By Tim Bolitho-Jones
Let’s get this out the way right now; Sunday night gigs suck. Aside from the transport links being rubbish, there’s the ever-present knowledge that another work week is looming, and it can make it harder for bands to thrive onstage. So, it’s refreshing to see the Engine Rooms coming alive tonight for the Never Say Die tour, even during the later hours when the audience starts to thin out. This package of seven bands is sponsored by the Impericon clothing company and focuses primarily on the metalcore world. It’s become a fixture of the Autumn gig season these past few years and there’s a lot of baseball caps and flesh tunnels in attendance tonight.
And while the aforementioned transport links meant we arrived too late to catch Great American Ghost and Alpha Wolf, we made it down just in time to pick up a pint before seeing Polar go off like a hand grenade. The London five-piece have been kicking around for a while now but have really come into their own since the recent ‘Nova’ album and they’re ferocious tonight. Frontman Adam Woodford is a frenetic focal point, bellowing his lyrics with vein bursting passion and the floor erupts into a blur of flailing limbs. The guest vocals from Ellie Price (on loan from Signals) are a wonderful touch and it’s a dizzying, fist-pumping start to the night.
Our Hollow, Our Home next are greeted with a thunderous applause from the moment the lights dim. The five-piece are local heroes and only a couple of weeks ago headlined the 1865, a similar sized-venue less than a mile from here, so their devoted faithful are out in force. They often get classified as melodic hardcore and while that’s certainly an appropriate label, it does somewhat understate just how heavy they are when they want to be brutal. The choruses are spellbinding rays of sunshine yes, but the nastier parts are so damn gnarly they could make Despised Icon wince. There are circle pits aplenty and crowd surfers spilling over the barrier, so despite at least half the songs revolving around the bereavement process, it still feels like a great big party. The title track from ‘Hartsick’ is bad ass too.
King 810 next take things in a much darker direction and they prove to be the anomaly of the night. They are an intimidating and oppressive act, with no between-song banter or crowd interactions to speak of and while this makes them seem very distant, there’s still a large number of folks here revelling in every moment. ‘Fat Around The Heart’ in particular goes over very well and frontman David Gunn’s half-screamed, half-whispered vocals are certainly unique. They didn’t do much for us but it certainly connected with at least half the people here.
In Hearts Wake, on the other hand, are way more in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from Impericon tours. Like an Australian equivalent of Stick To Your Guns, they’re a vibrant and honest metalcore band and they get the whole room smiling. Their interest in environmental issues is nailed to the mast with a particularly raucous ‘Earthwalker’ and the muscular riffage keeps the pit swirling. They pack a serious message but deliver it with big choruses, chunky breakdowns and up-tempo, life affirming songs like ‘Warcry.’ By the time the last notes ring out, singer Jake Taylor looks chuffed to bits and you get the distinct impression they’ll be headlining next time.
As the smokers head outside for a cigarette break and queues form at the bar though, it becomes apparent that the Engine Rooms isn’t as busy as it was a few hours earlier. When Crystal Lake walk on for their headline slot, the venue is half-empty and it’s a dispiriting sight. Any doubts on the Tokyo band’s suitability for the top spot though are shattered in seconds as Ryo Kinoshita and co deliver a jaw-dropping performance. The energy has never really dropped tonight but Crystal Lake take it to the next level, watching them is the musical equivalent of having five Japanese fitness instructors driving you on to increasingly ridiculous levels of physical exertion. All the mobile members criss-cross the stage multiple times during the first song and Ryo dives into the crowd, bellowing into the faces of the people bearing him aloft.
‘Hail To The Fire,’ ‘Machina’ and ‘Agony’ are all furious metal core pit igniters and even with end-of-weekend fatigue setting in, it’s impossible not to get swept up in it. The venue might be only half-full, but the people who’ve stuck around absolutely love it. There’s probably a better way of expressing this but put simply, Crystal Lake are fucking blinding and one of the best live bands the Engine Rooms has seen all year. It’s an intense, wild-eyed plunge into a chaos party that finishes with Ryo crowd surfing (for the fourth time) to ‘Apollo’ and being greeted with near religious fervour. They’re the first Asian band to ever headline an Impericon tour and they set the bar high. Give it an album or two and they’ll be huge, because that was immense.
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