Like wiry angst in your rock? FACS got you covered.
Like wiry angst in your rock? FACS got you covered. Lester Black

Drummer Noah Leger’s FUCK IT T-shirt betokened great things, and Chicago trio FACS did not disappoint. My pick for the most interesting act of this event, FACS come at you with tense, terse post-punk with guitar that strafes with no-nonsense clangor and anger. Guitarist Brian Case specializes in an aggressive form of Morse code anti-riffing, emitting sulfuric sparks of wiry angst.

Playing to a sparse Vera Stage crowd (it was 5 pm, after all), FACS exuded pitiless No Wave menace. Their brutal, rust-belt rock songs are stripped down and ready for conflict, chronically on the verge of exploding; that they don’t just adds to the music’s potency.

FACS, once again on the verge of exploding.
FACS, once again on the verge of exploding. Lester Black

The last song FACS played, "Others," carried the pre-apocalyptic aura of Pere Ubu’s “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and Hovercraft at their most taut. Fuck. Yeah.

This set was every bit the grim, grinding gash into festival frivolity I was hoping for. As soon as it was over, I bee-lined to the merch tent to buy the band's Negative Houses LP.

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