Carpathian, Verse, ComebackKid @ The Corner, Melbourne(22/01/09)

Tue 27th Jan, 2009 in Gig Reviews

Rhode Island, US band Verse brought forth the malice with words of ‘no war, no more war!’ Vocalist Sean Murphy emphasises these sentiments through guttural vocals. As to be expected, the venue is populated by ninety per cent hardcore male fans including the shaved heads, the tattoos, musos, to the usual gig enthusiast amongst the odd girl or two shuffling about the venue. Since the afternoon, the temperature had lowered to nineteen degrees, a much welcomed change. Alas, a Friday night crowd would have brought much more vigour and a higher ingestion of booze in comparison with this Thursday night’s assembly.

Between songs it was markedly quieter by a huge contrast, Sean and his band are philosophical and politically geared to say the least and their use of sound warping effects stands out and impresses. Verse are not afraid to share their thoughts on war and peace as they whisk their way through songs such as Story Of A Free Man which finished up their set with solid execution.

Prior to Comeback Kid arriving, 10:45pm saw the testing of instruments with a warm up Manson riff and RATM was in there too. It was a toxic shock when they hit the stage, as CBK seized our attention with a rabid display of volume and abrupt intensity. They caught us off guard with a smashing of noise to begin. Andrew Neufeld clutches the side of his head as songs are introduced with much exertion from these comparatively smaller stature fellows, albeit their malice brings forth a great edge to this Melbourne hardcore scene. The next song up is Insomniac, with Andrew asking ‘Melbourne fucking hardcore, where you at?’ with a twist of aggravation for the crowd’s rather mediocre response.

Congregations involving cigarettes and music conversation of prior bands abound outside between songs. Nicotine junkies inhale wafts of smoke, I walk back inside as Weezer’s music plays. CBK stimulate with their circle dance, as onstage excitability was at a zenith, as was the standing room. Arms and legs flail, Talk Is Cheap plays. CBK tell us of their fourth time here, there is some brief banter before False Idols Fall takes over with scratching and scathing screams from Andrew Neufeld that sounded like a wild cat in a fight, or in this case, a war of words.

The Wake The Dead album gets a work out with The Feeding as Neufeld turns and spits amongst lots of energy and jumps. This is the stand-out band of the night, as things escalate into a wild furor. A pit forms and guys use the stage as a launching pad, while putting most regular moshers to shame with their uncanny display of crowd surfing, wild thrashing and untamed acrobatics.

The force created by these guys by now has some behaving like crazed animals, the pit had formed, a hardcore pit that is. It’s like an animalistic ritual, still, it’s not much more than an encouraging clap and casual words for a casual Thursday. Some maniacal men do the windmill attack style of circle dancing, others stomp at invisible forces and various more battle it out for a few rounds of energetic contained rivalry as Carpathian play Spirals and further on, Permanent is added into the set as Martin Kirby gives us his latter thoughts on ‘depression being the number one illness’, a friend of the band falling victim to suicide recently. ‘We’ll see you next time Melbourne, we love you’ he adds.

The crowd was orderly, shuffling out in a civil fashion, most sober. Suffice to say, the gig on a whole didn’t seem to live up to expectations, a mediocre response mostly filtered through to a handful of patrons, especially those roundhouse kickin’, shoving, metalled up hardcore dancers that gathered in the middle.

CHECK OUT THE ACTION FROM THE GIG HERE