It's my first time in Jimmy’s, and my first metal gig back following the lockdowns of the pandemic. I like the vibe in the venue – the staff are welcoming, offering me their own Jimmy’s brews, all served beneath the neon signs and lava lamps flooding the walls. It has the feel of a rock bar, and that’s something you don’t actually see that often these days. Meeting up with Rockflesh overlord Johann, we move downstairs into the gig venue. It's certainly intimate, and has an awesome DIY punk feel to the whole place. I leave Johann to dash down the front as I set-up shop at the back of the room…about five people from the front of the stage still!

First up are False Hope. Passionate and engaging, they mix Blood Youth style nu-metal with clearer hardcore sensibilities. The drumming is fantastic, with plenty of power and technical imagination in both the delivery and composition. In fact, the song-writing demonstrates plenty of variety and tempo changes. False Hope aren’t a one trick pony, but their signature on each song allows their set to flow and remain cohesive. Interestingly, these guys end up being the most organically setup band of the night (seemingly no additional backing track) and in hindsight, in a small venue with difficult sound balancing, they benefit from this a great deal.

Next up we have local Liverpool band Cut Short. They do suffer from the sound balance, especially utilising some backing track elements, but the musicianship and individual performances are assured and engaging. Pleasingly angular, stabby guitars and melodies layer with excellent scattery, jazz drums. These guys are looking to hit that proggy/tech-metal balance in their overall sound, but I’m not sure the guitar work is intricate enough to fully afford such a sound. Cut Short are obviously carving a sound of their own which is admirable, but they do need to ensure songs don’t become samey while still delivering those killer hooks they have.

Main support are the brilliant Where Oceans Burn. Now, I normally say their guitars are the main focus of the songs, but at Jimmy’s tonight I can’t hear the guitars at all – it’s just drums and vocals with a bit of backing track. It’s a massive shame as we know they are fantastic, and in fairness the band perform great as always…it’s just the sound in the venue letting them down. The guitars are only a part of what give these guys their heavily Northlane influenced sound and style though. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - guitarist Ben Charleston is Manchester's answer to Jon Deiley, the oft masked guitarist from Northlane, with similar physical movements and more importantly similarly song-writing and guitar-work. The Architects/Polaris influenced elements of the band’s sound, through great vocal fry work in particular, are on show tonight and I can’t wait to see these guys in bigger venues soon.

The venue has unfortunately thinned out by the time Arcaeon take to the stage, and to be honest it’s a little embarrassing to say the least that people appear to have turned-out for their mate’s band but won’t stick around for a fantastic emerging band that needs and deserves their support. It does however mean that for once I stick with Johann down the front and prepare for what the London/Reading band have to offer live. 2021 released album “Cascadence” has been on my repeat-listen list for the past few weeks and is a glorious mix of tech, prog and djent…but with some catchy melodic vocal hooks and head-rocking guitar riffs. Fans of ERRA and Periphery will love these guys as they juggle accessible songs with astonishing technicality. The amazing vocal range from Stuart Sarre is sublime, with guttural growls juxtaposed with piercingly high falsetto melodies. The drums and bass demonstrate exemplary precision in what are varied and appropriate patterns for each song. However, the stars of the shows are Sam Machin and Rhys Thomas on guitar. Sam in particular demonstrates awesomely stunning technical guitar work – fingers dancing and flexing along the fret board in a manner I’ve never seen anything like close-up before. But the guitar-work is also perfect for the songs, the writing and interaction between all elements of the band are brilliantly subtle and powerfully joyous. These guys should be sharing bills with bands such TesseracT, in much bigger venues with better sound, very soon if there’s any justice in the prog-tech Metal world.