LIVE REVIEW: The Callous Daoboys @ Downstairs At The Dome, London
It doesn’t get much better than this. Atlanta, Georgia’s THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS released one of the best albums of the decade back in 2022 and they’ve already added a killer EP to their repertoire since then. Tonight they’re Downstairs At The Dome in north London’s Tufnell Park for all the violence and intimacy the 250-cap venue promises, with probably the best current UK metalcore band for support.
Birmingham outfit CAULDRON kick things off with a simple yet effective intro that builds in intensity before launching into the pummelling Falling Snow (Seattle 2) off their 2023 debut LP Suicide In The City – itself one of the finest releases of last year. They play a good few tracks off it as you’d expect, the likes of Rejection Pact and album opener Off Script mustering a few sing-alongs and mic grabs, though as the horseshoe in the crowd indicates it really is all about the violence. There are breakdowns upon breakdowns, each hitting as hard as any other and lapped up by a decent showing of moshers who ensure that the space on the floor doesn’t go to waste.
They wrap things up with a couple of older cuts in The Last Words and F.Y.S off their 2020 EP Last Words: Screamed From Behind God’s Muzzle, both received to more flailing limbs and two-stepping aplenty to demonstrate to anyone who didn’t know already that the future – and indeed the present – of UK metalcore is in safe hands indeed.
Rating: 8/10
THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS’ reputation as a live act precedes them, and with good reason. Much like their music, their shows are a spectacle like no other, the six of them taking to the stage to PENDULUM’s Tarantula before launching into the utter bedlam of Pushing The Pink Envelope which opens last year’s God Smiles Upon The Callous Daoboys EP. All three tracks off that record make their way into the first half of the set, as does Star Baby off 2022’s truly perfect Celebrity Therapist. For any other band, that track’s hands in the hair singalong and soaring sax solo – replaced tonight by an equally stunning rendition from guitarist Daniel Hodson – would make it a nailed-on set closer; the DAOBOYS fire it out third just because they can.
Of course, they have plenty more up their sleeves. Title Track is every bit the showstopper in the live setting that it is on record, vocalist Carson Pace stepping into the crowd for a good chunk of it as he gives the simple instruction: “If you know the words, sing along. If you don’t, google very quickly.” They play a fair few off 2019’s Die On Mars too, the likes of Flip Flops At A Funeral and Fake Dinosaur Bones among the most violent and chaotic in the set, while Celebrity Therapist’s lead single A Brief Article Regarding Time Loops gets one of the biggest reactions of the night as Pace rants for one reason or another about how the people of London shouldn’t buy cars (“If someone tries to sell you a car he is your enemy”).
They finish with Blackberry DeLorean – another one from Die On Mars – insisting that they won’t be coming back for an encore but making up for it by doing the whole ‘bring the riff back slower’ thing not once but twice. As the tempo of the last of those breakdowns drops to the gloriously and gleefully absurd, there are two conclusions left to draw: one, THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS are musically sublime – they have to be to deliver such intricate and erratic compositions with the precision they do tonight. But two, and perhaps even more importantly, in the knowing winks and the unhinged selection of samples between tracks and indeed the madcap brilliance of the songs themselves there is frankly no chance anyone ever leaves a DAOBOYS show without a smile on their face.
Rating: 9/10
Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in London from Sarah Tsang here:
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