Saturday 21 April 2001, Bedford Esquires
Unfortunately I only got to see the last moments of Coarse, the first band on, but the two songs I did hear were quite impressive. They played jagged stoner metal that reminded me of Load era Metallica, with a powerful and strong vocal delivery, courtesy of their huge frontman. He could have had more stage presence, but they were extremely good for an opening band.
The next band on was Unitus, another stoner band, carrying on the grand tradition of British stoner bands such as Cathedral, Orange Goblin and Hangnail, but mixing it with a more psychedelic, epic edge. Very impressive stuff, and passionately performed and surprisingly heavy and old school for a local band. There was still minimal audience reaction, same as for the first band the local scene is quite unused to stoner rock, as those bands rarely play Esquires.
It was a different story with Dark Cell, however, as their ominous intro theme kicked in. Their energetic brand of modern mosh-core metal got everybody going, and inspired the biggest moshpit of the night. Live, their thumping Sepultura style rhythms worked wonders, as well as their great stage presence and image, yet I am skeptical of their chances of success. At the end of the day, their music was just Sepultura meets Pantera with worse songwriting and a darker edge. The lyrics were also sometimes suspect, and the vocal delivery varied quite a lot in its professionalism. They are worth seeing live, though, simply due to the fact that they are one of the only half-decent metal bands around.
And now, onto the headliners. Brutal Deluxe arrived onstage and immediately assailed the audience with their blend of tribal rhythms and haunting atmospherics. The warpaint that they wore, and their stage presence increased the impact of this arrival, and created a completely surreal atmosphere. The rhythm section of this band was exquisite, the bassist?s quirky slap bass rhythms intermingling with the tribal pounding of their huge drummer. Their music went over a lot of people?s heads and I notice that some people left the club after hearing a few songs, while others looked on in bewilderment. There was a small group of believers at the front, breaking out into sporadic and violent moshing now and again, but preferring to dance to the music instead. The arrangements were very complex, with the music going into unexpected riff patterns and rhythms, without bowing down to standard musical conventions. It is a great shame that such an excellent band, that receives ecstatic receptions in places such as London and Milton Keynes got incomprehension and indifference from the Bedford crowd, which had been moshing violently to the cliched music of Dark Cell earlier in the night.
Pete Burov