News: Sonic Dice R.I.P. 2007-2009

For the last couple of years, together with my good friend, we've been running a dot.com alternative music review website called Sonic Dice. As it turns out, it was a hugely successful project but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We quickly managed to build up a great amount of input direct from the music industry, enabling us to run the website for free, gather a large team of reviewers around us and, hence, update the content on a regular basis.

I particularly was blown away by our achievements, highlighted by the influx of great bands wanting us to review their albums and shows and granting us the opportunity to interview them. I'll never forget interviewing Killswitch Engage, Soulfly, Unearth, As I Lay Dying, Gojira, Turisas, Suicide Silence, Darkest Hour, The Answer, Bison B.C. and Full Blown Chaos all in the name of Sonic Dice. As a fan of metal, that meant a great deal to me personally.

We'd like to thank everyone involved for their input and kind words when we finally were forced to shut up shop. We'll continue to work with them, no doubt, even if the relationships have to be tweaked somewhat. Today is certainly a day to be proud, not sad.

Gig review: The Answer + Black Spiders + Dark Horse – The Junction, Cambridge, 08/12/09

Going head-to-head in a self-defeating battle of rock promoters, the bands on tonight’s Cambridge Junction bill are going up against the powerhouses of Dragonforce and Glamour Of The Kill who are playing across town at the Corn Exchange. The quick fill suggests that, not only have they stolen some of the aforementioned bands’ crowd but that, people have ventured from far and wide to catch a glimpse of this venue’s headliners, The Answer – a band experiencing probably the most oustanding year of anyone on the rock circuit.

Kicking us off tonight, Dark Horse, are clearly revelling in the pregnant atmosphere. “I’m feeling it, let’s ride this bitch!” cries the lead vocalist/bassist Will Walter (one of three brothers on stage) before the band stutter into their highlight, Unspoken. The two guitarists flanking him rip out familiar riffs and leads, all the time dancing upon the grave of the now-defunct band, The Darkness. There’s no doubting the influence – you just have to look at Will’s trousers to show they are proud to be able to follow in such grandiloquent footsteps; one pant leg is denim, the other is white leather. Quite why they’d want to mimic their idols so closely is beyond me, but they have a damned good go at it, overegging the pudding at every opportunity. Falling short is inevitable, but it’s nice to see a little bit of AC/DC influence also creep in along the way. Highlights are the one-man rampage through the crowd that guitarist Ollie Walter attempts during ‘Pictures’ (he’s hilariously followed by a roadie with a torch to light his way) and the back-flip finale that Tom Johnson pulls off… just.

Black Spiders are burly, butch, brash and lots of other things starting with ‘b’. It’s the big beards that make them stand out physically and the bruising beats that isolate them sonically. A string of four axemen spread across the front of the stage, pinpoints the direction of their sound – guitar-driven desert rock with little touches of classic, old school riffing thrown in to fill out the mix. By tossing out the infectious chorus of Stay Down for the crowd to singalong to, they mark their territory early, with frontman Pete Spiby asking those gathered to raise their middle fingers and point them in his general direction whilst screaming “Fuck you Black Spiders!” It’s a move that certainly raises the temperature a couple of notches and endears the band to the crowd with immediate effect. It’s like listening to Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster on some kind of power trip. By St. Peter, drummer ‘Tiger Si’ Atkinson is leaning over his kit to longingly eyeball the crowd whilst the guitarists are taking it in turn to laugh dementedly into their mics. A bed of smoke begins to rise from the floor and a blue hue is thrown onto the stage to blur the lines even further. “How are you doing, Cambridge?” yells Spiby and repeats it over and over until he’s got the crowd busting a gut to appease him. Behind his rotund physique, Atkinson hammers at his kit with huge towering strokes until the sizzle cymbal finally explodes in a shower of rivets. By the time they reach closer, Full Seven Inches, the audience are utterly transfixed. It’s a performance that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

