Three songs in, while his bandmates fiddled knobs to solve some kind of minor technical issue, Dyscord vocalist James Herbert reminded the small HQ crowd of the evening’s agenda: “We will play metal and you will run around in circles and hurt each other”. The next song saw the forward half of the audience doing just that – in stark contrast to the polite head-nodding exhibited during the previous quarter hour. Good on you Dyscord, for taking on the very serious responsibility of educating Perth’s youth on proper metal show behaviour.
The hour-long set was filled with material from the recently released full-length debut album Dakota, including the title track, opening number Noble on Paper and cryptically-named thrasher, Masika and Haemon. Not unexpectedly, the night ended with the album’s closing track, The Logical Conclusion.
The band themselves were in fine form, with both guitarists and bassist manning the front area of the stage, much hair flying. Guitarist Matthew Herbert was a particular stand out, for both his intense playing and the fact that he didn’t stop smiling the entire show. The frontman chose to stay mostly behind the axe-wielding brigade, the stage at HQ being a bit cramped for a five piece, but made his presence heard with some ferocious death-core vocals. The rare clean vocal lines from Herbert sound much more natural and less forced when performed live than they do on the recording.
With tours coming up around WA, the east coast of Australia, and then New Zealand later on this year, Dyscord are making their mark on the metal scene. Watching them give just as much for a crowd of 100 kids as they do for punters at larger shows is a sure sign that they deserve every success.
