BAM Present - The Basilisk CD Launch
The Basilisk, Countless Skies, Kill Confirmed, The Hero Dies First.

Holy Molys Lev 1 Esquires, Bedford. Friday 11th March 2016.

Tonight sees the first Bedford Alternative Music (BAM) promoted gig of 2016 and to be honest, it’s quite a special one. It’s produced in association with The Basilisk, who are celebrating the momentous launch of their first proper debut E.P., which is called Make It Happen. No downloads only for these lads, as you get a proper CD in a neat sleeve. The Basilisk have been given the honour of choosing their support line up. I do however have slight reservations in their final choice, which was the selection of Countless Skies and to a lesser extent Kill Confirmed, who are no strangers to Bedford and really don’t need the exposure. Perhaps The Basilisk need to go out to more gigs and network more with metal bands in the three counties area. A similar aged band playing at Esquires, could lead to our lads getting hopefully a corresponding show many miles from their home patch, which would help to toughen them up. It is only a small observational gripe and should not detract from the fact that this was a most successful metal night. Above all, it importantly had an amazing turnout.
It is a real hope among us like minded people, that Bedford is going to get the regular metal injection it needs and stops being the poor cousin of Luton, who are about to launch and host their Metal To The Masses and with it, the chance to play at the Bloodstock Festival, of which Countless Skies did so successfully last year. There were not a lot of promising signs last year and lets hope we can do it.
THE BASILISK feature Jack Hutchins (vocals) Dylan Adkins (bass) Harvey Lake (drums) and Tom Gulliver (guitar). They have witnessed their support bands, chatted and met their fans, but now the real test starts, nerves must be jangling. They’ve got to hold everything together, because everyone’s eyes are firmly on them. I stand close to the front, just near sound engineer Barnaby, who has done a good job. I ponder and wish that this gig was happening upstairs on the big stage, because I always feel on a ‘heavy’ night, that Holy Molys is a poor substitute and the atmosphere does sometimes get hampered because of its severe limitations. I watch The Basilisk assemble on stage, I have bought their aforementioned E.P. and been given a special band wristband as a reward. Reflectively, I wish I had purchased one of their T-Shirts, but that will have to wait until their next gig. In looking at the impressive merchandise stall, it’s evident that The Basilisk have put every effort into getting this night absolutely right. All the relevant boxes have been ticked and the show is soon to start. Harvey loosens up by furiously thumping his drumkit. BAM’s Keith steps on to the stage to give them the big build up announcement that he‘s so good at. He does however have a question for our headliners. Did they buy him a Snickers bar? A quite spine chilling Intro then gives way to a fusion of noise and moshing to Scream. I fear for my notebook as the crowd lap up the bands sterling efforts. I’ve always been thoroughly impressed by The Basilisk’s stage presence and its certainly no different tonight. An early cover of Ace Of Spades offers their tribute to the late Lemmy. Judge Jury Executioner is always a favourite and the self controlled mosh pit practitioners whole heartedly agree. The following song is aptly called Recovery; however that word doesn’t exist in this bands vocabulary. There is no let up in both pace and vigour, as the quartet rinse the stage even further with both In My Blood and the E.P.’s title track Make It Happen. Tonight The Basilisk certainly did the right things well and should be proud of their efforts. Let’s hope they also shifted shed loads of their C.D.’s.

A brief resume of the other bands on display starts with Keith announcing this to be a “Fantastic Night” with “Fantastic bands.” THE HERO DIES FIRST both ignite and frustrate me in equal measure. When they go hell for leather full fast hardcore style they are brilliant. The contrasting slower bits are however the let down. In their defence, there is a lot of potential, but they do perhaps need to crank up their stage demeanour even more. That accusation cannot be levelled at KILL CONFIRMED .

This is traditional old skool metal. Sadly I felt the crowd were not fully ‘revved up’ for this band and only really came to life when they did a B.F.M.V. cover. Thankfully Kill Confirmed were impressed by everyone’s efforts as the frontman screamed out, “Let’s make some chaos.” Good songs, good presence, enough said, they always put on a top show.

COUNTLESS SKIES offer us some classy dark and brooding metal, with bite. Their Scandinavian influences immediately come to the fore. These are the ‘safe hands’ of the evening. Never phased, their contrasting vocals and general all round musical skills make a most mesmerising set . Countless Skies are a band who patently aspires to climb to the next level and hopefully the gains and progress they made last year will be more than matched in 2016. A band to keep an eye on constantly.

BASILISK Video