LIVE REVIEW: Stick To Your Guns @ The Asylum, Birmingham
The alternative crowd in the UK’s second city is getting a treat this Thursday night, as a cohort of some of the finest hardcore bands of the moment, spearheaded by Orange County’s STICK TO YOUR GUNS, grace the Hampton Street venue.
First up is neo-grunge outfit SOUL BLIND. The four-piece waste no time warming up, kicking straight into Seventh Hell, the opener from their debut album Feel It All Around. Sounding like if NIRVANA discovered Drop C, the group deliver their unique brand of hard-edged emo with flair, getting the night started on a great note.
Rating: 8/10
Next up is California quartet, SCOWL. Frontwoman Kat Moss is a bottle rocket of energy, bounding about the stage delivering the visceral and vitriolic yelps that befit the group’s hardcore punk sound oh so well. Like so many songs on their debut album How Flowers Grow, the band’s set is short but satisfying, getting the pit moving with purpose. Without a doubt, SCOWL are one of the most promising new bands on the hardcore scene.
Rating: 9/10
Tonight’s final support act is French metalcore band LANDMVRKS. Appealing to fans of NORTHLANE and ARCHITECTS, the five-piece’s tunes are fast, furious, and heavy. Mixing rhythmic, djent-adjacent breakdowns with anthemic sung choruses isn’t exactly unique, but it can’t be denied that LANDMVRKS do it better than most. The screams of frontman Florent Salafati are as brutal as the riffs, more than once whipping the mosh pit into an utter frenzy. With expectations set so high, how could the night get better?
Rating: 9/10
With STICK TO YOUR GUNS, that’s how. Fresh off the release of their sixth studio album, Spectre, the Orange County hardcore punks kick things off with Nobody, a defiant anthem that gets the crowd going with its “woah-oh” refrain. Next, we’re treated to a fan-favourite cut from their 2012 classic Diamond, before the band break into one of Spectre’s most crushing tracks Hush.
Typically an outspoken band, this time STICK TO YOUR GUNS let the music do most of the talking, ripping through a surprisingly diverse setlist that spans their entire discography. The newer material fits remarkably well, sprinkling in some spirited singalongs amongst the breakdowns. Open Up My Head hits particularly hard, mixing some grunge and emo influence into their traditional hardcore sound.
For a band this heavy, the most important thing is that energy is maintained and luckily for tonight’s moshers, the pit barely slows down once during the 14-some song set. Two-steppers and slam dancers gleefully throw shapes throughout Against Them All, while Nothing You Can Do To Me sees the mosh pit expand into the unwitting crowd as a shark jaws take to a school of minnows. For some, there is a slight pall hanging over this set concerning alleged controversial comments made by frontman Jesse Barnett on Twitter. The vocalist makes a vague allusion to this recent controversy but thankfully doesn’t stop the set to do so. This uneasiness is the only downer on an otherwise flawless punk performance.
Fan favourites Amber and Against Them All get things right back on track, inciting circle pits and crowd surfers galore. The electrifying set concludes with the first song the Californian five-piece wrote, This Is More. Barnett takes to the crowd for this triumphant closer, ending the night with a bang.
Rating: 9/10
Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in Birmingham from Serena Hill Photography here:
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