POMONA, Calif. – Liz Gore, lead vocalist of local death metal band Afterbirth, reportedly slipped into a strained and high-pitched customer service voice onstage last Wednesday, disturbed sources confirmed.
“I sped to the gig from my shift at The Undies Drawer, so I was hot off work mode. When I saw the pit open up, I started hearing my boss in my ear demanding to know why I hadn’t offered the people running into each other a shopping bag,” said Gore. “I only snapped back to it when I remembered we were playing our song ‘Nose Breaker’ and not a Charlie Puth remix over a mall speaker. Have you found everything alright today? Shi–”
Gore is known around the local scene for their angry expressions and moaning gutturals, so the crowd was shocked to witness the unsettling personality shift.
“Everyone was moshing, feeling the deep growls about salivating blood. Then Liz’s eyes went glossy, and they had this pained smile as they were talk-singing falsetto about the ’42 pairs for $10 sale’,” said fan Owen Feng. “After that, they made a beeline through the crowd to the merch guy, grabbed some shirts from him, and yelled ‘I’m getting the vibe you need a dressing room, you gorgeous goddesses.’ It was the most fucked up shit I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen someone get their pelvis broken after a botched stage dive.”
Music critic Sal Felbert has praised Gore for ushering Afterbirth into a new era of sound, and being the first non-binary death metal vocalist to pull out a company walkie-talkie on stage.
“It seems that Afterbirth is making a statement about the chokehold of capitalism. It’s a pit of hell that other bands have been too scared to touch and instead have opted to sing about chicken-shit like massacre and flesh-eating,” said Felbert. “Gore’s vocals make you feel like a shell of a person forced to follow a possibly armed shoplifter and the dissonant backing from the band leaves you worrying about whether you, too, will get your shift covered.”
At press time, Gore has since been awarded at work with a bonus that can only be used at the store itself.