DUNDEE LIVE - BANDS TO WATCH!!
METALICA UK + CORE - Doghouse 01-11-08
The first gig I've seen Dundee metal band Core play at The Doghouse for ages - and it was just sensational. The sound was fantastic - Gav's drums were solid, crisp, crunchy and powerful while Robi's bass just hammered out of the PA with the force of a wrecking ball. Above this, Bri on lead guitar provided a searing heat display of riffing, soloing, fx and more, his vocals on fire and set on stun. The foundations of Core music are the rhythms that set them apart from most other unsigned bands in that they have a fury that's worthy of many a more famous band, with a lurching irresistibility to them that sets your spine tingling and the adrenaline flowing, as they crunch and drive with remarkable insistence and purpose, both players giving this mix of thunderous metal and awesome dyanmics, twisting and turning while still remaining straight on the path and unstoppable, surely one of the finest rhythm sections of any unsigned metal band today. You just have to listen to the way they charged through "Assisted Suicide" with that bass positively disembowelling while the drums rattle your skull and echo around the hall so much that you'd not be surprised if the walls of the venue collapsed against the force. Yet, through all this, the sound of them remains distinct, clear and a force of nature that's impossible to be tamed.
On top of all this, Bri is singing like his life depends on it, delivering a huge, powerful bellow of a vocal that's sung and shouted but always keeps you hooked, largely by virtue of the sheer passion, energy and emotion that he injects into the vocal, so that you feel every word is pouring from his soul like a blackness needing to come to the surface, as you simply stand there absolutely mesmerised by what you're witnessing. Then there's the guitar work. A series of molten riffs burn from the pA system, covering everything from dirty bass to nuclear force leads, a song such as "Guilty" also featuring this incredible swirl of phased psycedelic metal guitar that would be worthy of many a more famous band. Even the cover of a Rage Against The Machine track sounded so much their own, that anyone not knowing would quite simply have assumed that it was a band original, such is the quality and performance of their original songs.
Throughout a rip-roaring rollercoaster of a set, fired and fuelled with the finest and most potentially best-selling metal on the planet, the trio didn't put a foot wrong, and you put something like this in front of 10,000 screaming metal fans at a festival, then you'll see just how amazing this band can be and just how well they'll be received by the most demanding of audiences. This is one awesome awesome band - modern metal at its finest.........
........and I'll tell you how good they are, too, by mentioning that, as a support to a storm-force Metallica covers band featuring a James Hetfield lokalike and soundalike, playing a two hour set, they fitted in so easily that you could easily imagine them supprting the real thing!!
Metalica UK were on fire and ready to prove just how good they could be. With the audience a little far from the stage at first, the band whipped though three numbers before the audience decided to get closer, which resulted in the band feeding off the audience and from the fourth track onwards, it was up and taking off all the way. Numbers such as "Battery" and other thrash-metal faves were played with a venom that you'd not expected a covers band to possess, while it was the harder, faster numberrs at which the band excelled. That said, their rendition of "Nothing Else Matters" pretty well hit the spot while the lengthy anthem that is "One" just built and built to the perfect rock climax from humble balladic beginnings. Of course they played "Enter Sandman" - as a third encore, in fact - and tore the roof off.
The two hours actually passed quite quickly as the band chose their songs well, and even though I only was familiar with about half of them, they kept me hooked so good was the performance and the undoubted visual appeal of the frontman. The band sounded on fire throughout and gave a set of classic thrash and rock, exactly the treatment you'd hope to hear.
But, and you can call me biased - although I don't think so - for me, the night belonged to Core - decidedly a gig that showed but a glimpse of their monumental true potential.
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