Nightmare Situations - Vol.1: Secret Postman Syndrome

Perhaps you're a postman.

Perhaps you're a postman and you don't even know. It's entirely possible that you’ve forgotten about it. You used to know, but you’ve hidden the truth from yourself - pushed it deep down into the recesses of your mind along with what you did to Barrack Obama with your Yo-yo last July. Basically, you’re living a lie.

You go about your daily routine, barely aware that you're posting letters the entire time. You try to have your dinner but you can't stop posting letters. There are envelopes in the gravy and the sprouts are covered in stamps. There's mashed potato in the air mail and you're the one to blame. Perhaps this wouldn't have happened if you'd not been so wreckless.

Perhaps you're a postman.

You need help.

Cougars (In the Well) (Note Post, Vol. 2)

There are cougars in the well. You don't know how they got there. You don't want to know. You just want them gone.

There are cougars in the well.

The mayor's going crazy and the water's turning maroon.
You need to get the cougars out. They swim in circles, going nowhere, whispering Dutch obscenities like awful children. Sniggering into their handkerchiefs. Tearing up newspapers. No respect.

There are still cougars in the well.

You attempt to coax them out with promises of fine wine and loose women. No dice.

Frustration.

You watch them anxiously. Stirring their cocktails. Grimacing into the brickwork. Handing out business cards to each other.

Disgusting.

Suddenly your face is a sled and you rush to get the antivenene.









But there are still cougars in the well.

HammerFall, Dream Evil & Tribe @ Wolverhampton (Another Midlands Rocks Review)

No messing around, tonight.

The evening kicks in at full force as Yorkshire Metal outfit Tribe explode onto the stage, treating us to an incredibly lengthy 30-minute epic track (a daring move for a live environment, you might say... but hear me out!). The song is characterised by a repeated riff and slightly varying choruses that blend together perfectly. The song-writing quality showcased here is truly... Oh... those were all different songs?

Ah. Let’s try that one again.

The evening begins uncertainly as Yorkshire Metal outfit Tribe amble onto the stage, treating us to a small array of similar-sounding songs from their debut album “Pray for Calm... Need the Chaos”. In the interest of being fair, the songs aren’t bad – they’re just in severe need of variation. The guys perform the tracks well and the musicianship displayed is pretty competent, but an X-factor is missing here. Resultantly, the songs seem to fuse together, making the set become a little more insipid than the band probably deserve. Don’t get me wrong, I’d recommend people check out their debut; even Iron Maiden’s own Bruce Dickinson touts them as “A great British rock band”, giving them regular airtime on his radio show and who am I to argue with Brucey? I guess this reviewer was just disappointed by the lack of variation in the songs, tonight and hopes that Tribe’s future sets will see more diversity with the creation of a second album. However, the crowd react positively enough, giving the band a warm reception, so perhaps this reviewer was alone in his Grumpy Corner of the venue.

http://www.myspace.com/tribeband

Next up, we all mess the venue with the sticky residue of metal-induced orgasms (I am, of course, talking about the beer spills on the floor...) supplied by Swedish Show-Stealers Dream Evil. These guys put on an unbelievable performance, giving the main event a seriously tough act to follow. Tearing into the crowd with new album opener “Immortal”, Dream Evil treat us to that rarest of rarities; the manlier side of Power Metal. The set features a few tracks from their latest release, “In the Night”, but whilst it’s always a good idea to introduce audiences to new material in a live environment, the crowd definitely respond more positively to the old favourites. Gig highlights, for me, are debut opener “Chasing the Dragon” and 2003’s “Made of Metal”, the latter literally sending chills down my spine. There’s only so much I can say about their performance tonight without kissing too much ass, so I’ll keep this brief. The set is nice and varied, featuring at least a track from every album. I can’t fault their performance, at all. The audience interaction is great, the musicianship is excellent and Peter Stålfors’ shaved head and beard combo makes him look like Satan (which, yes, is a positive aspect worthy of review and a great crowd-pleaser). The set finishes with Fan Favourite and Glorious Heavy Metal Anthem “In the Book of Heavy Metal”, which is the mercury icing on the Heavy Metal layer cake that Dream Evil have stuffed us with.

