Screaming in an empty room

September Cross / Trucker Diablo / Common Bred Trigger - Rockd @ The Limelight, Saturday 12 September

I’ve been in and around the music business in this dirty ol’ town, on and off, for coming on a quarter of a century, and, I tell you, it often is a hard graft. Belfast is home to some of the most talented people on the planet, but sometimes it seems that no matter how loud you scream this fact from the rooftops, you might as well lock yourself in a padded cell and mumble quietly to yourself in the corner for all that people seem to listen.
My most recent foray into the darkness of the Limelight on a Saturday afternoon was yet further evidence of this: week after week the good folk at the Distortion Project knock their melts in bringing some of the finest rock and metal acts around to the venues historic stage – and for what? If my counting is right, about £100 in door receipts. It must be disheartening, not just for them, but for the bands as well – in this case, Common Bred Trigger, Trucker Diablo and September Cross.
CBT are visibly nervous (even faced with a virtually empty room), particularly vocalist/guitarist Karl. Their Nirvana/Pearl Jam inspired garage grunge sound is nevertheless tight and effective, boosted by big Anty’s doom-fused bass playing.
The name Trucker Diablo suggests Suvern good ol’ boys, and that is what this tight quartet deliver: ZZ Top-inspired blues metal fused with 21st century post-power-thrash sensibilities, a band soaked in whiskey and wimmin delivering ‘Black Rose’ era Lizzy a la Black Label Society, with attitude. Just a pity their blues-infused power rawk again was delivered to a ‘crowd’ of around 20 people.
September Cross are another outfit specialising in classic rock, this time from the more traditional metal school side of the house: sort of new wave of new wave of Belfast heavy metal, if that makes sense. ‘Insanity’ displayed their heavy early period Megadeth influence while ‘Devil Behind Blues Eyes’ introduced a similarly early Maiden vibe. An enjoyable romp.
More next week with Gacy’s Threads, By Any Means and Hero In Error. Let’s hope for a bigger crowd.

Metal-Attic-a

Escape Fail / Circadian / These Cities Surrender / Valkaine @ Auntie Annie’s

It’s Tuesday, night, it’s early September, it’s Belfast, and it’s upstairs in the only bar left in what was once the city’s entertainment heartland – the Golden Mile.

It’s also the first night of the ‘Weld’ tour, taking four different young up-and-coming metal bands around a series of small venues to get up and close and personal with their prospective audiences: in this case, unfortunately, a half-empty room made up of mums, dads, girlfriends and the other bands.

First up are Valkaine – opening the bill by virtue of a holler as to who soundchecked last? Their slow burning opener is full of promise – tight riffs, good steady rhythms, they get the basics right: they remind me of a young Sweet Savage, without Ramie’s madness.

Next up are high energy schoolboy hardcore high tops These Cities Surrender – their hair just long enough to maybe just about pass the school bell muster, they nonetheless headbang their way through a reasonable mix of accomplished covers and promising original material. Again, they get the basics right, but they definitely need more stage experience to give them more confidence, especially vocalist Jack, who kept turning his back to the albeit small but appreciative audience.

Circadian, by total contrast, ooze confidence from every pore of their rock ‘n’ roll bodies. Another young band, they ripped through an all too short set of classic heads-down riffage blended with prog rock sensibilities and pomp stadia pretensions: sort of Black Crowes meets Porcupine Tree meets The Answer with a healthy dose of Circadian thrown in. A very tight outfit with a very bright future.

Headliners Escape Fails bring things to a suitably rowdy finish, with short, sharp hardcore shots to the midriff, reminding me of Life Of Agony in their heyday. The only downside is the brevity of their set, perhaps mitigated by the fact that, counting the bar staff, there were only about two dozen people still in the room – and it was just about midnight!

I’ve already rehearsed my arguments about Belfast metal audiences – complaining about not having any good bands and then not supporting some of the rather fine exponents of the craft that we have labouring away on nights like this – so I’m not going to go over them again. But I would like to say one thing: Auntie Annie’s is one of those venues with a reputation for having an awful sound – tonight it was excellent.

swegony

Metallers fail to escape the Attic

Four of our wee country’s rising heavy metal bands will literally be ‘Up In The Attic’ tomorrow evening (Tuesday 8 September), on the first night of a combined tour of Norn Iron.
Escape Fails, Valkaine, Circadian and These Cities Surrender are appearing upstairs at Auntie Annie’s, with doors opening at 9pm and admission a mere £3 for the four bands.
Describing their sound as ‘faggotcore’, These Cities Surrender are four friends who came together as a band in February 2009 and recently recorded their debut EP, ‘We Are Forever’, which is released on 19 September.Circadian are a three-piece with the rather unusual (these days) combination of a drumming vocalist (or should that be singing drummer), who combine traditional power metal with prog influences – following the back road from Pink Floyd to Porcupine Tree, via Iron Maiden and Saxon.
Valkaine are another four-piece, based in Newtownards, where they formed in the summer of 2008. In January past, they recorded a five-track EP in Shabby Road Studios, mixed and mastered by Dave McCullough, which is available at gigs.
Headliners Escape Fails seem to be the most experienced of the bunch. Formed in September 2006, they describe themselves as "purveyors of post-hardcore", and earlier this year released their debut album, 'Love, Blood, Family, You', which they hope will help to cement their place as a force on the Irish scene. This haggard ol’ hack must admit to not having heard of any this quartet of acts until a few weeks ago, and I’ve only heard a few snippets on their respective Myspace sites, so I’m looking forward to checking them out tomorrow evening. See you at the bar, fellow metalheads.

Rammstein new single announced

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Gary Moore for Belfast return?

Pied Piper understands that some very serious moves are afoot to bring Gary Moore home to Belfast for the first time in almost 20 years. Although Gazza has turned his back on rock to concentrate on da blooze, this undoubtedly is good news for Belshaft geetar freaks starved of his talent for far too long. It's still very early days, and it definitely won't be on his forthcoming English tour, scheduled for November: it looks more likely to be around this time next year, with the Ulster Hall the most likely venue. Watch this space, because I have been assured of one thing - you WILL read it here first!

Y&T - told you so!

As exclusively predicted by PP back in July, San Francisco heavy metal legends Y&T have been confirmed to play Belfast's Spring and Airbrake on Monday 5 October. Support is from StormZone (not Keel as per rest of the UK tour). Although not listed on either TicketMaster or GetUrTicket, the gig is on the official Y&T site and the CDC Leisure site, and tickets are on sale at Katy Daly's - £16.50.