Darkest Hour, Carnifex,Lynchmada, Signal The FiringSquad @ The Hi-Fi, Brisbane(5/01/11)

Tue 11th Jan, 2011 in Gig Reviews

While Tuesday is never the most ideal night to hold a decent sized metal show, the first local support act Widow The Sea fire off a blistering set regardless, and while vocalist Colin Jeffs is the band’s most obvious focal point, its drummer Cameron Hui who serves as the five piece’s backbone to the rampaging pace of tracks like The Hellbound Heart. The mix isn’t the best for the band however, with their blitzkrieg attack becoming slightly neutered by the messy sound, but it’s still an impressive 25 minute showcase for the band’s intense breed of technical death metal regardless.

Probably the heaviest thing to ever come out of the Sunshine Coast Signal The Firing Squad have gone from strength to strength recently, with tunes lifted from their recently released debut album Earth Harvest sounding absolutely gargantuan tonight. With blastbeats and breakdowns to spare, coupled with frontman Kyson Shepherd’s tortured screams and growls, it’s an airtight set throughout. The axework of guitarists Ryan Guest, Hayden Foot, and bassist Byron Silich is equally complex and crushing, with the unison swept legato runs of Origins causing slack jaws en masse, while the violence of Birthing the Naught is strong enough to level a small country. 2011 will bring big things for this act, mark this reviewer’s words.

Boasting the first clean vocals of the night is Lynchmada, who take advantage of their half an hour set time by cramming in as many tunes as humanly possible into an almost gapless performance. Thanks to the high energy of singer and founding member Joel Harris and a sound that is more akin to the headliners than the groups before them, the band wins over a large amount of punters with their classic thrash/groove metal combination.

On record they might suffer greatly from an almost terminal case of ‘too-many-breakdowns-itis’, it’s in the live setting that Carnifex really come into their own. Opening with older favourite Slit Wrist Savior, the windmill headbanging talents of guitarists Cory Arford and Ryan Gudmunds’ are on show straightaway, but the mood is somewhat hindered by bassist’s Fred Calderon gear failing almost straightaway and the four stringer’s consequent struggle to get it working again for a third of their set. That being said however, the first date on the their debut Australian tour is far from a letdown, with the diehards in the front screeching along to every word of closers Hell Chose Me and Lie To My Face.

As one of the founding fathers of the metalcore sound and scene, Washington’s Darkest Hour have gone rather unsung throughout their fifteen-plus year reign, but their unique mix of hardcore, metal, punk and hard rock continues to influence legions of bands in dozens of subgenres. Tonight’s show is a celebration of sorts of their impressive career, with songs taken from six of their full length albums, as varied cuts like For The Soul Of The Savior, With A Thousand Words To Say But One and The Tides sound massive thanks to a much improved mix and a fantastic guitar sound.

To be honest though the amount of crowd movement is fairly disappointing, and despite the constant call for more bodies from vocalist John Henry, the mosh remains full of gaps. Drummer Ryan Parrish tears around his tiny kit he’s been possessed by the spirit of Keith Moon, while the sizzling guitar work of Mike Schleibaum and relatively new member Mike Carrigan Theobald is hard to take your eyes off. Closing with the awesome one-two punch of Demon(s) and Convalescence causing the final shout alongs of the night, Darkest Hour have proven that while they may not be as huge as some of the act’s that they’ve inspired, they have mountains of talent and passion. Here’s to another decade and a half.