LIVE REVIEW: Our Hollow, Our Home @ 229 The Venue, London

It’s day eight of the first post-lockdown tour from OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME and in the queue snaking outside London’s 229 The Venue, there’s a lot of smiling faces. The mood is relaxed and the young fans seem excited to be out again after two years spent indoors watching Tiger King. With four up and coming bands on the bill there’s a lot to look forward to, especially if you like chunky power chord riffs and grandiose melodic choruses.

First up, DEFENCES walk onstage to a venue that’s almost completely empty. The doors have barely been open fifteen minutes, the punters are only just starting to trickle in and most are more interested in the bar than the racket coming from the stage. It quickly becomes impossible to ignore the Hertfordshire quintet though, as their dual-vocal melodic hardcore and infectious enthusiasm earns them several new fans. The two singers compliment one another beautifully and the closing Gravity is an instant earworm.

Rating: 7/10

They’re followed by CHUGGABOOM, the self-proclaimed purveyors of ‘awesomecore’. The anonymous five-piece play a particularly juvenile brand of tongue-in-cheek metal and start things off by throwing inflatable bananas into the crowd. The fan reaction is instant but while some folks absolutely adore them, they’re easily the most divisive act on the bill. Their misguided cover of Bohemian Rhapsody would make Wayne and Garth vomit in the Mirthmobile and all their original material is forgettable. The clean vocals are annoyingly nasal and more suited to pop-punk and while they’ve clearly got a sense of humour, it doesn’t transfer well when most of the lyrics are unintelligible. Judging by the response they get though they clearly work for some people.

Rating: 4/10

Grammarly-averse five-piece THECITYISOURS on the other hand are sensational. They’re committing some very serious crimes against trousers and guitarist Mikey Page sounds like he’s struggling with the backing vocals slightly, but otherwise they’re on fire. Noticeably heavier live than on record, they power through one crushing metalcore bruiser after another while a massive pit takes up half the floor space. There’s very little banter, but there’s a professionalism to these lads that makes them resemble superstars-in-waiting. DEFENCES vocalist Cherry Duesbury joins them on the mic for a particularly cool moment and when singer Oli Duncanson stage dives at the finale, he may as well have thrown a gauntlet down.

Rating: 9/10

If OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME are at all nervous about following that, they do a good job of hiding it. Third album Burn In The Flood is their best yet and they’ve quietly developed into one of the more entertaining gems of UK metalcore. They’ve got a hefty collection of choruses up their sleeves and for the next hour, the likes of Overcast, Better Daze and Hartsick give the assembled throng some genuinely heart-warming moments. These songs revolve around grief and life’s fragile beauty and OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME have mastered the art of the optimistic tear-jerker.

But it’s also easy to forget how heavy they are. The melodic sections are as sweet as being buried in a peanut brittle avalanche, but when they’re in nasty mode they could make THY ART IS MURDER wince. There’s probably an alternate universe where vocalist Connor Hallisey fronts the harshest deathcore band in existence and Children Of Manus’ bludgeoning pit-fodder is a sneaky glimpse at what they might sound like. Consequently, the whole set is akin to flicking between two television channels; one showing the heart-wrenching masterpiece A MONSTER CALLS, the other a highlight reel of Nick Gage’s most violent death match moments.

Wisely, they round things off with Burn In The Flood’s title track, an instant classic that already feels like an old favourite rather than a song that’s been played live less than ten times. There’s a last round of crowd surfing from the fans and just like that, the night comes to an end. OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME did a grand job tonight; they were heavy as hell, beautifully bittersweet and can write a hook like the best of them. Given the events of the past two years, this may well have been the first gig experience for a lot of the youngsters in attendance and if so, the bar has been set high.

Rating: 8/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in London from Ciara Wilkinson Media here: