guitar, mathy and precise, soared; the drummer, Kenny, is a metal cliché, playing faster and harder than I ever thought possible. Even Tyson looked like an old vet by the end.

            I get the impression they didn’t mind we were the only ones there; hell, I get the impression they wouldn’t have minded if no one showed up. They fucking destroyed. Now that they’re getting all fancy with their press coverage and whatnot, I’ll be proud to say I was one of three people not married to the band who caught them right before they got huge. I have the empty spaces where my eardrums used to be to prove it.