I’m not sure how or why this keeps happening but here I am again. ROCKFLESH’s glam queen is dipping another toe into the world of metalcore – grammy nominated metalcore no less tonight! Three bands with a similar sound but quite a different approach to it tonight, should be interesting. 

First up, much to my surprise (and a little disappointment) were Finland’s Blind Channel, Eurovision hopefuls and boyband on steroids. They have all the energy and bounce of a basket of wriggly puppies, and I love the dual vocals that meld both harmonies and growling. They are heavy on the synth sounds but there’s a (bouncing) bloke up there playing (or programming?) it all so I’m good with that. They are a blur of movement and the crowd, at first non-plussed, soon gets the vibe and parts like the red sea to create a massive, slamming pit and it’s all good. They are metal enough for the most hardened battle-jacketed clad mosher but they have a poppy accessible edge too that draws me in and keeps my attention. The moves are choreographed, and these boys dance! There’s a lot of time changes and lots of crowd participation and they never stop moving. The bass and guitar are aloft in the air like weapons and the two singers interact with each other beautifully.  The band are loving it and the crowd responds accordingly. I’ll wrap this up with a comment from my colleague Ryan who saw them for the first time tonight – “Very Catalyst and Castle Of Glass era Linkin Park, with some pretty heavy instrument fills”. And a whoa-oh chorus. What else do you need in a band really? 

Trash Boat are a new name to me and I was a little surprised that Blind Channel were on before them but anyhow they are another bouncy band. They have dual guitars but despite being centre-balcony the sound certainly to start with is somewhat muddy and I can't really hear them! This band bring us clean vocals but again they use backing tracks for their intros and to add a bit of oomph to the proceedings. The vocalist introduced the band and I could have sworn he said they were from St Helens but I think it's actually St Albans? They're not bad, but as this isn’t my favourite genre I find them a little bit average. Despite one of the singers from I Prevail nipping on stage to yell out a chorus and then disappear again I’m not finding anything memorable in the music or lyrics and feel like a but of a bystander at someone else’s party. The crowd like them but I'm a little bit bored if I’m honest. They get a bit political but to be honest they could be singing about rainbow, unicorns and the hardcore element down there on the floor would still be body-slamming each other and high-fiveing. The bass player is a definite asset to them, that boy can really bust some moves! I do note though that guitar solos in this genre of music don't really work. There’s cover of Linkin Park’s ‘Giving Up’ dedicated to Chester Bennington and again the crowd love it but they don’t really stamp their own mark on it. The sound gets better as the set goes on, and they are OK but for me it's only OK, I haven't found the outstanding. 

On to headline act I Prevail, who I thought were a late 90s nu-metal band so I was surprised to find that they have only been around since 2013. When they come on they are brutal and primal, it's a great sound. They too have twin vocalists and the shouty one doesn't overpower the clean one so the two actually work really well together. Again I grind my teeth a little at the somewhat overuse of backing tracks; I'm all for using them for intros and to enhance the sound a touch but they do seem to rely on it quite heavily and I feel a little cheated - I've come to watch a band not a DJ set! The music meanwhile once I get past that little irritant is like a jackhammer to the skull, it pounds relentlessly. There is melody in there too though, ‘Bad Things’ especially stands out to me and is rather good. The band are the very definition of rap-metal and I watch in awe as the crowd becomes one, an undulating monster that swallows everything in its path and occasionally spits a single entity out and over the barrier. There's a lot going on in the music, the time changes and vocal shenanigans are almost on a par with prog in places. Progcore? Does have a certain ring to it! I Prevail are intense, immersive, impossible, insane at times. It’s almost like there are two bands, the ballad-stricken plaintive melodic rockers vs the face-melting hardcore. Their crowd are with them every step of the way, and sing lustily to every song.

They incorporate a smidgeon of System Of A Down’s ‘Chop Suey’ into a song of their own which goes down well. It's a good light show and the whole stage experience is put together well but I find the overuse of the tracks annoying. The band can play so I'd rather hear them!  At one point they try to open up a pit too but it’s so rammed in here tonight that there just isn’t any space for it. There's a lot of bouncing and shoving anyway though and I'm quite glad to be watching it from the safety of my balcony! When they do the slow tracks the music lulls you and then punches you in the gut, a proper contrast. Again I compare and contrast the brutal screamo and the bouncy rap-pop-metal, sometimes in the same song. I note that despite the slickness of the musicianship there is little to no soloing going on, no primadonnas in this band. They work as a team, interweaving both musically and physically to provide a great visual and aural experience. I love how they merge a catchy chorus with a blow to the solar plexus over and over again and although I'm slightly out of my comfort zone with this genre of music I'm finding the more I go the more I'm enjoying it. I Prevail are almost textbook in their definition of what a good alt metal band should be, and I enjoyed them much more that I expected to.  

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
I Prevail, Trash Boat, Blind Channel