HATE GALLERY, S.N.O. & ZEN MOTEL
ISLINGTON BAR ACADEMY - 17/11/08
Opening act ZEN MOTEL from Essex are the “local support” this evening and play to a very sparse crowd, that appear to be mostly press and friends. This is a shame, the band battle on and put on a good show. Tracks like ‘21st Century Bitch’ and ‘Last Night of the English Pigs’ let them give it all, energetic stage moves coupled with a sense of humour makes for an entertaining watch and listen. I suppose you could call their musical style like ‘The Wildhearts’ meets some elements of ‘Therapy?’ coupled with recent additions to the scene is ‘Disarm’. Rock and roll mixed with some punk attitude. The mic stand of bassist Dan Palmer looks a little low, broken perhaps, nope this is his style, man you must get a backache! Good band, see them on tour with ‘Warrior Soul’ this December.
www.myspace.com/zenmotel
Now we have Swedish band S.N.O. (Stonewall Noise Orchestra) featuring ex-members of ‘Demon Cleaner’, members of ‘Greenleaf’ with some flirtations with ‘Dozer’. So with this as a historical starting point, bang, the bass, the fuzz, the vocals boom into action. The opening track started out and I could swear they were going to play ‘Children of the Grave’, but alas it was not, it was ‘Superfortress’ from their debut album ‘Vol I’ released in 2005. ‘Hollow Parade’ and ‘Venus Travel Agency’ give the venue a much more metal injection. The vocals courtesy of “Singe” do remind me of John Garcia (‘Kyuss’/’Unida’) mixed with Chris Cornell (‘Soundgarden’/’Audioslave’) with powerful precision. Musically, the band are as tight as hell, guitarist “Snicken” plays on his magic carpet/rug bare footed. Wonderful wah-wah pedal movements coupled with some trippy solo’s make me head bang quite a lot, hence little notes are written. One of their closing tracks, a personal favourite ‘Clone Baby’ from their latest epic album finishes things off perfectly, I for one did not want this set to end. Alas…check these guys out; if you’re in the mood for ‘Monster Magnet’ smoking weed with ‘Kyuss’, then this is perfect. The country of Sweden has provided the world with another top quality act.
www.myspace.com/zenmotel
www.myspace.com/stonewallnoiseorchestra
A slightly larger crowd welcomes headliners HATE GALLERY to the stage, however the bassist/singer Janne Jarvis does actually market their CD’s on sale at the merchandise stall but also mentions that most of the venue’s punters will be on the guestlist so they will already have it! Opening track ‘Truth About You’ comes up and bloody hell, the band is going nuts, lots of pent up testosterone here, and the tracks pretty good too! Not sure if there were sound problems, after the opening track but the microphone stand was thrown into the empty floor in front of the stage. It sounded ok from the crowd, perhaps it was the monitors. Ah well, these things happen. 
The whole show was very very energetic that sometimes took over the musical precision. But having said that, tracks like ‘Slave New World’, ‘The Idiots’ are pretty enjoyable. A strange cover version in the form of Primal Scream’s ‘Getcha Rocks Off’ gets showcased early and modified to a wonderful rock & roll punk infusion. Closing track ‘You Don’t Know’ had me a little worried…it’s a fast hateful track, and these gents have already knocked things over a few times, yep, the mic was on the floor again. An exhausting end to a great night of music.
www.myspace.com/hategallery
Paul Maddison
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