By Jase Walker
After delivering a truly blistering set supporting Spite recently, Boundaries are out on their own headline run for a big old stomp around the ÜK and Europe. After seeing them rip up various places around the ÜK and delivering probably more backflips than your average Olympic gymnastics highlights reel, tonight marks the start of the halfway point on the first European date in Haarlem.
Stage Two at Patronaat is a bloody perfect place for it too, with the lack of any barrier before the stage with the bands on the bill tonight a pretty clear indicator that there’ll be all manner of people vaulting on and off it for most of the evening.
This is a hefty tour package as well featuring the new lineup of Varials who I’ve seen kill it a few times now as well as hardcore specialists, Dagger Threat and No Face No Case. Patronaat is about to get stomped tonight, no doubt about it.
No Face No Case starts off with a fairly cheery jam just before they decide to unleash chaos with guitars downtuned so low they may as well be waving cooked spaghetti over the pickups. The centre area of the crowd is already giving some massive lads in the middle a bit of space, both wearing what looks like luchador masks, so they clearly mean business here.
Admittedly the crowd response to start is a little cold but it’s filling up steadily and I think people are a bit wary of the two lads so far, they’re both pretty solid looking from where I am. I won’t lie,
Beatdown isn’t really my thing overall, but I can say with strong confidence that these guys sound bloody fantastic though, meaty as fuck and know they’ve gotta bring it as opener. Their singers got some properly filthy gutturals that’d make even your average Deathcore singer gurn. The sudden shift to hardstyle in the middle of a song was a great way to mix things up too, gotta have a sense of humour doing this I guess! I didn’t expect some random Clown Core thrown in there either. Great opener to set the tone for the evening, people are already tearing chunks out of each other so keep that going!
Dagger Threat kick off and are immediately much more into the higher speed type stuff compared to previous but No Face No Case clearly did a great job warning people up because everyone in the middle is immediately in each other’s faces. Rapid fire drumming, grinding riffs, and plenty of shouting, Dagger Threat are the real uptempo stuff needed to kick this show into the stratosphere.
Again, these are a bit more out of my usual remit but can never fault a band that is clearly killing it and that’s just what Dagger Threat have been doing. The faster parts see people two-stepping like their life depends on it and the moment they slow down to the nasty riffs, people immediately start swinging, hardcore 101 innit? Don’t fix what isn’t broken and all that.
With this sort of style of hardcore that’s just relentless rapid fire stuff constantly it always amazes me at the stamina of the drummer that plays it, and the guy in Dagger Threat is constantly grooving at a crazy speed, unreal playing. I’ve been watching one lad constantly getting up on stage, jumping off and crowd surfing and deftly running back to the middle to do some more two-stepping the moment he lands back on the ground.
Ending with a cover of Slipknot’s ‘Surfacing’ was a great touch that lit a real fire under the crowd’s arse. Nutty band, nuttier crowd, and there’s still so much more to go!
Alice Deejay’s ‘Better Off Alone’ was a great pick for switchover music and as expected we’ve got people busting shapes and singing along to it, standard!
Varials walk on to a monologue that seems to satirize their recent struggles prior to this lineup forming that just gets interrupted by their signature heavy as fucking balls sound. By now the venue is verging on full and there’s little room in the center for now until people start decking each other. Their new singer is doing an incredible job so far, absolutely insane deep gutturals and from what I can tell from everyone kicking the fuck out of each other in the middle, I’d say they approve too.
There’s barely anyone in the main crowd that isn’t moving by now, the centre of which is a blur of flailing arms and flying kicks. Surprisingly there’s little stage vaulting so far but I suspect we aren’t far off by this point. The floor is absolutely soaked with the remains of several errant beers after being launched from the grip of any unfortunate sod near the middle.
Varials are once again proving a force to be reckoned with and arguably are even stronger than my last encounter due to the replacements. A show-stopping technical hitch sees the crowd start to sing “broek uit op je hoofd” which for the non-Dutch is “put your pants on your head”; it’s a bit of a thing here but a good show of humour. Looks like we’re back on track after the issue gets hastily resolved, guitar issue or something, anyway back to the crowd going nuts.
Everyone’s every bit as fierce as Varials themselves and I’m actually somewhat surprised I’ve not seen anyone go down hard yet given how much people are smashing into each other. As we get towards the last half of Varials set we’ve finally got people regularly jumping up on stage and diving off without much thought for safety, we’re properly in full swing now. Absolutely unreal performance from Varials, on the top of their game right now.
With more singing along to various pop songs and ballads such as Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, it’s finally time for Boundaries to kick off their headline set.
Those deliciously heavy yet technical riffs hit hard and the crowd immediately launches into a frenzy, it’s go time in the church of the mosh. Discordant, rapid fire, but always, always heavy, Boundaries aren’t fucking around. It’s little wonder they’ve managed to cause such a stir so quickly, people are losing their minds and just want chaos.
The sort of style Boundaries brandish appeals to a real wide spread of the -core spectrum, but their live shows are the true gem. These are about as much of a raw throwback to the real early days of metalcore where the line between it and hardcore was much more fuzzy. Absolutely devastating delivery of their live show though, fantastic sound that balances every part of the band and doesn’t sacrifice the clarity of the more melodic parts at all. Every single chug is felt in my legs, every melody rings out loud and the response from the crowd is savage.
The few that are brave enough to be right at the stage seem to be weathering the storm that’s constantly going behind them, although taking the odd errant leg here and there with people diving off the stage. Their bass player takes a couple of hits to the face from the mic as some stray crowd surfers get onto the stage at awkward angles, taking it like a champ though!
Seeing a show like this is everything I had hoped for and more for a headline show, especially after getting a ‘preview’ when they subbed to Spite. Boundaries are a real gem of the core world to me, they get it so right on treading the fine line of being aggressively heavy but still managing to write brilliantly melodic hooks and riffs at the same time.
Truly a class act in every possible meaning, they’ve got something really good going right now that shows they can bring along filthy beatdown bands and more shiny metalcore bands alike and they’d fit right in. Absolutely phenomenal performance from Boundaries tonight that wraps up an evening of bloody disgustingly heavy stuff.
Music to two-step and punch your nan to.
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