The Hell / Flesh Trench / The Deadlights / Toska [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 27/11/14]
Some shows are born special. Although I’m relatively new to The Hell, I’ve already become hopelessly addicted to their latest album (reviewed here) – so nothing short of a bad case of death was going to stop this show (the first of The Hell’s A Shitemare Before Christmas tour) from getting featured on TMMP.
Although they’re a brand-new band, opening instrumental prog-metallers Toska are already intimidatingly polished and tight. Think a mix of Karnivool, Porcupine Tree, and SikTh, and you’re on the right track. Toska’s music is beyond intricate – try to bob your head to it and the level of concentration required is likely to induce a brain haemorrhage – but if you allow yourself to get lost in its labyrinthine depths, your mind is guaranteed to be blown in a far more pleasurable (and much less lethal) way.
As giddy as this sounds, I’d go so far as to say that Toska’s set felt like witnessing the birth of the future of progressive metal. Add a vocalist into the mix, and Toska will be leaving their Periphery-aping peers in the dust in 2015.
After Toska’s barrage of airtight odd-meter riffs, The Deadlights were a welcome relief. Strained necks and battered brain cells were afforded a rest by extended instrumental post-rock epics full of stately melodies occasionally yielding to dark and heavy full-on riff sections. The downside to bands like The Deadlights is that once you’ve seen one band in their vein, you’ve seen them all – and I’ve seen a lot of bands plying near-identical wares in the past – but still, this was the perfect time and place for their music, and the lack of originality did nothing to detract from the raw yet uplifting impact of The Deadlights’ songs.
Regardless of the gig, Flesh Trench are always the odd ones out – with heavy emphasis on the word ‘odd’. Although this time around their show was far tamer than usual (no clown wandering through the venue bearing a tray of tabasco shots, for instance), Surrey’s favourite self-proclaimed “shit band” still set their drummer loose to simulate masturbation with a banana and throw the rest of the bunch into the audience. Most bands set out to rock you, but Flesh Trench just want to make sure you’re not low on potassium – and that (along with a signature song claiming that JFK was Lee Harvey Oswald’s father, and the kind of stage attire that would get you arrested on Halloween) is what makes them special.
As for The Hell, well…fuck me. It was exactly what I expected – and my expectations were very high considering how heavily The Hell have been hyped recently. Brutally heavy hardcore metal songs concerning buses, paedophiles, and sage advice about how to live your life in a world where everybody dies; crushing grooves; a frontman beating the front row into submission with a giant inflatable phallus; and a pit so fierce that it stopped after thirty seconds because everyone involved was exhausted – all of the above are core components of The Hell’s live show. If you were there, you know how awesome it was – and if you missed it, check out the poster at the top of this post for future tour dates.
Links
Flesh Trench on Facebook.
The Deadlights on Facebook and Twitter.
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