Sunna / Miocene

Nottingham Rock City

March 6 2001


So, due to still being at home, I missed the first band, Crackhead, Crackpot or Crackout. It's one of the three. Ho ho ho. Yeah, I know, such a wit.

Anyway, it's actually my first time seeing Miocene, who seem to have something of a buzz going on about them. But hey, bands touring at this level don't always get chance to use showers. DaBoom. Sorry, no, I've not smelt the band, just seem to be have an outbreak of the funnies. Anyway, have to say I was slightly disappointed. The band were only able to play four songs, and the set ends in a rather embarrassing fashion as a result, but the songs they do play, I forget the names of. But they don't have quite the adventure that I was hoping for. Too much of a concentration on the more hardcoreish elements of their sound, which tend, like for most bands, too sound too generic and indistinct from everyone else, but when they get more eclectic and groove, then they're hitting their stride. They go down well with those down the front, and my feeling is that given the right circumstances, they can be much much better than this.

I've also never seen Sunna before. Or if I'm being honest, heard them. But I'm pleasantly surprised by the fact that the basement is actually pretty full, and on a Tuesday. Maybe Britain isn't in such a state of apathy as I feared. Nah, surely that can't be right.

The vocalist is suffering, you can hear the flu in his voice, and he apologises on countless occassions. It may be this flu, it maybe the way he sings, but there's often thoughts of Kurt Cobain running through my head in the vocals, but the music is different. There's even some hints of Faith No More loungelizard stylings on some tracks, which is of course a very good thing, and they manage to make use of melody and dynamics in a powerful interesting way. And even though he's got a dodgy voice at the moment, the vocalist geezer carries things through.

There's members of earthtone9 and Pitchshifter in attendance tonight. Maybe et9 ought to consider teaming up with Sunna and say Liberty 37 for the Evolution4 gig instead of what's having a tendancy to turn into the usual suspects. It would highlight British rock music in a poistive, powerful melodic way, and the Sunna album has just gone to the top of the "need to buy that one" list. Very impressive.