By Jase Walker
Keeping a weekend absolutely jam packed with music going, tonight I’m back in De Helling in Utrecht to catch another absolutely stacked lineup in the form of a tour headed by Resolve, along with Cane Hill, Acres, and Half Me. It’s been a good year for metalcore tours so far and this is just another incredible entry into it!
It’s a bit of an early start all things considered the doors are opening at 18:00 and Half Me getting into the stage at 18:30, but there’s been a pretty solid turnout for tonight’s opening act.
With a bit of a bizarre intro track, this immediately gets broken by oppressive noise from the guitars and straight into an obscenely heavy groove. Mixed vocals, earth shattering drums and relentless grooves that pound your chest and legs, this is home turf for me and Half Me are crushing it.
These are way heavier live than I could have anticipated, this is the sort of stuff that metalcore is capable of when your sound guy doesn’t suck and do the whole “turn guitars and bass down and snare/bass drum to 150 per cent” thing. This is the sort of performance that is truly the becoming of a band that will be doing insane bigger headline shows before long, and not only that because of their particular style it means they could very easily fit into many different tour lineups. They’ve got the brutality and heaviness to not be out of place on a deathcore lineup but the catchiness to fit in some of the more “brighter” metalcore lineups such as tonight. The crowd’s into it, they’ve got a solid amount of people here and they’ve properly kicked this show off tonight in style.
Next up is one of my favourites, Acres! The drums are booming a bit but other than that it’s a great start to their show with “Burning Throne”. I love the atmospheric approach to their music, much more focus on melody overall. Another favourite off the new album for me, “Into Flames”, with its haunting melodic hook and synths, love it. I feel like this set is a bit shorter than expected though, the singer announces two songs left (this was actually wrong) and I feel like we’ve barely had three so far? I’m a bit bummed about that but it’s not like the show hasn’t been great anyway!
‘Hold On’, another massive banger from their ‘Burning Throne’ album with its emotionally charged chorus is another welcome entry. Finishing up with ‘My Everything’, ‘Nothing’ and ‘Lonely World’ brings to a close my very much needed Acres fix. Acres’ style of heavily emotional metalcore reminds me a lot of the likes of Being As An Ocean and Casey, pain that translates into beautiful music. But wait, seems they miscounted the remaining songs as we get God I wish I could see a headline show sometime soon.
These stage changeovers are fast as hell, I’ve barely had time to get a beer before Cane Hill loudly announced the start of their show. The last time I saw them they suffered from my earlier mention of terrible sound work but not tonight, oh no, Cane Hill are absolutely devastating this time round. When you’re playing groovy metalcore like Cane Hill do, it’s so very important for the guitars to be heard and I can hear every single little detail tonight.
The crowd is completely engaged as well, the slightest provocation from the singer sees everyone obeying his words. For ‘Midnight Sun’, “this is the new Cane Hill” the singer states and that initial riff is nothing short of outrageous filth! There’s nothing I like more than a massive divide between lighter sections and straight up devastation and this song has it in heaps. I’ve not seen a gig where there’s been literal spliffs passed to the singer but whoo, Netherlands right?
It’s great seeing a circle pit warm up before the songs even started too, the audience isn’t fucking about tonight any bit as much as Cane Hill are. This set has been a real rebirth moment for me about how I feel about Cane Hill and it shows how much of a lasting impression a bad show can leave on you. I am kicking myself for not actually trying to give Cane Hill another shake after that show years ago, by comparison this particular set has been staggeringly good. Their ability to fuse post-hardcore elements, with metalcore and leaning super heavy into the face melting riffs has astounded me tonight. Cane Hill have completely taken me by surprise by how incredible they’ve been tonight and I will be paying my penance by rinsing their back catalogue for the next few weeks.
With a bit of a longer changeover compared to the rest of the show, it’s now time for Resolve. An act that has gone onto truly forming their own identity within the scene and seeing them headline a show like this is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now.
Keeping in with the rest of the bands on tonight’s show, Resolve sound incredible, serious credit to whoever is doing sound as it’s been a stellar job. ‘Bloodlust’, as the name implies, seeds the crowd getting properly started going nuts and smashing into each other and I can feel the forceful bass rumbling through the floor and shaking my legs. Resolve are tearing this place a new one exactly how I knew they would and it’s such an incredible eight. The crowd is right, the sound is great, the setlist is designed to go hard, Resolve have everything firing off and it’s brilliant!
‘Beautiful Hell’ still sounds every bit as great as it does the first time, I do wish the synths were a little bit louder as I find the layering they add really makes it. ‘Seasick Sailor’, another huge banger from their catalogue and happy to see it’s still in the set! Clearly a crowd favourite too as I can clearly hear them singing along to it!
All the way to the encore the energy levels haven’t dipped a bit, they’ve kept it going at 110 per cent, which is impressive considering this is the end of the tour. There’s seldom been a moment where this show has had a moment to breathe and it’s exactly what you want out of a show like this. Resolve have shown on this tour that they’ve got what it takes to run a long headline tour. From the shows I saw before as them doing opener sets to their now headline sets, Resolve have put their mark on the European metalcore circuit and for good reason.
Tonight’s show was even better than I thought it’d be, I was wanting a solid Saturday night of good metal and what I got served was a four course meal of Michelin star quality music. Got three more days of gigs left to go, let’s have it!
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