Gigs

Gig Review: Walls Of Jericho + The Red Chord + All Shall Perish + Cataract + Animosity

[Venue: Camden Underworld, London]
[Date: 28 September 2008]

The Hell On Earth tour has gotten itself a reputation for laying waste to the tiny venues it visits. This year’s line-up is especially heavy with death-dabblers The Red Chord and Animosity teaming-up to compliment the return of Walls Of Jericho and All Shall Perish from last year’s bill. However, things for this London show don’t appear to have gone quite to plan. First, the last-minute venue change from the larger Islington Academy to the notoriously brutal Camden Underworld throws a spanner in the works and then there’s a spot of line-up juggling as Evergreen Terrace suddenly go missing. Heck, the thought forms that perhaps they’re thrashing out their set to an empty Academy.

As we enter the fray, San Fran’s Animosity (4/6) are just firing up their kit and the first surprise is that the levels aren’t yet at their full eardrum-perforating potential. Actually, the top-end is getting rather covered by the bass-heavy emphasis but the highly-energetic frontman Leo Miller, with his tightly-permed crop and “Yes We Can” Barack Obama tee, is doing his utmost to crank it up notch by notch - his throat slowly glowing redder and his neck muscles more and more pronounced. At the end of each song he thrusts two thumbs up - one more than the pictured Obama can manage. The four seconds of ‘Evangelicult’ is always good for a wry smile and the absolutely monster double-kick on ‘The Black Page’ gets heads banging in time. The band are quick to gauge their audience and leap on the opportunity as Miller yells “This is for all you metalheads out there.” The opening bars of Pantera’s ‘Walk’ follow and the crowd respond before the band cut them down and throw themselves into something a little more abrasive.

Fedi Carminitana is concerned that all the Cataract (4/6) fans may be biding their time in the bar out back expecting them to appear later in the bill. “We are not The Red Chord, we are not The Red Chord” he tunelessly sings as he does his pre-set mic checks. He needn’t have feared. All eyes are glued to his face as soon as the band open up. Prowling across the stage and clambering onto the monitors, he glares at us from beneath his peaked cap. It’s like facing a pit-bull and there is an impulse to shrink away a little as he barks out lyrics. There are large amounts of bass reverb ricocheting round the room and it sounds like the drum toms have doubled up with a nasty echo on them. Slowly the sound improves and when you’ve got monster guitar riffs piling in over the top it matters little. Carminitana uses the pauses in songs to snap at the crowd and soon has a big circle-pit of two-steppers opened up. The effort only intensifies his performance and it’s not long before he’s giving them the middle-finger before running it slowly across his throat. The crowd are loving the speeding thrash of the title-track from the new album, ‘The Separation Of Life And Time’, but it’s not until ‘Blackest Hour’ that they really let loose.

It needs a band to really slay and with ‘Never Again’ from the new album, ‘Awaken The Dreamers’, Cali’s deathcore grinders All Shall Perish (6/6) prove to be that band. The crowd go nuts (the floor suddenly seems packed) as little ripples of rapid fingering lead batter their ears and the brutish surgical strike of an ending, along with Hernan “Eddie” Hermida’s immense lung capacity and flamethrower delivery, threaten to burn them clean off. The frontman is mauled as he leans down into the fans to belt out ‘Eradication’. Sleep Terror’s Luke Jaeger, the band’s bare-chested, blonde-dyed, touring / session guitarist, has obviously been doing his homework because he has no trouble with the older material. In fact, Chris Storey decides it’s time to give him a stagetest and the two guitarists are given the space to trade manic sequences of frantic riffing. The fingerwork is so rapid that they blur and at times it’s easy to mistake five fingers for six or seven; the collective gasp as 300-odd jaws simultaneously hit the floor is audible and the applause that follows… deafening. There’s just time for ‘Deconstruction’ and a minor distraction, as two girls mount the stage and flash their wares, before the band are closing up and the constant pit finally turns and begins to flood towards the bar for a good watering. Awesome.

The Red Chord (3/6) shuffle on but the first time we realise is when the stage music dies. “Oh. Where’d the tunes go?” whines a mind-bogglingly pumped Guy Kozowyk before letting his larynx rip asunder. It’s loud and it’s lethal but is it all that effective? There’s little pattern to the music for the crowd to latch in on; it’s all broken sequences of death vocal, and crushing breakdowns. I find myself admiring Greg Weeks’ biker ‘tache and the hefty beard of “Gunface” Mike McKenzie. Perhaps the circle-pitters are too; obviously still wasted from All Shall Perish. Kozowyk decides to find out. “You look tired, London?” he exclaims. Then McKenzie picks someone out in the crowd. “You tired?” “Yeah”, is the response. “Why?” asks McKenzie. “Cos everyone else is!” comes the retort. “Shit. You’re making this guy tired!” Cue much laughter and the uneasy impasse between band and audience is broken. Suddenly we’re into ‘Dread Prevailed’ and the huge reaction to it sees a cavalcade of crowd surfers and stagedivers. Sadly though, the quality of sound still isn’t there and the vocal gets drowned amid the ruckus.

Cue the headliners. Walls Of Jericho (5/6) have the legendary Candace Kucsulain and her vocal is awesome. I’d never heard it in a live setting before and it instantly allayed my fears that it wouldn’t match the raw aggression, low-end grunt or scarring quality usually associated with the best hardcore vocalists. Fuck, she blows the vast majority out of the water! The photos that accompany this review prove she’s damn easy-on-the-eye to boot. Redhead, low-cut top, and the predominantly male crowd spend every second sucking her in; arms reach out from all quarters. But, hey, the music that accompanies that mega-vocal is pretty sick too. The double-kicks fly from drummer Dustin Schoenhofer and the interwoven guitars snap and spit great swathes of white-hot noise into the ether. The shiny-domed guitarist Mike Hasty mouths every lyric as he trades riffs with Chris Rawson on the other side of the stage. Sadly, Hasty’s guitar suffers a sudden technical malfunction and goes missing for a whole song before a suitable replacement is found. Never mind. I still have my abiding memory of the gig - Kucsulain and The Red Chord’s Kozowyck screaming blue murder in four words. ‘Fuck… The… American… Dream…’ Hell On Earth, indeed.

More Photos

Band Links:
Walls Of Jericho

The Red Chord

All Shall Perish

Cataract

Animosity

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