*Contributed by our Australian partners METAL-ROOS2015, another balmy spring evening and it's time for round 2 of the Metal United Down Under show in Canberra!
Arriving not long before the first act was playing, the crowd was mounting & the drinks were flowing. The first band in question, Dubbo's porngrind merchants PENETRATED, took to the stage & began pimping out their old school, flesh-crawling style of grindcore. Rattling along at a steady pace, these guys (and girl) got the night going well and truly. Their sound is akin to earlier bands like GORGUTS and BRUJERIA. Bone crushing hi-tempo blast beats, guttural unearthly growls, lots of thick low end and Luchador masks! A recipe well received by the growing crowd.
Following them onto the stage was local behemoths IMPERILMENT. Unveiling their new vocalist unto the crowd, the guys got the crowd jumping & steaming along from the get go. Their new singer fit the bill perfectly, with a balanced mix of melody and sandpaper, his voice complemented the dynamics of the music behind him quite well. These guys have a mountainous sound and all their songs were precise in the delivery, clarity is certainly the order of the day with these gentlemen & their stage performance was great.
After that was AVASCULAR NECROSIS, a local black metal outfit. They set into a blistering array of tracks, coming off more like older bands like Bethlehem or Morbid, with a steady thrash influence. The tormented, other-worldly vocals sat atop a seething maelstrom of spiked guitars, low-end malice and a drummer that just doesn't know the meaning of 'calm down bro'. Atmospheric and truly entertaining, these guys cavorted about the stage with a devil-may-care attitude that didn't stop until the last twisted strains were squeezed out of their instruments.
Following this was another local band
, CHUD. No messing about with these guys, they dived headlong into the fray and kept the blood flowing freely. With little time between songs to recover, they just kept belting out an impressive series of tracks that had the punters enthralled completely. Including some newer tracks into their set, the thunderous and absolutely pummelling sound these boys delivered was devastating to the last. Their presence and performance made all the more imposing with the stage completely saturated in red light, they prowled about the stage like hungry wolves.
The last band for the evening was the mighty TROLLGASM from Dubbo. Excellent and very entertaining, they mix folk, death metal and thrash into a well-woven tapestry rich in myth and folklore (and Ale !!). These guys really can turn any venue, anywhere into a tavern somewhere deep in Middle Earth. They certainly had the crowd jumping, dancing and singing along with them from start to finish. In fact, they finished and the crowd wouldn't, couldn't let them go without an encore. More or less forcing the boys to play their classic track "Hoopa Hoompa" again. The crowd would probably asked them to play it again (in fact they did), but the guys had already played the fuck out of their material & promised to return from the mists of time for future shows in the nation's capital.
Overall, I would say this gig was a great success, with a fantastic and energetic crowd that kept growing in size well into the night. A great venue with great staff and a great sound set-up, mix this with a bunch of entertaining and charismatic bands & you're onto a winner for sure. I'm certainly looking forward to the next one and I definitely recommend you check out any (or all!) of these bands anytime you get the chance.