“Hello Cambridge town. We’re The Answer from County Down, Northern Ireland, and we have some business with you tonight… and that business is rock and roll”. It’s a beautifully worded introduction and the riotous response indicates that plenty have heard it before. The Answer have spent the year touring as main support for AC/DC on their incredible ‘Black Ice’ U.S./Europe tour and have loved every minute of it. It’s been the proving ground on which they’ve tightened up their act, so that now they could pretty much do this gig with their eyes shut. The experience is showing as little marks all over the stage – taped crosses to indicate where they need to stand at any one time to maximise a riff or a movement. Out front, it’s the extra margin that proves there class. Lead vocalist Cormac Neeson is resplendent in his familiar flowery shirt and long hippie hair (a mop to begin with, it takes shape as he sweats it out) and he moves like a man possessed by the bluesy rhythms. They seem to flow through him as he stoops and shrugs, taking great heaving breaths to suck up the heart of firstly their single, ‘Tonight’, then the pulsing rocker, ‘Demon Eyes’. His croaked, yet voluminous delivery is a talent that his own peers, nay, idols crave (Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott has professed to being a fan) and, on the band’s slower material, it steps into the spotlight, stunning the crowd into a jaw-dropping silence. ‘Cry Out’ and, especially, ‘Why’d You Change Your Mind?’ are stunners, transcending the borrowed chords to stand alone as things of beauty.

All the way through, Neeson is checking back in with the crowd to make sure they’re all enjoying themselves, be it to regale us with faux stories of how the drummer turned down a place on the Cambridge University Rowing Team to play drums tonight, to ask us to help them out by clapping to keep the band in time, requesting a singalong for the now famous Belfast Blues Off, or letting us know that the band haven’t forgotten the last time they played Cambridge (three years ago). At his side, guitarist Paul Mahon constantly switches between guitars all night, utilising finger-slides, capos, whammy bars and wah pedals to hammer home an array of different sounds. It’s his solos that startle the most – he leans into them, stepping right out to the edge of the stage, before raising his axe triumphantly after each one’s climax. During ‘Evil Man’, Neeson steps off-stage to sing with the front row so that, come the end, he and his cracking band are being roared from the stage as heroes.

Photo by Rich E

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/12/the-answer-black-spiders-dark-horse-%E2%80%93-the-junction-cambridge-081209/

Gig Review: Ian Brown – Corn Exchange, Cambridge 07/12/09

We are here tonight to pay homage to a legendary frontman. Some of us are here because Ian Brown came warbling into our lives as the blissed-out leader of Madchester titans The Stone Roses, others are here because he subsequently delighted us with his confident swagger, his Neanderthal mouth and his willingness to stand up to ‘the man’. It means tonight’s audience is a nice mixture of angry youths and gentle giants.

Quite what Soho Dolls make of it all is unclear, but they seem dead-set on revealing as little as possible. Stark, emotionless faces stare back out at the crowd, atop static bodies. With only the guitarist, Toni, breaking out of the statuesque backdrop band (he writhes occasionally to reach the top end), it is left to lead vocalist Maya to provide the visuals. She has a fixed spotlight on her, making it clear that this is where we are supposed to be directing our attention, but she arrogantly, and annoyingly, lopes in and out of it. Dressed in a scanty suede and lace top, she lazily throws shapes like a diva on dope. There’s definitely some new material performed tonight, but since she has little else to offer the audience (her reference to Ian Brown as “you know, the headline guy” actually draws a few gasps) it’s no surprise to find the band wandering off to minimal applause.

Thankfully, with only one support, it’s a relief to see Ian Brown is up to the task of generating some energy. Like a boxer, preparing for a fight, he comes out rolling his shoulders, flexing his neck muscles and pausing to pose for fans that show him signs of life. Occasionally, he flicks up a thumb or raises his tambourine to gaze playfully through it at those watching. Then, picking his gum from his gob, he whips up the mic and begins to layer up the resonating vocal of opener ‘Love Like A Fountain’. Lurking in the dark, amongst a sea of amps, his backing band do nothing more than gently nod along, almost as if they’ve been instructed not to show up the main man. Still the central spot refuses to follow the ringmaster but it doesn’t stop the sunken-cheeked legend pacing the stage to get up close to his fans. By ‘All Ablaze’ the lighting rig behind has burst into life to mimic a wall of flames, after which Brown takes time out to wind up the stereotyped student populous – “I thought you lot were supposed to be clever”.

Things take a shift back towards the positive for ‘Keep What Ya Got’, which really gets its groove on thanks to some frantic fingerwork on the tablas from the turban warrior Inder Matharu, and the crowd zone in on the hits ‘Corpses In Their Mouths’ and ‘Marathon Man’ that follow. Arms go up, the dancing intensifies and the singalongs and handclaps find more and more participants to up the volume. With Brown famous for his tendency to slip out of tune, the echoing venue is doing a good job of hiding any inadequacies – only on ‘F.E.A.R.’ is it apparent that something is awry. It matters little as his apologies to the crowd in the “cheap seats” (the seated balcony above) are heartfelt – “Sorry you didn’t get the chance to bop”. Then, discretely tucked into his encore, comes what we’ve all been waiting for; the cover of the Stone Roses’ classic ‘Fool’s Gold’ performed across a blanket of pink gels. Instantly, a sea of brightly-lit videophones flies up to record the event for posterity and we’re sent away with mile-wide grins.

