By DCist contributor Mehan Jayasuriya

I have to admit, I was a little concerned when I first showed up at the Black Cat on Saturday night. The crowd was pretty thin, folks seemed more interested in shoe-gazing than the band on stage and there wasn’t a raised fist or pointing finger anywhere in sight. This certainly isn’t the kind of scene that I’m used to seeing at a hardcore show; the last time I saw Seattleites These Arms Are Snakes, they were (quite literally) tearing the ceiling off of Chicago’s now defunct Fireside Bowl.

Then again, it might have had something to do with the band on stage–Ohio prog-metalheads Mouth of the Architect aren’t exactly the most mosh-friendly band around. In the vein of hipster-friendly metal acts like Isis and Mastadon, Mouth of the Architect craft expansive and mostly instrumental soundscapes using broad strokes; we’re willing to bet that these dudes spend just as much time listening to Pink Floyd in the van as they do Sabbath. Unfortunately, most of the songs’ subtleties were lost in the mix. We’re not sure if it was the band’s fault or the club’s, but very little detail could be heard over the wash of their guitars. Which is a shame because you could see them tooling around with synths and hammering fret boards during the atmospheric bits — you just couldn’t hear it over the drone. Still, the members of Mouth of the Architect sported the biggest beards and most tattoos out of anyone at the Cat — and that’s gotta be worth something.