Our 20th Year Anniversary Series continued with an amazing seventh show that may have had the scariest name in our event history! It was so great to be back at Wave Music Studio. Thanks to Addy for his support of Underground; he made all three bands sound fantastic. Thanks to Gigi for assisting Addy with the sound. Thank you to the three bands who performed and shared their songs with a captivated audience. Thank you to everyone who turned up and to all the people we had to turn away. Special thanks to Aaron Michelson for the photos and Ti Zae Yi for the reviews. A big thanks to Raven, our wonderful doorperson. Lastly, thank you to Christy, who spent hours creating the incredible show poster.
我哋嘅20周年慶系列繼續進行,今次嘅第七場表演係我地所有活動歷史上個名最得人驚嘅一場!可以番到浪潮音樂工作室表演真係超開心。多謝Addy對我哋地下音樂嘅支持,佢令三支樂隊嘅聲音聽落都一流!仲要多謝Gigi從中協助Addy。感謝三支樂隊為著迷嘅觀眾帶黎佢哋嘅歌曲!都感謝每一位黎睇表演嘅朋友,同埋嗰啲我哋冇辦法不得不拒之門外嘅人。再特別感謝Aaron Michelson影左好多好型嘅相。仲有Ti Zae Yi寫嘅評論。特別感謝我哋嘅門衛Raven,佢真係好厲害!最後,多謝Christy用左好耐設計出今次呢張型爆嘅演出海報!
❤️ Chris B xx
CURSED EYES
1. River of Blood
2. Unholy Night
3. Specter’s Garden
4. Future in My Eyes
5. Consciousness Lost
6. Down With Me
People were already being turned away at the door by the time Cursed Eyes took to the stage of the Wave Music Studio. The melodic death metal quartet kicked things off with a hauntingly atmospheric recording of stringed instruments over a low, deep piano that transitioned into a military-style drum beat before the band launched into River of Blood. Frontman Benjamin Cheng’s deep, guttural growls laid thick over fast riffs, with a catchy chorus that almost invited the crowd to roar along, assuming they were ok with not being able to speak the next day.
No time was wasted breaking into Unholy Night, a showcase of shredding that had me wishing from the back of the venue that the band – or at the very least, the lead guitarist – made use of the small stage available rather than playing at the same level of the crowd. My quibbles were quickly forgotten as Specter’s Garden kicked in, addictive verses running into deliciously dueling guitars decked with vicious vocals.
Future in My Eyes saw the band’s wah-wah pedal put through its paces, the singer’s growls growing ever harsher as perhaps the result of already stripping off the top layer of his trachea. But it can be hard to get a Hong Kong metal crowd going and, possibly due to an under-alcoholed audience – the event poster neglected to mention to BYOB – people had yet to jump to life. Consciousness Lost was next to valiantly try, wild riffs, intense drumming and crazy solos viciously colliding, before Down With Me and its melodic guitar passages closed things out.
Passionate applause saw the band off, but throughout the set they didn’t quite get the response the music deserved.
– Ti Zae Yi
SNAILS
1. Intro
2. Explosion
3. Fuck Off
4. SxxxR
5. Break Yourselves
6. Shout
7. 30s
8. Sum of the Beach
9. Happy Fun Song
10. What We Defend
Holy shit. A crowd that at times had looked like it had been close to flat-lining was suddenly jerked violently to life, as Snails vocalist Wai delivered a near-deadly defibrillator dose of screaming vocals over pounding guitars from the opening beats of Intro, whipping the audience up into a writhing mosh pit in double-quick time.
Explosion saw the blonde-streaked nuclear bomb flip to clean(er) singing over matching riffing – for about a minute, anyway – before ordering the crowd into a circle pit as the band launched into the fervent Fuck Off, which stepped up the tempo to near breaking point. SxxxR kept up the manic pace before switching to chugging power chords with a density off the periodic table, causing a mosh pit of such power to erupt it threatened to knock down the guitars lining the venue’s walls.
There was a brief break to catch the shortest of breaths before the hardcore punk quintet launched into Break Yourselves. Wai again switched up her tone, alternating between fast singing and head-splitting screams, the energy building from solo bass and drums mid-track to an all-out riotous climax. As Shout played I realised I could feel the guitars in the back of my throat, with the bellowed lyric “I’ve got to save my life” making me wonder who was going to save mine if the chaos continued much longer.
The super-fast, super-frenetic 30s was a half-minute headrush that crashed immediately into Sum of the Beach with its freaky, screechy guitars and turbulent tempo changes, before the almost radio-friendly Happy Fun Song laid out lighter, more cheerful passages… until it didn’t. What We Defend wrapped things up with hard-hitting riffs, rabid screams and even a smidgen of a guitar solo, finishing off a tight 25-minute set.
Comprising ex-members of bands that include Yau Dong, Dagger, Kyanos and King Lychee, it was clear Snails knew how to put on a show, with an excellent mix of sounds and showmanship that no doubt had everyone who witnessed it eagerly anticipating their next performance.
– Ti Zae Yi
SKY BURIAL
1. The Smouldering Pone
2. Vacant Throne
3. Eternal Submission
4. Inside the Abyss
5. Burned to Ashes
6. Persephone
Not even waiting to be introduced, slam deathcore monsters Sky Burial blasted straight into their first track, The Smouldering Pone, spewing a furious, pitiless sound straight from the ninth circle of hell. If you wanted a band that separated the hardcore from the lime cordials, this was it; indeed, it was not long before a few members of the crowd scurried from the venue.
Yonnie’s soul-grindingly brutal vocals over crushing guitars and violent drumming tore at the eardrums; at some point, I realized that the beer can I was holding was vibrating to every baleful bellow spewing from her mouth, riffs pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer. Even the air conditioning was toiling amid such a blistering assault, leading to the band politely requesting that it (and the bass) be turned up before barreling into Vacant Throne.
As third track Eternal Submission kicked in, half the crowd still appeared to be in a state of shock, the other half’s heads locked in rhythmic pounding as sweeping arpeggio sections descended into slow, sludgy strumming that felt as if you were being slowly pulled into a swamp’s dark depths.
After another long break between songs – an unwelcome constant throughout the set – things really kicked off as the opening bars of Inside the Abyss shot out, metalheads crashing together in the pit like particles in a hadron collider. Burned To Ashes saw no let-up in the savagery, Yonnie’s vocal cords valiantly withstanding the almost 40-minute-long torture session they’d been subjected to all the way to the last bars of closer Persephone.
Sky Burial’s set felt less like watching a band and more like feeling them in the darkest parts of your soul. From the ear-shattering vocals to the frenzied flailing of the guitars to parts where it felt like sinking through treacle in slow motion, the group – consisting of several ex-members of Human Betrayer – truly transformed the Wave Music Studio into a Death Metal Dungeon from which some would have been happy never to escape.
– Ti Zae Yi
Photos by Aaron Michelson.
由Aaron Michelson攝影。
Poster by Christy Yuen
海報由 Christy Yuen 。