Bloody hell a gig in my own manor! Now despite having a rich history of live music with pubs such as The Roxborough, The Clay Pigeon and The Railway having put on everyone from The Who to The Dead Kennedy’s they are all long since closed down and demolished. The small room at the Trinity Bar in central Harrow is the one small excuse of a venue we have left and anything over 50 punters surrounding the bands who have to pretty much spread out around them and the joint is rammed. Tonight was going to be a bit of a rarity. (PW)
The More I See (TMIS) have just released an amazing album ‘Disappearing Humans’ on Earache records and with a fresh line up thoroughly seasoned in the live arena, this was the band I had high hopes for tonight. I was surprised they were the opening band, but in any case, this tiny venue was filled to the rafters with quality thrash music, with a touch more than mere thrash. ‘Rise Up and Start’ begins the set perfectly, even a few technical difficulties for guitarist Gizz Butt does not diminish the professionalism of the remainder of the band who play on admirably. ‘Reversible’ is highly infectious and myself and the few standing stage front are singing along in unison. The guitar talents of Mr Butt really do amaze me every time this guy plays and I have to say James the frontman and second guitarist has improved like no one else since I last saw this line up. This was powerful, aggressive and a real lesson in musical virtuosity. It was nice to find inclusion in their current set of older tracks recorded by a different line up and ‘The Unholy Feast’ is simply brilliant, as is ‘Spirit of Freedom’. ‘The Eye That Offends’ completes this stunning live set, it was just a shame that a lot of people missed this, this was a master class right down to the drumming that didn’t suffer even though Harri the drummer caught his hand in a tube door on the way to the venue. (PM)
After taking one look at Scream Blue Murder I had a feeling that they were not going to be for our tastes. You can’t necessarily judge a book by its cover but how about a band by their haircuts? My friends and reviewing compadres fled to the downstairs bar leaving me to take a few snaps and have a brief listen to this energetic and exuberant display of youthful aggression. Taking an executive decision that it was not really fair on either the band or my ears to linger I too politely sat the rest of the set out.
Now I have heard a buzz about local band Driven from others that had caught them at higher profile (could hardly be lower) shows such as Hard Rock Hell. Being from just down the road no doubt helped them absolutely ram the place to the rafters and I guess consolidate their headlining position. With it and hardly room to swing a cat they still managed to blaze away and come through things with a dynamism that surely deserves seeing them on much bigger stages. Songs like The Fool had good bouncy bombast and some groove laden guitar chugging that was pretty damn infectious. Singer Adam injected both soulful clean harmonic vocals with more gravelly throaty snarls and up close and intimate like this it was a real in your face experience with the violent segments demanding head banging.
With a thrashy backbone about it Vacant Throne moves into more clean harmonies that gave the music opposing sides and keeping it both fresh and invigorating. This is the sort of music that it would be all too easy to mention the likes of Metallica and Pantera whilst listening to as no doubt having been influential, there’s even a bit of Mike Patton in the clean croon sections. That said this lot have drive (sorry), their own identity and a style that deserves having them mentioned in the same breath as such formidable band’s. The set flew past in a blur of riffs and beer with songs like Uproar delivering the goods and proving memorable enough to make me want to hear the group’s album when it hits March 2014. Even though Driven are a lot more commercial than my normal listening choice I could really appreciate the professionalism of what they did and have a feeling they could well be pretty big in the future. (PW)
Review by Paul Maddison and Pete Woods
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