Concert Review: Haunt, Show-n-Tell, Hashtronaut, Sovnya and Heavy Lean at No Fun in Troy, NY

Review by John Moore

Photos by Mark Kurtzner

On June 21, 2026, Summer Solstice, there was a HAUNTing in downtown Troy, NY. No Fun in Troy, NY is a cool, funky little live music bar in the winding streets of the downtown River Street area of that Upstate New York city. In recent years, this neighborhood has gotten a bit of a hipster “mini-Brooklyn of the north” vibe, and this venue adds to that vibe. No Fun is a small, grungy joint, but keeps a great, eclectic live music schedule, an imaginative beer selection, and on a nice night like this is perfect for hanging on the sidewalk outside of the bar with a cold beer between bands.

This night was a night of pure heavy metal – a 5-band show – but was an amazingly diverse mix of bands to see on one bill. Almost every part of the metal spectrum, all over the shop. Kind of cool. It being both a Sunday and a holiday (Father’s Day), the venue was not packed, but for the breadth and quality of bands, and the entirely reasonable ticket prices (under $20 for five bands). Advertising labeled it as a “heavy metal cookout”, and I was hoping that meant someone would be grilling up ribs, BBQ chicken and burgers outside the venue while the bands dealt out the metal but, alas, no. That was just advertising. You could get hot dogs and burgers at the bar, that was

about it. But it was a good atmosphere, all the bands hanging around the venue, merch stand or out on the sidewalk, a fun hang.

Openers HEAVY LEAN were the only of tonight’s acts to hail from the immediate Albany/Troy/New York Capital Region area. A relatively new band (their first-ever gig was in March of this year), they are a 3-piece, hail from Troy, and unleashed sludgy, imaginative riffing and basslines with a great drummer and sung-from-the-depths-of- damnation vocals. Stage movement was fairly limited. I didn’t catch any song titles, but I liked them, lots of potential for heavy greatness.

SOVNYA were up from New Jersey and played punky black metal. They’ve been around for a few years, the interwebs say, and played a heavy, short set with structure- rumbling bass and roaring vocals from vocalist Abby Cadaver, who was able to summon some impressively demonic sounds from her small frame.

Playing third on the night were Colorado Stoner-Doom trio HASHTRONAUT, who are currently touring the U.S., and hooked up with the Haunt/Show’N’Tell tour for just this one show. Hashtronaut were kind of billed as the co-headliners with Haunt, and a portion of the crowd was clearly there for them. Their full-length debut record ‘No Return’ (Blues Funeral Recordings 2023) has been out for a few years already, and is an excellent slab of meaty stoner-doom that invokes the best of bands like Sleep, Windhand and Sweden’s Lowrider.

Anyway, a great live band. Hashtronaut casually sound checked in front of the audience with a quick jam, and then unleashed a hammering tidal wave of crushing doom that soaked the crowd with weighty, leaden-riff greatness, and just ripped. Singer/bassist Daniel Smith sings mostly ‘clean’ vocals with occasional forays into more guttural fare, keeping mostly to the mike, looking like a tattooed, bearded, headbanging Cliff Burton at times, while guitarist Robb Park stomped around and thrashed like a man possessed, summoning forth a truly memorable, rib-shaking tone from his clear, plexiglass flying-V while drummer Michael Hiniotes hammered relentlessly. The band played spoken recordings between each song (with drummer Hiniotes occasionally vamping in-

between songs to the narration), with Smith addressing the crowd only once (“We’re Hashtronaut from Denver, Colorado”, lest anyone be confused by the Haunt backdrop behind them, which every band other than Heavy Lean played in front of). They blasted forth mostly songs from the debut record (I heard “Rip Wizard”, “Cough It Up” and “Lung Ruiner” in there), plus a couple as-yet-unrecorded-and-untitled new numbers (one working title is “Loose Noodle”, drummer Hiniotes says). Great set. If you like the doomier end of things, debut record ‘No Return’ is a keeper and is highly

recommended, as is seeing this band live.

