Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

‘Do your research’ has become an admonition in recent years, mostly since the advent of COVID, and it’s probably sound advice when it comes to picking gigs. But a mate who had tickets alerted me to this one, and as it was pitched as a night of hardcore and the poster was bristling with illegible spiky writing, I thought it would be worth a punt. It’s healthy to be exposed to the unknown, to new artists and acts which may exist beyond the domain of your comfort zone. If you don’t like them, what have you really lost? I elected to do precisely no research in advance, and to take the bands as they came, with no expectations.

In the event, none of the acts were hardcore in any sense I’ve come to understand the term, and we’ll come to this – in particular Street Soldier – presently, but first, there were five other acts on this packed lineup.

With it being an insanely early start, arriving at 6:40, I only caught the last couple of songs by Idle Eyes. They presented a quite technical sound, with a sort of progressive instrumental metal feel. They announced the end of their set that they’re on the lookout for a singer. I’m not entirely convinced they need one, but it would likely broaden their audience potential.

Next up, Theseus opened with samples and atmosphere… And then went heavy and the headbanging and moshing – or solo slam dancing – started. With 5-string bass and two 7-string guitars, they bring some chug and churn. The songs have a fair amount of attack, but their sound is fairly commonplace metalcore, the look being regulation beards and baseball caps. Fine if you dig it, but it’s all much of a muchness.

Theseus

Miško Boba stand out, being the only female-fronted band – and indeed, the only act to feature a woman in their lineup – and also the only black metal band of the night. My mate shrugged and said that he simply didn’t ‘get’ black metal or its appeal, and it’s easy enough to see his point: as a genre it has a tendency to be pretty impenetrable. Misko Boba only accentuate the impenetrability with lyrics in Lithuanian, and they’re dark, the songs propelled by double pedal kick drum. But while black metal conventionally shuns any kind of studio production values, Misko Boba sound crisp and sharp through the PA, and are straight in, hard and fast, with raging guitars and demonic vocals. Epic blackness, and relentlessly fierce, and above the reasons mentioned previously, they’re a standout of the night for quality.

Miško Boba

Final Words’ bassist has a hint of Derek Smalls about him, but with a 6-string bass and the biggest earlobe holes I’ve ever seen. The audience member who looks like he’s here for East 17 and keeps busting moves which are more like bad street dancing is bouncing around while they’re still setting up. They may have the grimy industrial hefty of early Pitch Shifter, but ‘motherfucker’ seems to account for sixty percent of the lyrics, and in terms of fanbase, they’re less industrial and more tracksuit and camos wearing, kick-the-crap out of one another metal and it’s carnage in the crowd. By now, the place is rammed, but there’s a good ten feet between the stage and the first row proper, with people staying back to avoid risk of harm from the increasingly wild scrummage down the front.

Final Words

It may have been after their set that the bar staff were out mopping the floor after what I had assumed was beer spillage, but transpired to have been the result of a couple of punters standing on a radiator to get a better view, resulting in the radiator coming off the wall and water from the broken pipes soaking the floor. And then of course, they legged it. It would be this story which would eclipse the night on social media and even make local press. It’s always sad when the actions of a small minority eclipse the representation of the majority. I don’t want to dwell on this, but by now the space near the stage was a high-risk area, and anyone with a camera was cowering in the small safe zone either side of the stage – which meant pretty much shoulder and ear to the PA stack.

Colpoclesis soundcheck the vocals with a handful of guttural grunts. They’re still setting up the drum kit ten minutes after they’re due to have started. Proportional to the stage, the kit is immense. It’s a lot of kit to sound like the click and rattle of a knitting machine. But they are, indisputably heavy, and sound nothing like the vocalist looks, blasting out brutal grindcore. Between songs, they sound like affable Scousers, then announce the songs in a raw-throated roar. There’s something amusing about this, in that stepping into the song they suddenly switch into ‘hard guy’ mode. Inflatable clubs suddenly proliferate around the venue and comedy violence ensues, followed by a circle pit.

Colpoclesis

Street Soldier, I soon learn, are exponents of a new – at least to me – kind of hardcore. Alternating between quick fire tap and guttural metal, they whip up absolute carnage. A scan online suggests there is no such thing as tracksuit metal, but perhaps there should be, and defined as ‘grunty metal by people in vests and trakky bottoms and baseball caps shouting “c’mon, motherfuckers” a lot while people windmill and karate kick the crap out of each other with Nike trainers’. “I wanna see violence, I wanna see blood!” they exhort, pumping the crowd into a frenzy.

Street Soldier

It’s difficult to put a finger on precisely why this doesn’t feel comfortable, but having recently extolled to a friend how metal gigs often felt like the safest of places, where people were ultra-considerate and kind to one another, united in their outsiderdom and sense of society being wrong. Sure, as with other moshpits, the fallen got picked up, but not before a few punches and blows, and however playful, I felt an undercurrent of senseless brutality, the tang of a lust for violence intermingled with the smell of sweat, and there was something dystopian, Ballardian about the spectacle. Having given up on fighting the man, Street Soldier,– as their Facebook page puts it, in ‘SPITTIN SHIT MADE STRAIGHT FOR THA PIT’ have adopted the self-aggrandising tropes of rap, and with cuts like ‘Middle Fingaz’, ‘Nonce Killaz’ and ‘Nah Nah Fuck You’, they appear to espouse anti-societal nihilism, but in a form that’s more aligned to rap than metal, while encouraging crowd behaviour which is more akin to blood lust and a reimagining of Fight Club than unity. Given the current state of things, it’s not that difficult to comprehend their appeal, especially to the under twenty-fives: smashing the living shit out of themselves and one another is probably far more appealing than whatever dismal prospects the future offers. But this is a bleak and nihilistic entertainment, and it sort of feels like torture dressed as fun.