A 3 band bill of UK hardcore, which, as it turns out, was just as well supported on the night as the Pro-Pain tour the other week. Which has to be a good sign at least for the bands and the scene.
Anyway, when I arrived, Lockdown were already into their set. It's my first encounter with the band on any level, live or hearing the music. So it's a first impressions kind of thing. And that is of another band who've taken more than a dollop of Korn on board. It seems even more apparent with the bass player, who seems to be apeing the moves of Fieldy a bit too much. Still, the music that I heard sounded pretty good, enough so that I got the CD at the end of the gig, and will write a review of that sometime in the near future.
dBh were a revelation. A year ago, having seen them do some gigs, I was eagerly looking forward to the album. And frankly, it was a bit of let down. Then, when I saw the band on the Napalm Death tour, they didn't seem to have made the transition in the live setting to the bigger stage. Tonight erased all those doubts. After the gig, I managed to get an interview with the band. That will appear in issue 5 of the zine, so check it out in the next month or so.
But the band played 5 new songs, and from the moment they hit the stage, it was like seeing a totally different band. The new music is waaaay more aggressive, upbeat in terms of tempo and just straight in your face. Andy seems totally transformed as a frontman. He still doesn't say much between songs, but whereas before there was perhaps a tendancy to look menacing by standing still, know he is everywhere, even jumping down into the crowd in order to get some action going.
There was a time when many people were predicting they would become the UK equivalent to Korn, but fortunately they've steered away from that route. The new material sounds like it's taking them further down the hardcore path. Even older songs such as Face, In Gods Country, White God Sent etc sound rejuvenated.
One complaint would've been that the sheer intensity of the new material made it sound all similar, but according to the band afterwards, they have some more material which takes a different route, but choose to air the faster stuff tonight. So that's that fear allayed then.
They hope to go in to the studio, get the album recorded and released by the end of the year. That may well put them some way towards reclaiming the ground that they maybe lost last year. Like I said, a revelation
Tribute to Nothing are a band who, once more, I'd not listened to up to now. And as I was talking to dBh, trying to sort out when to do the interview, I missed the first few songs. Not as intense as dBH, there's more a sense of fun going on. The songs sounded solid enough, but not entirely inspirational. But maybe it was just the aftereffects of the dBh set. So I'll shup up now.