Gig Reviews
The Smile
K.B. Hallen, Copenhagen, DEN - 13/3
Album Reviews
We Came As Romans
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support Blessthefall + Stick To Your Guns + For The Fallen Dreams + Obey The Brave + At The Skylines + The Browning + At Dawn We Rage
author BL
date 18/10/12
venue Electric Ballroom, London, UK
It had been three long years since Rockfreaks.net had a presence at an Impericon Never Say Die! tour stop. Parts of that night still linger in my mind when I try to recall all that had happened when me and AP went in '09 - Architects headlined though I only marginally recall the other performances. Whilst stood outside London's Electric Ballroom venue waiting to attend my first show in quite a while, I was almost nervous with excitement at putting my review hat on again. One thing definitely on the cards was that it was going to be a long evening with the lineup consisting of no more than eight acts in total, all from overseas. Considering that the first name on the bill was the only one I had not heard of previously and I had seen four of the acts at least once before, I was cautiously relaxed in my expectations going in.
I did not unfortunately get a chance to scout out what kind of band or who At Dawn We Rage were before the show. If I had done so, I might not have been so confused when I saw that it was a dubstep act - or a single person on stage. I'm not going to pretend to know that much about dubstep and so it's difficult for me to judge and score this fairly in a sense as I can only go on what I saw. Their inclusion on the tour was by far the most unusual and awkward even, as when you look at the other names it doesn't make a lot of sense. The crowd at this stage was measily at best, only a few dozen had decided to come early for the 5pm start and most of them were not exactly livened up by what they could hear, nor me in that respect. Everything just blended so 'well' that it was hard to tell songs apart, nor was there much melody, atmosphere or any kind of hook to draw you in besides the usual affair of dense and bassy stuttering electronics. Had there been, I may have been tempted to go home and check out a few songs online to hear them in more detail. However all that this set succeeded in doing was reminding me that I need a drink to sooth my pounding head from the bass drops, of which I am sure there will be an onslaught to come.
I mentioned earlier I was cautious in my expectations, though to be frank I wasn't sure what to expect live from these guys - if much at all. Their sound is best described as a melting pot of synth heavy techno/trance electronics and deathcore/metal. The electronics in particular is an integral part of their identity and their main selling point, as ultimately, the actual deathcore is borderline senseless and incredibly-one-dimensional. Banal arrangements of breakdowns and chugging pretty much make up the rest of their sound and I cannot get over how much more ridiculous it is to witness in a live setting (I can barely take more than a few songs at time just listening to their latest album "Burn This World" at home). The rather sludgy mixing meant that the electronics, which were admittedly pretty decent on the album, were almost inaudible compared to the brown noise of everything else. I had to retreat all the way to the balcony just to hear things clearly but by then I was just losing interest and patience. At the very least they operated as a tight unit and their songs were performed well, not that there was much to actually perform. And I'm unable to explain why they even need a second guitarist at all when they both play the same notes (mostly breakdowns). Overall, not a fan (as you can probably tell).
Unlike the last band, I had desperately hoped At The Skylines to be good tonight (in a completely non biased professional sense). Their new album "The Secrets To Life", whilst not the stellar debut I thought it might have been this year, was in my eyes still a pretty solid first effort. Sadly, they have had to recently deal with the departure of their screaming vocalist Mark Barela so the singer Chris Shelley had to cover all the vocal duties which was, interesting to say the least. The mixing was still less than desirable and the crowd not too familiar with them, but with some relief At The Skylines gave me and a few others some reasons to be optimistic for the rest of the night. Their music may not be overly innovative, but it's catchy to sing to and got the crowd moving. In the end, Chris wasn't really able to pull off the screamed parts consistently, but he's still a step above many other singers in this genre I've seen live - his singing parts in "It's Cherried", "Turbulence", and "The Amazing Atom" sounded great which were the songs I wanted to hear the most. The rest of the band were no slouches either, the lead guitar parts especially sounded pretty faultless and I enjoyed how confidently and positively they performed on the stage despite being on so early. The only real shame was their set came and went so quickly.
After seeing these guys twice before I am still yet undecided what I really make of For The Fallen Dreams as a live spectacle. It might be because I am so utterly devoid of interest when it comes to songs off their newer albums (The most recent one being the worst case) - they've turned what was once a slightly poor-man's Misery Signals sound into simple breakdown heavy hardcore with no bells and whistles. Now there's also occasionally some sung choruses which still make me cringe at how monotone the melodies are (the end result being somewhat like a really poor amalgamation of The Ghost Inside and A Day To Remember). In any case because of my affinity for their first album "Changes", I'm always little glad they still play "Brothers In Arms" live which still sounds great. Sadly it was the only highlight as there was nothing spectacular to write about elsewhere. Mostly a standard affair at best despite their best efforts. The crowd similarly was simmering but never really reaching boil as the numbers had barely increased and we have three more bands to go (it didn't feel anywhere near like the night would sell out or even close). A top up at the bar was in order by this point.
- Setlist
- 1. 2.0
- 2. What's Left of Me
- 3. Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad
- 4. I'm Bad News, In the Best Way
- 5. The Reign
- 6. Bottomfeeder
- 7. Promised Ones
- 8. To Hell and Back
There's a lot of ambivalence when it comes to We Came As Romans and myself. On one hand their music has a great positive message, there's some ambition in their song compositions of mixing post-hardcore/metalcore with theatrics and electronics and ear catching melodies - all good things. But I still can't get over after all these years how singer Kyle Pavone is still nowhere near able to reproduce those ethereal cleans live (somewhat less surprising given it sounded like a keyboard recorded all the cleans on their albums), and that their stage presence seems comparatively bland and a bit contrived after seeing Blessthefall successfully tearing the place a new one. There was definitely more of a pre-planned, pull off some carefully laid routine sort of feel to it all which soured my renewed experience somewhat.
Nonetheless the majority were content to sing and jump along to their newer numbers "What I Wish I Never Had" and "Mis//Understanding" off their latest album "Understanding What We've Grown To Be" as well as a slew of older tracks like "Broken Statues", "Roads That Don't End and Views That Never Cease" and "Intentions" from their previous album "To Plant A Seed". Though personally I was a bit disappointed at the omission of their other oldie and one of the best songs "Beliefs", and I would have been curious to hear new song "I Can't Make Your Decisions For You" as it was both catchy and had a bit of flash in the guitar department.
- Setlist
- 1. What I Wished I Never Had
- 2. To Move On Is To Grow
- 3. Mis//Understanding
- 4. Just Keep Breathing
- 5. Broken Statues
- 6. Roads That Don't End and Views That Never Cease
- 7. A War Inside
- 8. Intentions
- 9. Cast The First Stone
- 10. Understanding What We've Grown To Be
- 11. To Plant A Seed
Photos courtesy of Lauren Harris.