Next up were Arizonians SHOW-N-TELL (who are on the entire current ‘Back to the Beach’ Haunt US tour), and they brought forth an almost completely different vibe than the building-shaking doom that preceded. It’s funny, the whole ‘hair metal’ approach was something that heavy bands avoided like the plague after 91-92. Decades later, this band of young players embrace that vibe with no ironic snark at all, and brought forth an 80s approach that put you right back in 1987. High energy, full of enthusiasm, and while they (thankfully) didn’t sport the hairspray and spandex that made some of that 80s stuff comedic at the time and especially in retrospect, they aptly evoked a lot of the look, sound and onstage approach of the rock from those days: Jackson guitars,

skintight black jeans tucked into white hightops, the hair, the studded leather belts with chains and leopard-skin cloth hanging therefrom, the guitarists lining up in a row and swaying hairshakingly back and forth, and so on. For young guys who clearly weren’t around for this stuff back in the day, they nailed the atmosphere of that era amazingly. Singer-guitarist David Rodriguez has the pipes to pull off the 80s-licious high vocals, he and guitarist Daniel Dobbs are great players, and they (with bassist Cade Gardner, whose beard, steadfastly, is the only thing which departs from the 80s asthetic) covered the stage with energetic movement and rock heroics.

The music mixes Dokken-flavored anthemic arena rock with a faster, meatier Accept-ish edge, and on some songs a thrashier feel which reminded me of the German thrash- power metal of days of yore. They opened with a tune called “Out for Blood”, and although you’d have thought the more hipster metal crowd and doomsters there for Hashtronaut would have scoffed, Show-n-Tell immediately engaged the crowd, people were into it, and they mixed a few songs from debut ‘The Ritual Has Begun’ (“I’m Alive”, “Night Stalker”), with mostly songs (like new single/video “Haunted by the Night”) from upcoming record ‘Eyes of Evil’ (coming in August, but they had copies for sale at the gig). A friend commented to me “I didn’t think guys like this still EXISTED”, and she was right, but it worked. Even the bassist/singer Daniel Smith of Hashtronaut (who could not have been more different and still metal) stood in the middle of the crowd and watched,

pulling his phone out to film some for posterity. By the time of the set-closer, a cover of KISS classic “Detroit Rock City”, they had the crowd fully engaged. Sometimes what is old is new again, and Show-n-Tell made it work this night.

Fresno, California’s HAUNT are, to these ears, one of the finest of the “new wave of traditional heavy metal” bands treading the boards. Although their first record came out in 2018, a mere 8 years ago, they’ve been impressively productive, and released nine (really good) full-length records, plus a host of EPs, singles, compilation album appearances and even a couple of their own compilations in a relatively short span of time, making bandleader Trevor William Chuch being like the underground metal version of prolific indie/Guided By Voices legend Robert Pollard. Great playing – the guitarwork is outstanding – and while the sound has that old-school metal vibe, unlike Show-n-Tell from tonight’s bill, Haunt isn’t slathered with overt 80s-isms. Certainly, you

hear plenty of New Wave of British Heavy Metal influence and nods to the 80s thrash and Ozzy solo, but bandleader Trevor William Church (of impressive hard rock DNA himself, his dad being legendary Montrose/Sammy Hagar bassist Bill Church) has formulated a band with their own sound, a mix of melodic vocals and rippingly thrashing metal.

Tonight’s mixed bill of varied heavy bands worked a charm for all the other bands on the bill (particularly Show-n-Tell), who were able to play for all the other bands’ fans and probably pick up new followers along the way. In that sense, being the headliner is probably the worst spot on a gig like this, particularly hitting the stage late on a holiday Sunday night, when people draft away by the end of the night if the last band isn’t the one they came to see. So it was this night: Haunt played to a reduced throng of Haunt fans – maybe it would’ve been more advantageous to have played early and let one of the other bands close.

Didn’t matter – Haunt were excellent. Church led the band through a (fairly) short set which kicked off with “Mercenaries” (from 2022’s ‘Windows of Your Heart’), followed by a roaring version of the title track of the 2020 ‘Mind Freeze’ LP. Church and guitarist Joel Dominguez were just as impressive a guitar duo as the preceding band, and with bassist Sam Harman carpeted the stage with headbanging energy, while surfer-esque drum man Andy Saldate (impressively seen napping at the back of the venue earlier in the day while black metal roared onstage) brought forth mighty rhythm. “Hearts on Fire” (from the excellent – and recently reissued – ‘Beautiful Distraction’ 2021 record) was a highlight, Church evoking enthusiastic crowd participation, and a savage “Sea of

Dreams” (from the same record) was bloodthirsty and powerful as well. Great stage presence, great playing, great songs. Complaints? Maybe they could’ve played a few more songs. I’m sure the late hour and dwindled crowd reduced the set-length, and I was bummed that “Electrified” wasn’t in the set as on other nights this tour, but I get they were reading the room. Either way, “Burst into Flame” (from the 2018 debut of the same name) was a great set-closer, the crowd roaring along. I could’ve used a few more songs, but they were excellent – check out Haunt if the current ‘Back to the Beach’ tour hits your town. Otherwise, a new record is coming forth this Fall, with more touring to surely follow. All hail Haunt.