http://www.myspace.com/dreamevil

Finally, the lights go down and Esteemed Heavy Metallers HammerFall explode onto the stage (I mean it, this time) to “Punish and Enslave” the audience with a track from 2009’s “No Sacrifice, No Victory”, getting the set off to a great start, proceeding to storm through “Crimson Thunder” and roar through “Renegade”. Having seen HammerFall a handful of times before, I’m yet to be disappointed by their musicianship, showmanship and general musical aptitude. What makes HammerFall work so well in a live environment is that, like other iconic bands such as Iron Maiden, well renowned for their live performances, every song that they play is an anthemic sing-along. There’s no filler here, it’s all straight-up quality musicianship from the ballsy chorus of “Blood Bound” to the gentle melodies of mandatory mid-gig ballad “Between Two Worlds”. As if to compensate, HammerFall follow up said frilly ballad with ultra-macho new album single “Any Means Necessary” – a hairy mammoth of a track that, despite being relatively new, has already sunk its claws (tusks?) into the bands set and secured a place as a regular live fixture and crowd favourite. The Swedish stars continue doling out the hyper-heavy-metal-masculinity with the aptly titled “Stronger than All” before rocking our collective cock off with the musically excellent and veritable showcase of all-round excellent badassery “Riders of the Storm”, to which the audience respond with an animalistic roar of approval.

After leaving and returning to the stage in what could possibly be the shortest encore gap in history, HammerFall finish the evening with “Secrets”, “Let the Hammer Fall” and of course, the inevitable “Hearts on Fire”. I think it’s fair to say that nobody in the venue, from the band or the audience, is disappointed with the way the evening has played out.

http://www.myspace.com/hammerfall

Setlist:

1. Punish and Enslave
2. Crimson Thunder
3. Renegade
4. Hallowed Be My Name
5. Last Man Standing
6. Blood Bound
7. Heeding the Call
8. Rebel Inside
9. The Metal Age
10. Between Two Worlds
11. Any Means Necessary
12. Stronger than All
13. Riders of the Storm
----------------------------
14. Secrets
15. Let the Hammer Fall
16. Hearts on Fire

Link to review

Midlands Rocks

Photos by Sarah Payman-Shaw

Dreams Come True

On the Waves (Original Composition)

Just noodling around in GP6

Edguy, Beholder & With One Last Breath (Midlands Rocks Review)

The four fringed members of With One Last Breath finally leave the stage after a less than lukewarm reception from a slightly empty JBs in the town of Dudley. I generously start the review at this point because there is absolutely nothing constructive I could say about this band and their performance... so I’m just going to have to rant. A review of each individual song from their set would be identical. It was about halfway through the second song (a word I use loosely to describe the Frankenstein of stitched-together whiney vocals and mandatory/uninspired breakdowns) that I realised why I felt a bit nauseous – I was having severe déjà vu. I’d heard these songs before, leaking sloppily from the amps of every unintuitive Metalcore band to soil the face of music television in these recent years. However, the band and the audience came down to a pretty reasonable deal: they had nothing nice to offer us, so we had nothing nice to offer them. As they left the stage to an uncertain smattering of polite applause, I wished the lads the best with their career (honestly), but I certainly knew a roomful of people in the Black Country that wouldn’t mind never seeing the backs of them again. It was just the wrong kind of crowd.

http://www.myspace.com/withonelastbreathofficial

Next up, Beholder take the stage – and I mean really take it and make it their own. Vocalist Simon Hall and his admirable beard acquire centre stage, showcasing some fantastic frontmanship whilst his bandmates shred, blast and... bass(?) their way throughout the set, behind him, showing a considerable arrangement of musical talent between them. Hall and his crew promise us some 'Old School' Heavy Metal. Witnessing them tear through colossal songs like “Show No Mercy” and “Snake Eyes”, slowing down momentarily for the highly-emotional “Brave Shall Fall” (an ode to our soldiers overseas), we are not disappointed.

http://www.myspace.com/beholderuk

The lights finally dim and the star of the show (and doesn’t he know it) arrives and kicks our faces off with the latest album closer “Dead or Rock”, leading straight into “Speedhoven”. Both of these songs are cracked open and fleshed out considerably from their studio incarnations, seeming to pack much more of a punch in a live environment, despite Tobi dropping the microphone 3 times, once almost braining a poor woman in the front row. Next, the Edguys cover more familiar ground with 2001’s “Tears of a Mandrake”, to which the audience respond far more vocally. The first true highlight of the evening roars into the now swarming JB’s as promiscuity-promoting “Lavatory Love Machine” explodes from speakers, drenching us in red-hot metal (a lot less painful than it sounds).

“Who wants to hear some Commercial Pop Metal from Germany?” Sammet cries, generating a curiously large scream of approval from the crowd as the band barrel into “Vain Glory Opera”. Something about the performance of this track doesn’t fall quite right on the eardrums. The lack of synth and orchestration leaves the song feeling a little flat, dry and considerably less cheesy than the studio version. The song is transformed from a Europe-reminiscent synthfest into more of a hard rock/heavy metal self-tribute... Not bad, by any means, but not quite what we were hoping for.

