ANTICULTURE SUMMER PARTY SHOWCASE
The bands on Anticulture Records all seem to have something in common. Firstly they must be damn intense and secondly if tonight’s show was anything to go by, they must also have singers with arms covered in tattoos. The place was quickly busy and that was probably due to the fact that us poor underpaid writers had access to a free bar here tonight and were determined to let what hair we had left down. Things were likely to get messy and it was very sensible that spirits on offer did not include Jack Daniels, I was going to play it safe and sip a cider or 10 whilst trying to focus and take a few photos and write about the bands here tonight.
Tangaroa were a band that I remember from the old Devil’s Church days, I mean how can you forget a band whose debut CD is called ‘Have You Ever Fucked A Black Metal Whore?’ Musically they are a crazed, twisting mass of polyrhythmic guitar riffs, intensely fragmenting and turning inside out and back to front on themselves. Singer Simon was as unhinged as the musical discord, stomping around, foot on monitor and barking at the audience like a kid deprived of both Ritalin and his afternoon sweets (or perhaps he had been denied access to the free bar). Deep-throating the microphone the screaming accentuated the mathematical instrumentation that if we were at guitar school would have been like learning a very high times table. One could only really take a deep breath and revel in the chaotic violence. ‘Vietnamese Killing Queens’ was a great title and the jagged riffing rained down like napalm, with the drumming pumped out like short round machinegun fire. They did a grand job and turned up the heat to a degree that would have made an Eskimo in the arctic sweat. It was the singer's birthday at midnight apparently; perhaps someone should put a bomb in his cake just to chill him out a bit.
Have you ever dropped your undercarriage over the porcelain and dumped a bloody Gutworm into the rancid water? This was probably the sort of sound you would make if you did and saw it swimming around desperately trying to get back up that cavity. Apparently they had a new guitarist who owned a very small penis! “Northern cunts” came the reaction from the crowd and the singer pointed out they were actually from the Midlands and they were playing the last song. Obviously this was a lie and ‘Sick Inside,’ although going down very nicely now would probably result in a violent rejection come the morning. I had been playing the excellent ‘Ruin The Memory’ album prior to the gig and Gutworm are on the verge of bringing out its successor ‘Disfigured Narcissus’ the title track of which was up next and sounded violent as a bear shitting in the woods and having to clean itself off with stinging nettles. There were times the vocals went into an almost gore-grind style akin to say Prostitute Disfigurement or Gorerotted and it certainly battered us senseless. The cerebral rage of closer ‘Scrape The Blood’ didn’t so much as bite the brains out the head as open the neck and suck them out with a straw, ouch!
Luckily the free booze run out so we would be able to watch Malefice with some degree of sobriety. Well that was till the label put more money behind the bar. This lot are getting a name for themselves touring with the likes of Sikth and soon to play with Arch Enemy. It was obvious that they had quite a few fans here cramming the front. What were the buxom lasses in nurses uniforms all about, perhaps to provide mouth to mouth resuscitation when the booze overwhelms? Wow the record label really has thought of everything. New album ‘Entities’ had gone down pretty well on this site and this Reading mob set out to “ruin the place” and went into things with some pulverising beats and nasty vocals from the bearded man-mountain singer Dale Butler. Unfortunately it became quickly evident that this lot were not to my liking and the words ‘heard it all before’ were jotted down along with some about this lot although fast and furious akin to the metalcore stylings of bands such as Chimaira and although I could easily see why they were so popular I just wasn’t buying into it. Not to say they didn’t put on a good performance, it was a tight one complete with a guest singer launching themselves into the melee at one point. Hell you cant like everything at the end of the day and although I would have preferred to see Interlock or Happyface headlining this show it was a good night which certainly showed that Anticulture records know how to throw a party and that all 3 bands new discs are well worth checking out.
Pete Woods
LONDON BORDERLINE 27/07/07