Energy personification was the order of the day for this Metalcore billing in Leeds, and with it being completely sold out well in advance it promised to be an evening of true brutality and mayhem.
First up were Kingdom Of Giants and with the Stylus filling up nicely it was time for them to take the reigns and deliver a 30-minute slab of intense and ferocious Metalcore, which was peppered throughout with controlled violent tendencies. Riffs were huge, the backbone of thick strings and percussive beats were maniacal and the vocals were downright commanding and authoritative from start to finish.
With this being the first time Kingdom Of Giants had hit my radar It was taking me all my effort to remain upright with the blasting that was being omitted from the stage onto our very beings, but with the likes of ‘Night Shift’, ‘Cash Out’ and ‘Sync’ battering our audible and visual senses alike I was suitably impressed and they are now firmly carved onto my mind for future encounters.
Signing off with ‘Wayfinder’, Willax led the charge with his brutal harmonious mercenary bandmates standing firmly behind him and delivered a brutal and punishing sign off to a set which had been a huge success in my book, and I’m guessing the full library that stood behind me in the now pretty much cramped and restricted confines of the venue tonight.
We Came As Romans appeared like a speeding freight train and didn’t take their foot off the gas from the opening chords to the closing bars, each down pick, each vocal, each faction of the band were pounding on their respective instruments with passion and vigour, an aggressive affection that was endearing and a catalyst for everybody that was occupying the floor in front of them. The band were subliminally commanding every head in the venue to bang in unison with the gnarly and crunchy song structures, and the gathered faithful obliged, the whole place was sent into a state of delirious pandemonium.
Stephens was the orchestrator to the mayhem, delivering his vocals with power and precision, each word spat out with an imposing and imperious swagger and one which helped him present himself as the marionettist to the carnage being laid before him. The set was constructed with staples such as ‘Wasted Age’, ‘Plagued’ and ‘Hope’ but the real gem in their Metalcore crown was the double header of ‘Black Hole’ and ‘Daggers’ which they signed off with and then they gave us all the chance to recalibrate with some much needed respite from the glorious and celebrated set which had just been born before us.
So onto the headliners, the main event, the kings of the castle so to speak, Bury Tomorrow, and they were greeted with a rapturous heroes welcome from the absolutely overflowing gathered ensemble and as soon as ‘The Seventh Sun’ reared its head the whole place simply erupted and didn’t let up one iota from start to finish. Daniel Winter-Bates was like a man possessed, stalking the stage with intent and purpose, working the crowd to within an inch of their life and they lapped it up with an equal measure of passion and desire.
The hunger and appetite for the Metalcore anthems such as ‘Heretic’, ‘Black Flame’ and ‘Cannibal’ was insane, each one generated energy which was off the scale and bred an erupting sea of bodies of volcanic magnitude and one which was impressive and inspiring beyond belief, you simply had to be there to be able to witness just how grand the whole occasion was.
All the other shifts that were put in on the evening by Jackson et al were all noteworthy, each splinter of the Bury Tomorrow unit were on point and each gelled alongside their harmonious siblings with pure perfection and clinical technicality which morphed together to generate a sublime, smooth and seemingly effortless titanic behemoth of a spectacle. The visual marvel that was on display was also nothing short of wonderment, the lighting rigs and screens which sat proudly on and around the stage, framing it like flames frame a rising phoenix, was a graphic and optical delight in equal measures.
All in all, the whole evening and gig as a complete entity was a multi-sensory explosion which overflowed through the soul and acted like a vessel on which to ignite your serotonin and endorphins and leaving you buzzing on a higher echelon, and one it may take a fair while to climb back down from.
Glorious, simply Glorious
