Always Fierce ignored the stage of the West Street Market on April 6. Instead, they communicated their cavernous sounds from the floor.

Unnamed until informed of my intent to write about them, members Louis Gezelin and Tony Alston used the limited palette of guitar pedals, tiny, circular microphones and bass guitar to create an oppressive death rattle that suffused the Market.

Music like this, music like abandoned machinery wailing for long-lost users, is usually made on laptops. Always Fierce has instead made pure sound from instruments originally designed to color, not create (bass guitar and guitar effects in general are often considered secondary players).

They were accompanied by Vancouver bands Pompoir and Stamina Mantis. The latter brought its own noise, though it more-resembled song structures than Always Fierce’s extended tortured whale screams.

Both group members swayed as though possessed by their own wild creature. They toiled indefinitely in front of intimidating speakers.

I sat astride a bar stool feeling the oppressive weight unload itself on me. The group had started its set in a relatively innocuous fashion, mere buzzing and muffled howling, to the point where it was difficult to tell if they had even started playing.

By the middle, in the animalistic heat of lights and sound, their particular brand of din caterwauled its way into blunt existence.