By Jase Walker
It’s a bit strange how it’s mid-March by this point and somehow I’ve managed to avoid returning to Rebellion in Manchester considering how much time I spent here last year. For this particular show though, Archspire, Psycroptic, Benighted and Entheos are here on their ‘Tech Trek’ tour to completely devastate this venue with a sold out show.
Wasting zero time getting straight into an onslaught of pounding double bass pedal, busy riffs and absolutely bloody disgusting vocals, this is how a tech death show should get started! It’s not just the vocals shrieking either, the intermittent guitar solos rip through loud and clear and that whammy bar is getting ragged around with reckless abandon as well!
The already packed venue is clearly well into what Entheos are doing and there’s no shortage of Entheos t-shirts in the crowd as well! Even given the short set, this show is bloody fantastic, filled to the brim with forceful intensity that only stops for a brief moment between songs. To say that Entheos are bringing it is a complete understatement, they sound fantastic, they’re performing as well seasoned pros and looking around at the response from the crowd, they absolutely agree. Top class stuff right from the first note.
I’ve tried to get back to my original spot for Benighted and it’s an absolute non-starter: the venue’s bloody packed at this point and I’ve lost my crowd and now there’s a big fuck-off pit in the middle and it’s all chaos. In between the flashing lights, the relentless bass pedal hammering, gutturals and crowd going bloody berserk I’m a bit lost in the moment of the cacophony of it all. Admittedly these aren’t quite my cuppa as I like a bit more melody to my tech death but I cannot overstate the level of balls out energy that Benighted are fuelling and I’m a bit wary of my own safety! Pretty intense show on the whole. Grind doesn’t really do much for me though!
By the time Psycroptic hit the stage, it’s shoulder to shoulder all the way through the venue and I’m barely able to get anywhere near the stage. Their riffy, mind blowingly heavy style has the crowd going bloody wild, the centre pit is going nuts, there’s crowd surfers and head banging everywhere. I’m genuinely blown away by how mental the crowds are, we’ve even gotten an impromptu lesson on stage dive etiquette followed up by their singer diving into the stage at the start of a song! We’ve got people crowd surfing from all the way from the back as well, all the while the centre of the crowd is smashing into each other without a care for safety!
At this point I have to emphasize just how incredible the sound’s been tonight at Rebellion, every single band has been crisp yet unbelievably heavy. Every component part of the bands has come through so well, there’s been no part drowning out the other so for a tech death show where the drums go at it every bit as hard as the guitars, bass and vocals, it’s been astounding. It’s so easy for the sound at shows like this to get muddy or in some cases washed out with the sound being paper thin but it’s absolutely not the case tonight.
Psycroptic has been unbelievable, they’ve got a level of unrelenting energy that is truly something to behold. Manchester has put on full display its thirst for tech death and I love it when the mania hits its stride at shows like this, incredible.
And finally, it’s time for Archspire, legitimately the fastest tech death band in the business. 200bpm? Too slow. Try closer to 300. I’ve had to find a perch at the back near the doors to the smoking area because I just can’t fight my way through this crowd, everyone’s moving and there’s a lot of people. I’m a bit bummed out by the bass being extremely quiet in comparison to the previous acts so the energy of the show is a bit lost which is a shame. It’s a bit weird how the headliner seems so much quieter than the rest of the bands that have been on tonight, the crowd admittedly doesn’t seem too bothered by it but I feel like all of that momentum which has been built up over the rest of the show has just stopped.
As has been a bit of a consistent thing on this tour, in the middle of the show they’ve pulled out a game of twister and it’s caused a bit of a stir with people trying to do it and crowd surf at the same time! The people in this venue are obviously loving every minute of this but I feel a bit disappointed by the show on the whole. It’s probably a bit at odds with how everyone else is experiencing this but it’s been a bit of an anticlimax from my point of view unfortunately.
While on the whole the gig’s been pretty good and it’s been absolutely bloody stuffed right from the start, I can’t help but feel a bit deflated after the fantastic lead-up to Archspire only to have it let down right at the peak. Great night otherwise though, so not all bad!
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