BLACK ATLAS, IMMORTALUS, feedback aftermath, MOTHER NUCLEAR.
Saturday 24th September 2016. Dannys Bar Lev 1 Esquires Bedford.
Tonight in the recently refurbished Esquires bar, local rock exponents BLACK ATLAS were hosting their E.P. launch. It’s a three track CD and is eponymously entitled. Instantly crashing into crunching nihilism, southern rock is given a facelift with this quartet. Booming soundwaves cascade all around the room. Black Atlas are well blessed, as they do have a singer who gives every song full justice. His full throated vocals adapt to every given situation, on their as yet untitled opening song, he urgently screams out “When you see me falling,” there is good interaction with the audience, especially in the introduction to Mary. Supposedly, this is a song about a girl of whom the vocalist met in a strip club. Infact he says, she stole his heart and also his money! With a huge amount of Soundgarden influences in their music, Miles Away is my personal highlight of their set. No slouches in the speed stakes, this one is utterly riveting in its sheer ferocity. A piercing and thunderous intro gives way to some powerful, yet poignant lyrics. “I walked away from the only place I call home.” This headshaker tune further expands, “I can see that it’s over and we are going to the end.” As the song concludes, “I saw the light” on this composition!
A well constructed set, that doesn’t on this performance, contain any hyper pretensions. It just allows genuine bare emotions to blast through. Their organic stoner blues ideas which are way more cerebral than the average. It makes for an utterly compulsive combination.
On a night when wax is well and truly blown out of ears, the four bands on show do not offer up waxed and oiled chins, lashings of eyeliner or any of the swoony posing doing the rounds amongst rocks cutting edge these days!... indeed, its hard not to think that masculinity in this genre is on the way to total extinction. Not so tonight. I repeat, it’s where long hair, beards and even more flowing hair dominate the stage. Opening up our night of heavy sounds were MOTHER NUCLEAR. This Northampton quartet were undoubtedly my stars of the evening! Pleasant and courteous, they stayed and watched the whole evenings show. They gave excellent support. Groove laden dynamics with some flash prog arpeggios to dazzle the decently populated but largely undemonstrative bar but hey, this is rock and metal in Bedford folks. I do think some people locally, have an agenda for its total demise in this town, but tonight proves that the need for it is more urgent than ever. Unbelievably, Mother Nuclear recon that this was one of their most worst performances!
To my eyes and ears they appeared to be on rollicking form. Their sound detonates most peoples hearing. Guitar grit and ‘funky’ jams ride majestically on the stoned grooves, which produce some good noisearamic riffola. Influences range from heavy seventies rock Alter Bridge, to a whiff of early, less shiny Foo Fighters. A couple of their set are taken from their recently released E.P. The Void. They admit that it “Would be sic” if any of the crowd purchased it. Last Round is apparently “A band favourite.” Their final song is called Pendulum which is a rap influenced heavy rock boogying monster. If you do get a chance to see Mother Nuclear live, seize it. You will be rewarded with enlightenment through musical intellect, earthly surrealism and of course some damn good tunes. Pure rock fury goes interstellar with these lovely fellas.
Musically I have a huge amount of respect for feedback aftermath. I once spent a lot of money on a return taxi journey to see them headline at M.K.’s Craufurd Arms a couple of things however annoy me about this trio. Firstly, they offered up a most bizarre, churlish and above all, discourteous interview with Bedford Alternative Music website last year. A platform was given kindly to them to publicise their band in Bedfordshire, but they just chose to treat it as a joke. Secondly, tonight they rapidly upped and left almost immediately after their set. A lack of respect to the bands that followed them, especially BLACK ATLAS at this, their E.P. launch. With that said however, the feedback aftermath set was blisteringly tight. Frenetically fast, they really like playing here. They produced plenty of adrenalised rabble rousing and total breakneck riffola. Copulating hooks and riffs bring to the boil and melting pot of pure sound fury. This explodes totally on 25%, When you’re Ready and Four Years. Except for the aforementioned off stage side issues, feedback aftermath continue to fill me with so much thrilling excitement every time I see them live.
IMMORTALUS continue to fly the raw metal flag for Bedford, but once again I felt they offered up more questions than answers. Discussing their sweat soaked performance post gig, it was put to me, that as a live band, it’s perhaps their vocalist and frontman who is their weakest link. He is the glue that holds them together, but the only real time he gets ‘angry-passionate’ is when performing The Drowning Pool cover, someone else’s music. Their own written material is good and should be displayed as much. The vocalist is the central point and in a metal band, even more so, be vocally aggressive and visually animated. A continual banal shout of “Make some Fxxxing noise” is, in these small sit down confines, both patronising and pointless. The songs are strong and the sound is sweet to my ears. Musically, they do continue to try and expand their repertoire. Tonight they bring to the front, a couple of guys wrecking their necks to the point that you start to fear that their heads might actually separate from their bodies and end up somewhere on the pool table!
Review by Martin Stapleton. www.bedfordalternativemusic.co.uk