From this point on, the setlist becomes a veritable musical orgasm as Edguy destroy the stage with 10 minute epic (and personal favourite) “The Piper Never Dies”. Tinnitus Sanctus opener “Ministry of Saints” follows, leading into an impressive (but noticeably lengthy) solo from drum dynamo Felix Bohnke. The band return to the stage after this instrumental break wielding fan favourite “Superheroes”, which also unfortunately suffers from the lack of live synth and orchestration, but still proves to be monstrously enjoyable. The band continue dolling out the Rocket Ride tracks with soppy but loveable sing-along ballad “Save Me” which really gets the crowd going, despite a disappointing lack of lighters, owing to a despicably healthy crowd of non-smokers. We had to make do with illuminated mobile phone screens.

Prior to the inevitable encore, Tobi announces the faux “last song of the evening”, promising it’ll be a real cracker. He wasn’t kidding. The band surprise us all (or maybe just me) by blasting into bonus track “Fucking with Fire”. The performance of this song is nothing short of breathtaking and as it ends, despite yearning for more, I’d have been happy to have called it a night. The lights go dark.

After a few moments of milking the crowd of their frantic screams and chants, Tobi and the other Edguys return out of the darkness to treat us to the lacklustre “Sacrifice” – a somewhat risky and disappointing way to begin an encore. However, we have to forgive them as they follow up by unleashing Hellfire Club’s speed machine “Mysteria” into the crowd. This monster of a song feeds on the collective energy of the fans, growing in size, getting faster and stronger, ultimately exploding at its climactic ending. Perfect.

Finally, we finish up with crowd-pleaser “King of Fools”; a satisfactory end to a rollercoaster ride of a gig. Plenty of ups and downs, but the important thing is that we managed to end on a high.

http://www.myspace.com/edguy


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(Photos Courtesy of Sarah Payman-Shaw)

Old(ish) W.A.S.P. review for Midlands Rocks

Having not previously indulged in a great amount of W.A.S.P.’s material, I arrived at JB’s in Dudley a little uncertain of what to expect. Due to an unfortunate cancelation of Leeds’ hard rock quintet “The Glitterati”, the evening’s meal of metal was cut straight to the main course.

Cramming myself in to the packed-out venue, I find myself adrift in a sea of anticipation and W.A.S.P. shirts. After a false alarm sparked by hundreds of rabid fans cheering violently for the projection set-up, the band explodes onto the stage with an opener that has the entire audience on their knees. Standing at 6ft 4”, frontman Blackie Lawless’ stage presence is undeniable, towering over the crowd with circular buzz saws protruding from his forearms, chanting the lyrics to “On Your Knees” proves an effective way of holding the audience’s attention.

After moving seamlessly from their opening song into L.O.V.E Machine, W.A.S.P. treats us all to a helping from their latest release “Babylon”. This new number rings throughout the venue with an intro hauntingly reminiscent of their anthemic “Wild Child“, making the fans go crazy.

Barely allowing recovery time from this monster album opener, the band barrel into Babylon’s title track: “Babylon’s Burning”. Almost as mesmerising as Doug Blair’s masterful guitar skills is his guitar itself, captivating the audience as the fret board runs red with light spilled from embedded LEDs, trickling down the guitar’s neck towards the spinning circular saw fixed to its body: I sense a recurring theme, in the band’s stage show.

The venue explodes into a deafening roar as the intro to previously mentioned popular track “Wild Child” drifts from the amps and across the outstretched hands of the audience. Fists pump the air as the song’s chorus is belted out proudly by Lawless and the loyal metal choir before him; a definite high-point of the evening.

W.A.S.P. continued through the night, unleashing track after track of their particular breed of 80s glam metal, pleasuring us with “Hellion” and “Chainsaw Charlie”, the latter proving to be a real crowd-pleaser. All of a sudden, W.A.S.P.’s heavy metal speed train that has carried us throughout the evening so far makes an unexpected (but quite welcome) stop at Crimson Idol title track “The Idol”. Lawless regales the swarm of fans with the heart-wrenching tale of fictional rock star Jonathan Steel. With the audience’s collective heart still bleeding from the after-effects of Lawless’ song-mastery, Doug Blair reopens the wounds and pours a bag of salt into them as he takes centre stage to solo soulfully amidst the solemn mist creeping across the stage. The emotions are real, the mist is not.

Picking us up and brushing us off after this stern emotional beating, the band carries us on into “Take Me Up” and fan favourite “I Wanna Be Somebody” before leaving the stage empty and silent. Unwilling to let the band go without a fight, the audience initially begin to chant “Blackie! Blackie! Blackie!” before more appropriately switching to “W.A.S.P.! W.A.S.P.! W.A.S.P.!”, respecting the band’s unquestionable team effort.

Once fully satisfied with their ability to make grown men and women throw tantrums and scream for more, W.A.S.P. bursts back on stage, melting the faces in the front row with “Heaven Hung in Black” and “Blind in Texas”; an admirable dessert of an encore that complements the main course faultlessly.

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