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BLACKCHORDS
Which brings us to our second act tonight. Seeing them on stage, I’m reminded of this hilarious live act I saw last year (let’s for the sake of argument call them “The Captains Of Industry”) and some timely advice I was given by an anonymous band member (who, let’s for the sake of incrimination, we’ll call “Mannix”). Before their show he warned me that the entire first half of their set would be “utter shite” (ie: it was fuck full of their slow songs), I should skip it and come back later for the vastly superior second half when they’re busily ripping off Interpol (*cough* all jokes aside, they’re awesome.. you should totally go see them!). Yup, if only someone gave me a similar warning about THIS band, this review here would’ve come out completely different. Blackchords. To their infinite credit they started off brilliantly and ENDED brilliantly. I hear elements of Sparta, Hard-Fi, The Editors and Franz Ferdinand here. There’s a distinct, darkly driven rhythm that really nails it; even “semi acoustic” it’s a mad buzz. But between these exceptional extremes (see the video you’ll know what I’m on about) you’re stuck with the sadsack middle section; where you’d much rather be off at the bar getting hideously drunk instead. Especially when your friends at said “bar” (hi Simone!) are busily sending you a string of SMS’s reminding you just how much this band blows a goat and how you’d much rather be off drinking with them (I know.. don’t remind me!). Still, maybe it boils down to personal preference. Maybe it’s just how they’ve arranged the setlist. If you love Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas, Creed and Coldplay; if you LOVE a good “power ballad”, there’s plenty to love about Blackchords here. Clearly I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.. I know! There IS an earnest delivery here, a heartfelt honest plea in the acoustic twang, it’s powerful stuff, and in no way am I clawing my own face off (whilst attempting to take all these photos no less) wishing I was anywhere but here. Still if it helps, their lead singer Nick Milwright here DOES bear a striking resemblance to Charlie (aka: Dominic Monaghan) out of Lost, and I think we can ALL agree that Lost is freakingly awesome. No shit, how good is the fifth season!? how ridiculously badass is it? if you’re downloading it like I am you’d know just what I’m on about. If you’re still watching it on TV, it only gets better.. trust me! Yes I realise I’m laughably off track here.. and for good reason. Blackchords is a band you’d wanna appreciate with a short attention span. If you do, you’ll dig ‘em fierce. If not, blame Eddie Vedder for fucking it all up.

QUIET CHILD
Which brings us to our next act, and conversly, a band that’s best appreciated with a LENGTHY attention span (or better yet some psychotropic drugs to go along with it). No shit, find a spot in the middle of the floor, don’t worry about anyone else around you, park your arse (lotus position optional), pack that bong, fire it up and enjoy the magical mystery tour they take you on; it’s like nothing else! Yup, they’re truly THAT kind of band. A band you’ll appreciate for the “album” more than the “single”. A band that takes you on a harrowing journey through all nine layers of hell “Dante’s Inferno” style and yet still makes it magical. They’re Quiet Child. Or as I like to call them “Silent Bob Sings The Blues”. They may only have five songs in their entire setlist (believe me I checked), but they’ll happily take an entire lifetime to articulate each and every one of them on a stage tonight (and you’ll want to hang onto every note along the way!). Still, in sound, they’re deceptively simple to describe (almost annoyingly so if you’re like me and prone to writing rambling reviews that fill entire paragraphs). You could almost write it in a single sentence. They’re Tool meets Muse. They’re Hans Zimmer meets Helmet. Elaborating further still, they’re all the finest nuances of Matt Bellamy and Maynard James Keenan (and perhaps a hint of Chino Moreno) channelled through one hairyarse gimp of a lead vocalist: who looks a whole lot like Kevin Smith but sounds eerily like the otherworldly voice of an angel. It’s disturbing I know. I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears, foaming excessively over the brilliance that is Peter Spiker’s ethereal pipes. You’ll find them out here in force tonight, pilgrims from afar, praying to whatever crass combination of chromosomes and sinus medication produced such a geekly freak of genetics. Quiet Child. As much as it’s all about Pete, it’s also about the rest of the band. I know, good luck finding them out there: they all dress in black and hide ever so well in plain sight but they’re the ones responsible for conjuring up this witches brew. You can hear it in Jason Mavrikis’s praying mantis guitars and Brent Carraill’s pendulum swing on the bass. They drive each song with a chugging momentum, like stabbing stakes into a vampire well dusted; like Bram Stoker’s Dracula. You can hear it in Paul Backman “the blacksmith”, as he keeps those fires churning and the steel blades spinning on the drums. You hear it all combine in an infinite intricate ways for twelve or more minutes at a time. Wow, no shit! I’m actually surprised I had THAT much in me tonight! So often I go to a gig like this filled with a million and one insane ideas and leave a “tabula rasa” like a babbling infant, in effort to explain it. Yup, to their infinite credit tonight, Quiet Child are everything you could ever ask for from a band that clearly rips off Tool so openly, and yet with none of the nasty side effects!

SYDONIA
Which brings us to our headliner, the culmination, and also the utter confusion; as I’ve been ducking back and forth between here and the bar busily getting drunk with Joe and Simone all night (and if you don’t remember WHO these two idiots are by now, you’ll be sure to get a hilarious reminder later on in this episode). Seriously, how can I possibly form the phrases to articulate just what this band is when I’m THIS blitheringly idiotic? Do I even have any words left in the English language, or maybe something in Middle English? Middle Earth perhaps? I know, I can see the resemblance too! Yup, there’s a reason why so many of our male species have such an affinity with all things fucked up sci-fi and fantasy. Given near enough liquor consumed and you too will either adopt a Scottish accent, a gutteral Orcish dialect or speak fluent Klingon. Which is just as well when you’re faced with a headlining act quite like Sydonia. They’re a band that screams the collected works of J.R.R. Tolkien like no other tonight. Not just in their lead singer Dana Roskvist’s eerie resemblance to a towering elf (he’s Scandanavian, so that’s pretty much a given) but also in the tribal drumming of both guitarist Sam Haycroft and bassist Adam Murray when they unleash the goblin armies in songs rather like this one (which I recorded last time they toured here). As such they’re prog-metal very much drawn both from the bucket bong philosophies of Led Zeppelin IV and the blackening shred of Mudvayne, Soulfly, Helmet and Sepultura. It’s an insane dichotomy I know: the simian and the sapient within us all smashing beer cans into each other’s foreheads in chorus as they sing along. And yet the way they perform it all they somehow make it sound so aristocratic and damn near articulate!? Yup, that’s Sydonia! Granted they were off to a grisly start tonight, when barely seconds into their second song their drummer Sean Bailey stabbed through his kick drum (would you believe they gaffered the fuck out of it?) but after that brief setback and some insane flashing lights (that were next to impossible to photograph through) they ruled us all with an iron fist. They came to the Crown & Anchor and they conquered. They were the sounds of both cavemen and spacemen battling it out for supremacy. They were a mechanised Panzer tank assault. They were a tendon snapping, itchy trigger fingers fuck full of primal rage. They were an oil painting with a half naked woman in battle gear astride a dragon steed with a flaming sword plunged deep into a blackhole sun with guitars buzzing. Their lead singer also came up with the funniest joke of the night, when he gestured to the crowd “hey.. what’s this?” mouthed both of his palms in turn and replied: “it’s Jesus chewing his nails”. Awesome! I’m drunk as all hell, the walls are spinning, I’m tripping balls, and duuude? I swear there’s nowhere else I’d wanna be!

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