Tag Archives: Dan O’Brien

Corrosion Of Conformity – Hang The Bastard: Live at Academy 2, Manchester

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COC with Pepper UK tour poster 2015

 

The reunion of the classic Deliverance line up is hotly anticipated with a sold out crowd ready to greet Pepper Keenan and the rest of Corrosion Of Conformity.

Kicking the night off in fine style were London based bringers of sludgy despicable metal Hang The Bastard, and boy were they sludgy. Looking like the Born Too Late-era Saint Vitus (only with less convictions for holding onto Walter White’s stash) and sounding just as punishing, like a wave of grim descended upon the venue. Drawing mainly on their last album Sex In The Seventh Circle the five piece slam through their 45 minute repertoire of heavy lumbering riffs and ear piercing vocals against a constant wall of nothing but uninterrupted feedback. The simple stage set up of red lights throughout added to the hazy almost bleak red room from Twin Peaks feel to the evening, if only instead of weirdest the backwards talking dwarf was replaced by riffs that made your brain want to dribble out of your ears. The fact the PA in the venue was blisteringly loud didn’t half improve the bands’ set, making a hypnotic wall of sound that crumbled each time the bands rumbling bass sound kicked back in.

 

Playing a set comprised of In The Arms Of God and fan favourites Wiseblood and Deliverance this evening has a greatly celebratory feel from the off as ‘These Shrouded Temples’ and the stomping ‘Señor Limpio’ kick tonight into gear.

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Keenan grins from ear to ear as fans raise their fists and voices for ‘King Of The Rotten’ and underground hit ‘Albatross’ which threatens to take the roof off. Woody Weatherman clearly enjoys having his fellow riffmeister back in the fold, trading off licks while Messrs Dean and Mullin hold down the groove with an almost telepathic ease. There are plenty of surprises too. ‘Goodbye Windows’ is given its live debut and ‘Broken Man’ is aired for the first time in nearly twenty years. A stellar performance which receives a rapturous reception, the North Carolinians reputation as a jewel in the crowd of underground metal was cemented tonight.

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WORDS: ROSS BAKER AND DAN O’BRIEN

PHOTOS BY EMMA STONE PHOTOGRAPHY


Zoax – Is Everybody Listening?

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zoax

 

The London-based five piece’s second EP and first to be distributed through Century Media certainly shows promise and shows that there may be more to come from the band in the future, but in fact the EP only helps demonstrate that the band are not completely ready for the big time just yet.  If being thrust into the mainstream is to be compared to going out for a night on the town, lets say, a fellow rising British band such as Marmozets would be in the taxi on the way to club, whereas Zoax would still be at home trying to get their shoes on by comparison.

Is Everybody Listening? (Century Media) does have its positive moments though, the album is a frenetic and frantic beast throwing the listener all over the place in that diet Dillinger way that a band like Architects has pretty much perfected.  Make no mistake though this is certainly a lot less heavier than Architects, there’s more a frenetic almost indie tone to it, which shares a lot in common with Marmozets.

When listening to this, the album that kept coming to mind was the recent début album from Beartooth. It’s not as heavy or as in your face as that, though it certainly has one toe in the great sea of indie rock, though with a great connection between bottled insanity and sweet yet weighty choruses.

Overall, Is Everybody Listening? is certainly not going to set the world on fire and  is far from the finished product, but has enough about it that I would be shocked if this ends up the best release put out by this band by the end of their career.

More of a brief wind than the hurricane some had forecast it to be.

 

6.0/10

Zoax on Facebook

 

DAN O’BRIEN


Cold Snap – World War 3

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As the monolithic behemoth of a tour featuring Slipknot, Korn and King 810 strides across Europe at this moment, Cold Snap’s new album World War 3 (Eclipse) seems the perfect accompaniment. If you played this album to anyone in that crowd they would think, wow 2002 will indeed live forever.

Cold Snap is an amalgamation of everyone who seemed to be big at the time of the Japan/South Korea World Cup. It has the rhythm section and drum sound of White Pony (Maverick) era Deftones, the vocals of Corey Taylor circa self-titled Slipknot album (Roadrunner), and the overall industrial aggression of Obsolete (Roadrunner) era Fear Factory (in a time before they were).

At first the sound does have hints of the recent Djent sound, but then when the chundering riffs kick in you realise that this is indeed paying homage to Burton C. Bell and co rather than doing directly for the more current range of bands they could have taken influence from; if you listen to ‘Only One’ or ‘Me Inside’ you’ve pretty much heard the tracks on here.

If you liked balls to the wall Nu Metal without some of the despicable rapping then this maybe for you. There are plenty of downtuned moments dispersed in between the barrage of Dino Cazares off cuts that make up the majority of the album. You could never criticise the album for lacking punch or aggression, but there is a quarrel with the album lacking originality. This is a record whose influences all cut off around the same time people started to buy clothes that weren’t four sizes too big for them.

Overall, as a fan of the genre, World War 3 is an enjoyable listen but it doesn’t progress any further than being a massive nostalgia trip. If you at any stage wore a baseball cap and some shorts big enough to catch basketballs in them then this album will certainly take you back to that time, the only problem is that the original albums will already do that for you and are of incredibly better quality.

 

6.0/10

Cold Snap on Facebook

 

DAN O’BRIEN