LIVE REVIEW: Employed To Serve @ The Garage, London
EMPLOYED TO SERVES rise up the UK music scene has been amazing to witness. And with their third album Eternal Forward Motion taking them to new heights, EMPLOYED TO SERVE set out to celebrate this with their biggest headline show in London yet on the day of the album’s release.
First up are LOATHE who do a great job kicking things off tonight. They just seem to get better every time they set foot on stage. Kadeem France is just such a great front man and had such a strong presence on stage. LOATHE are just doing something really exciting with metalcore right now, with the new song they play suggesting that what comes next from them could be really special. There just aren’t many bands who could do a better job opening tonight, exciting and crushingly heavy but still interesting.
Rating: 8/10
DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL are up next and whilst they aren’t as immediately engaging as LOATHE, over the next 45 minutes they do a good job reminding people of what made them so exciting when they first broke. Few bands are capable of delivering such a soaring take on metalcore. The dual vocal approach avoids the usual cliches of this and allows them to do some great things with vocal harmonies. A few sound issues throughout the set dull things slightly as some of the intricacies of what they do are lost but it still ends up being an impressive set overall.
Rating: 7/10
Still, tonight is about one band and one band only. The reaction as EMPLOYED TO SERVE take to the stage makes it clear just how much their fans have been looking forward to tonight. From the first note of Eternal Forward Motion the chaos just doesn’t stop. The band are so clearly fired up on stage with Sammy Urwin constantly encouraging the crowd to get even wilder. And Justine Jones‘ vocal performance tonight is so vicious. With this being the release day for the new album it’s impressive how much the fans already know of these new songs. Whilst songs off of The Warmth of a Dying Sun make up the majority of the set, it’s the new material that really stands out tonight. Harsh Truth and Force Fed in particular really get massive reactions.
This set just really feels like a celebration of everything the band have achieved so far as well as looking forward to everything they could hope to achieve with the new album. Even if The Garage isn’t completely sold out, this is still by far the biggest headline show the band have played yet, and for a band so uncompromising with their sound to achieve this already is so impressive. Every member of the band is so on point tonight, the performance is so slick without ever feeling over rehearsed and fake. EMPLOYED TO SERVE are just such an exciting band right now and as they wrap up their set with I Spend My Days, Wishing Them Away, the chaos just kicks up a whole other level ending things on a massive high.
Rating: 9/10
Check out our photo gallery from the night’s action in London from Hannah Cole here:
