Kickstarting a gig is never and easy process, a gauntlet for all young bands that are up against more established bands. Having sometimes no fans at all in the audience, hardly anyone knowing the songs and the crowd being reticent to say they’ve their work cut out for them would be an understatement. Circles however rise to the challenge, opening up the night with material old and new showcasing parts of their debut Infinitas, the aussie bunch play a tight set with enough confidence to bring a sleepy crowd to slowly warm to their brand of Australian metal. Shortly after their set I spoke with lead singer Perry asking about Infinitas the singer responded
“When we first released the record it didn’t take off as well as we would have liked, so we’ve decided to re-release the record along with three bonus tracks one of which is the newest sounding Circles and we (the band) think sounds like nothing else around, although there’s really no such thing as originality any more! We’re really happy to be doing this tour and filling in for Dead Letter Circus its a twenty two date tour with no breaks so its pretty intense, but especially with us being from far away we’re not complaining! ”
As long as its not Metallica’s Lulu then I think we’re safe for originality!
However it’s when Monuments take to the stage that the air truly is filled with anticipation, bursting into “Origin Of Escape” from their new album The Amanuensis that the crowd truly ignites. Not only are both John Browne and Olly Steele firing on all cylinders with the mix being pitch perfect, allowing frontman Chris Barretto to truly make the stage his own. Treading a very fine line between confidence and arrogance, Barretto is masterful both in the way he metaphorically worms his way into the crowd, ensnaring everyone’s attention with charismatic performance not to mention putting any doubts of his ability to rest. Along with a brilliant performance the band are personable in all too impersonal style of music, with much of the new wave of metal being polished Monuments brings a sense of organic. With a fantastic rendition of “Regenerate” that would be a call back to numetal legends infamous sit down procedure in “Spit It Out”. Moving into a vicious “Jinn” Monuments up the ante with drummer Mike Malgan leading the charge with the pneumatic double kick, capping off the performance is “I, The Creator” showing that although the band may still be up and coming the quintet have got a lot more than just one trick up their sleeve.
After having wowed the Brighton crowd I was able to have a quick chat to Monuments frontman Chris Barretto, after congratulating him and the band on their performance we chatted discussing various issues the band was facing. Stating that I thought the brilliant Amanuensis went under the radar the singer stated.
“We weren’t best pleased with how it (the promotion of the record) kinda turned out, but at least we got to play a killer show tonight and we’ve been touring so much this year.” When I stated that the show seems fairly low kee Barretto replied “It is a pretty low kee show but that just means there’s more room for intimacy, we’ve got a twenty two date tour with no days off so we’re making the most of it. We’ve got a hometown show for the boys coming up in London which as far as I know is sold out! So things are looking good!”
Agreeing with the energetic front man the venue may be slightly sparse but selling out The Underworld they must be onto something…
I wish I could say the same for After The Burial. After having released album number four Wolves Within earlier this year the band have been touring all over the world. Headlining the twenty two date tour the band take to the stage with confidence. Throwing the crowd in at the deep end with a fantastic rendition of “A Wolf Amongst Ravens” along with “My Frailty” and a tight rendition of “Pennyweight” along with the fan favourite “Ometh” its clear that the boys are a seriously talented bunch, however talent isn’t everything.
For most of the performance the band show no interaction with the crowd, giving off an air of arrogance. Although both guitarists are talented enough to prove they can indeed shred, its far too clinical. With each riff having essentially no personality and the band boasting “We’re not used to playing such small stages” only adds to their lack of modesty. Remember if you will, a young Matt Damon starting out in The Bourne Identity, the film itself was fantastic but the actors performance left slightly more to be desired, being wooden and overall not memorable. This is essentially what After The Burial are portraying this evening. As I mentioned, there is no doubt that all members of the band possess serious talent but therein lies the rub. The representation of their ability is just as important as the ability itself and its clear that this evening the band are very much style over substance. A harsh reminder that ability is not always everything.
