By Jase Walker
For once I’m quite glad that I’ve opted to get out of the warm weather to sit in a darkened box of a room because at last it’s got bloody air-conditioning, I’m absolutely melting. Running on probably less sleep than is necessary and keeping the engine running by energy drinks and pure spite, I’m back in Utrecht for Infected Rain. Unbeknownst to me until literally yesterday, my buds in Skarlett Riot happen to be their support act; it’s been a hot minute since I got to see them last and I’m pretty damn excited about that. I am very very ready for some face melting metal with incredible vocals: this is my comfort zone right here.
The light suddenly turns full beams in a deep Scarlet (ha!) and Skarlett Riot kicks things off, it’s time to get this show going! Unfortunately all I can hear is the drums with a small bit of vocals from where I am so not sure what’s going on with the sound here. I’m a bit disappointed because I know they’re better than this but sadly the moment the double bass pedal drumming hits then it completely drowns out the guitars and most of the vocals. I’m really having to focus on what the guitars and bass are doing as I can definitely tell that they’re there but the mix is so muddy that other than the odd bit of lead melody work I honestly can’t make out what they’re actually doing. For what it’s worth, the crowd is getting into it and is feeding the energy back to the band.
Moving just past the halfway point the overall sound seems to have been fixed now with a far better balance but it’s a shame how it’s taken most of their set for the sound desk to fix it. By now they’re playing to a pretty full room as people have filtered in from outside and Skarlett Riot aren’t taking any chances to capitalise on it. Finishing off with their biggest single to date, “Human” wraps up a bit of a frustrating set because I know that they sound a lot better than they did for most of tonight’s set. I hope the rest of the tour goes well for them, they put the work in and deserve the success.
The hues of the lights take on a much more intense green light as the ambient music plays prior to Infected Rain taking the stage. I can feel the excitement building up as I’ve been wanting to see these for a while now. They hit that first riff and sound absolutely monstrous, shaking my legs and arse from the force of the bass and drums alone. I hope the crowd wakes up a bit because badass riffery like this deserves a bit more movement than what they’ve got so far. Their singer’s unclean vocals are raw and cutting as well in addition to blistering riffs and crushing grooves, Infected Rain are off to a cracking start. We’re finally starting to see some movement in the crowd as well much to a couple of people’s disapproval but don’t hang around the middle of a metal show if you don’t want to get dragged into it!
Admittedly I didn’t expect Infected Rain to go so damn low on their riffs and fully jump into Meshuggah territory, I had them pegged as much closer to Symphonic stuff. I am absolutely not moaning about this though, more of that downtuned fuckery please, I need to gurn more than that one guy on the nightclub video from Preston. Now that the crowd is finally properly awake now, the more bloodthirsty ones have moved to the centre to join the others and we’ve had a few crowd surfers get on stage and then (without warning) dive back onto the crowd which has ruffled a few feathers. Honestly I’m already thinking about the next time I’m going to see these in Tilburg at the start of next year, it’s already in the calendar!
I’ve noticed the Meshuggah inspired riffs keep popping back up and I’ve not been this interested in a while in a band’s manner of weaving in so many proggy elements that seem to be so cleverly accessible. I adore their singers ability to jump between styles so effortlessly and the fact that even the cleans stay remarkably strong when the rest of the band is hammering out some real filthy grooves is top tier stuff. This live show has really put it together that Infected Rain sound like the best parts of Korn, Meshuggah and Jinjer all put together.
Infected Rain go hard as fuck and know when to just ease off on the gas a little bit before stamping down on the accelerator with the force of the Hulk himself to deliver some real grit. These have really impressed tonight, I think the crowd might have been a bit low energy in hindsight but there’s been a solid amount of pit shenanigans.
See you again in Tilburg in January, you’re not keeping me away!
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.