Before Typical System came out last year, Total Control's Daniel Stewart made it clear that the group wouldn’t be touring anytime soon. This decision was both one of practicality—the band’s members were plenty busy with their numerous other bands—and of emotional necessity. “Total Control is quite an emotionally demanding experience for me,” he said at the time. “A lot of the songs were written out of quite dark and troubling, traumatic experiences.” In conversation, he’s extremely careful with his words. He took frequent pauses during that interview to ensure that every phrase was 100% accurate. “Indulging” in nihilistic thoughts, obsessing over the works of dark Romanian philosophers, writing lyrics he accurately describes as “quite bleak”—Stewart is easily framed as a monastic figure who willingly mires himself in darkness, electing to feel it all in an attempt to turn those sentiments into honest, powerful music.
A full year later, Total Control are touring and a piece of the puzzle finally falls into place. Typical System has been called “incidental music,” a record you put on for background or simple distraction. In a live setting of their show at the Empty Bottle in Chicago last Thursday, that notion is destroyed. The band’s passion and heft force you into the thrall of it. Stewart is not some hermetic figure awkwardly thrust into the spotlight to uncomfortably spill his feelings. He’s an imposing figure, and as soon as James Vinciguerra comes in with the beat, he’s a magnetic frontman, performing in a trance-like state—free of inhibitions and entirely in the moment. The mic stand in both hands, eyes shut, Stewart practically slithers. When the crowd erupts at the end of a song, he smiles in acknowledgement and replies “cheers.”
What might seem like pretentious garbage from Jim Morrison and Axl Rose’s “slinky messiah” playbooks is remade in the context of Total Control’s pure power and aesthetic; they are an all-out barrage. Mikey Young (of Eddy Current Suppression Ring) and Al Montfort (of UV Race, Dick Diver, Eastlink) are fantastic guitarists, Vinciguerra is an absolute beast on drums. While Stewart is the band’s undeniable focal point, the rest of the band attacks as a manner of performance.
On set closer “Black Spring”, Young’s hypnotic opening riff eventually defects into chaos. By the end of the song, Young and Montfort are on the floor, twisting knobs on pedals for a white noise onslaught alongside Stewart’s tiny, obliterating synthesizer. Only the rhythm section, Vinciguerra and bassist Zephyr Pavey, hold sway—a skeleton beneath the din. At one point during the show, Young, Montfort, Pavey, and Stewart shout “THERE IS SOMEONE STANDING OVER YOU” in unison.
“[Feeling] fragile and vulnerable can ultimately lead one to feel incredibly powerful,” Stewart said in that interview last year. “Just a submission can at some point make one feel almost as if they’re incapable of sinking any lower and somehow, they find themselves in a place of serenity.” In a small Chicago room, Total Control did the crushing, trying to let the audience find peace within the maelstrom.
As the noise of the final song died down, Stewart hugged his bandmates—he clearly wasn’t kidding when he said this was an emotional outlet for him. As the crowd continued to scream, the band unplugged and started packing up cymbals. “Encores aren’t Australian,” explained Montfort.
Setlist:
Sweaty
2 Less Jacks
One More Tonight
Carpet Rash
Rogue Abortion
Total Control
See More Glass
Laughing
Flesh War
Retiree
Expensive Dog
Black Spring