Monday 16 April 2012

Coilguns, Earthship, Hush and DSDNT at Royal Park Cellars, Leeds Sunday 8th April 2012


The Royal Park Cellars in the depths of Headingley is quite plainly what it says, a cellar in the basement of a pub, in the middle of a flourishing student community. For a special Easter Sunday indulgence the cellar played host to four bands, whose hardcore theme made the atmosphere in the venue, quite literally, palpable.

Leeds band DSDNT play a pulverising, bass heavy form of hardcore which is given further depth with complex and elaborate guitar and drum lines. The vocals are as brutal as one would expect and the atmosphere deep in the bowels of the Royal Park appropriately confrontational and exhilarating. The size of the venue and the stage set up allowed for more than one vocalist this evening to get up close and leery with the audience, although this reviewer, nearing his fiftieth year, found it healthier to linger out of reach of the mosh pit…

Coming from a similar standpoint in terms of menace and confrontation are Glasgow based Hush. Again, the songs themselves are bass heavy and the guitar weaves in between with a pointed sound, leaving the vocalist to come barging amidst the audience and amuse them by hanging upside down from the ceiling.

With just enough time to disappear back up the stairs for refreshment between bands, the Berlin band Earthship were quick to take up the challenge set up by the previous two bands. Earthship, however, specialise in a more riff focused style of progressive music which lacks the violence of the previous acts but is no less devastating and invigorating. For the aficionado of the unyielding guitar motif that mesmerises and motivates the listener, Earthship are worthy of further investigation and support....



No comments:

Post a Comment