I must apologise in advance for a few things. Firstly, this
is a very infrequent blog of mine, so once I’ve posted this, you shouldn’t expect
a massive amount of activity if you do decide to follow it. Secondly, as I only
decided to write this blog about an hour into the night (and due to the
lateness of the hour, tiredness, etc. I am only composing it now), the first
two bands (Mantra and Hiraeth) haven’t received as much of a review as I would
have wanted to (and most likely they would have wanted to as well). Regardless,
this is my amateur attempt as perhaps my first live music review (with Facebook links to the featured artists on the names if you are at all persuaded to follow my lead and drop a 'Like' - I'm sure they'll appreciate it)
A short while later, with a cool Thatchers Cider now in
hand, I found myself messaging a friend from home, singer of a London-based hardcore
band by the name of Eight Days (formerly Eight Days from Sunday – plugging much!),
to let him know his band could well have an audience here in Plymouth. He tells
me that, coincidentally, the band of a friend of ours is playing at The
Underground that very night, and wouldn’t you know it, the guy I’d been looking
at on the stage with a small amount of recognition is that friend: Bassist,
Pete Woolven, of Hiraeth. Their set certainly lived up to the event page
description of ‘soaring choruses’, vibrating the floorboards and even the air
(by this point already a cocktail of drink, sweat, and cologne) with some heavy
melodies. My thanks to Charlie Clayton for the EP and the smiles!
Now I had been warned, perhaps an hour previous, by RockSoc
Chair Zoë Page of what the next band could do; their brand of doom metal was
one I had only heard about, but to experience it: a whole other ball game.
Heriot is their name, and by this point in the night, I had fully invested
myself in the idea of writing this blog, so throughout the night that followed,
I made notes on each band. The four words I used to describe Heriot were thus:
energetic, demonic (especially drummer Julian Gage), cathartic, and disjointed.
So much energy and aggression poured off of the three guys thrashing on stage.
But it was that doom element I mentioned earlier (borrowing a few undertones
from Black Sabbath) which set them apart because soon my insides were feeling pretty
strange – never a bad thing though.
After a short breather – and a chance to pick my spleen back
up off of the floor – there came through the swirling candy sweet mist of
people vaping like dragons, a band which took me by complete surprise. May I
introduce Welsh Death Metallers, Venom Prison, whose vocalist is unlike
anything I have ever heard before, not because she is one of a possible
minority of female metal vocalists, but because I felt sure her visceral and
bile-laced delivery would scour my brain like sandpaper (again, this is a
compliment of the highest order). To add to that, Venom Prison’s wall of
unrelenting sound inspired the strangest sight I have ever seen in a mosh pit. Into
the small open space before the stage came a few brave souls whose violently
balletic karate kicking was as visually inspiring as it was physically lethal
to anyone standing too close. Fortunately I had already been herded to a safer
distance by Devin Osman (my thanks for saving my head!)
But the mosh pit only grew with the appearance of Renounced,
slowly infecting half the floor. This Reading Metalcore band were largely
unassuming, even as they began on a haunting note, but that impression soon
gave way to a roller coaster of a set, dominated by the central powerhouse of
guitars and bass, and borrowing their calmer moments from the likes of Rise Against
and Bullet for My Valentine. Their golden-haired frontman, Daniel Waverley Gray
(my apologies, my friend, if this isn’t how you’d want to be described) slowly
became like a caged animal; not content with the stage, he paced the now empty
mosh pit; unable to contain the violence of his words, he finished curled up on
the stage floor. By the show’s closure, after a small amount of debate (in
fairness, my debate was addled by drink and exhaustion so my opinion is by
means final), I had to label Renounced one of the best bands of the night,
along with this next act.
One word: Oak. But several to describe them. A Swedish trio,
all contributing their own explosively raw vocals in a performance I likened to
a ‘juggernaut of lead’ such was the audible force they projected. Both
guitarist and bassist seemed to sway in a chameleonic fashion as they shredded
their instruments, backed by some of the most frenzied drumming I had seen all
night. Their finale consisted of two new songs, manifesting themselves in a
near physical wall of dripping sweat and relentless noise (which, true to the event page
description, took no prisoners: just crushed them!) I hope
you guys survived to see the morning!
With one last band to go, I had started to mildly regret my
decision to make this blog, but determination and no small amount of curiosity
made me see it through – and I wasn’t disappointed. The headliner Hollow Earth,
coming all the way from Michigan, USA, took a more melodic approach, a
bittersweet but familiar American-flavoured thrash. Vocalist Steve Muczynski
made his presence known (and felt by one lucky audience member) as a lion amid
the crowd, roaring his way through their set as he prowled, mic stand in hand,
long hair flowing (was I in the presence of a true metal god?) There seemed no
doubt about that one as their final song seemed to make the ‘Hollow Earth’ move
and set it on fire. I was so glad I stayed.
My thanks again to everyone who played, and to the members
of Plymouth Uni RockSoc for making it happen!