Photo by Rich E

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/12/ian-brown-%E2%80%93-corn-exchange-cambridge-071209/

Gig Review: Five Finger Death Punch + Shadows Fall – Waterfront, Norwich 30/11/09

On a chilly night the crowd are pleased to get in from the glacial conditions and into the prospect of witnessing two hefty acts with big-selling albums to promote. Originally, billed as a Shadows Fall headlining tour, the rise and rise of Five Finger Death Punch has meant a joint lead slot and plenty of rockers have turned up to pay homage.

First on, Dutch metalheads Magnacult do a fine job of warming up the audience and although the reaction to them is somewhat muted, the throat-scouring vocal of Sebastiaan Lefèvre, complementing the bass-ridden groove and sonorous shredding that lurks behind it, is enough to send a promising buzz circulating the venue. The focal point is the bassist, Spit, sporting Hellraiser-esque corn plugs all over his scalp, who constantly ogles the crowd for signs of life. “I wanna see chaos” cries Lefèvre before Line Of Attack and a solitary arm is raised above a pool of nodding heads. They deserve more than they receive tonight.

Rise To Remain, however, don’t do nearly enough to impress. With baby-faced, diminutive vocalist, Austin Dickinson, they don’t have the same impact as the bands that surround them. With outstanding tracks such as the abrasive Salvation they do have the songs to impress (there’s also a crowd-friendly stomper and a track, possibly titled Undiminished, that dips in and out of gut-wrenching breakdowns), but the delivery tonight is way too impersonal – almost as if the crowd are voyeurs at one of RTR’s band practices. Sure, there’s plenty of chest-beating, but with Dickinson’s impulsion to pointlessly ask us how we’re doing tonight, over and over, it only highlights the band’s inability to gauge their audience.

With the other band members motionless, the nerve centre for Shadows Fall’s set is lead vocalist Brian Fair. Usually, this would make for a dull show, but tonight the frontman with the 4-foot dreads is on fire. They chuck their new melodic ball-breaker, Still I Rise, in early and Fair is immediately whipping the crowd into a frenzy with plenty of finger-pointing and windmilling. He follows that up by reaching up to the mesh of pipework that forms the ceiling of the venue, and swings his way out over the gawping faces who reach up instinctively to cushion his fall. The further he ventures, the more tired he becomes until finally the inevitable happens; a slip and a crowdsurf back to terra firma. “Hell, this place is dirty” he exclaims as he looks down at the layers of muck that now coat his palms. Imploring us to “fuck it up”, the crowd respond with a bout of pitting for A Public Execution. Sure, there’s an eventual loss of momentum despite Fair’s fervent devil-horning and manic exhortations (“death to false metal!”), but that early burst of hits and athletics will live long in the memory.

We’re taken by surprise as, seemingly from out of nowhere, Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody is suddenly leering maniacally at us from atop his flightcase. The band fire up Burn It Down and he sets off into a routine of fist-pumping and head-slapping – it won’t be long before we’re seeing an ‘Action Man: Rock Edition’ of the somewhat unhinged vocalist. Veins a-popping, he throws himself into their notorious Bad Company cover, whilst at his side the whipcrack dreads of guitarist Zoltan Bathory lash the front row. For Hard To See, the pit steps it up a gear and suddenly the lasses who’ve been propping up the bar are in with the lads, singing along with every note. A young boy, who can’t be more than 10 years old, gets tossed into the air, over and across the pit, and immediately Moody’s on-stage persona is dropped to berate those before him for being so insensitive. He asks for the youngster to be gently allowed through to the front and, reaching down, he hauls him out and finds him a desirable spot at the back of the stage, away from the mayhem out front.

The connection between audience and band is one of the most important aspects of any gig and here we have a group of showman that understand how to nurture and feed that link. Bathory is constantly smiling and pulling faces at individuals within the seething mass. Across stage, bassist Matt Snell thrashes his monstrous combed beard and Mohawk combo for the fans to gawp at. At the back, drummer Jeremy Spencer stands in between songs to cup his ears and nod his head approvingly at the response. But, no-one outdoes the man with the knuckleduster microphone – Moody is quite the showman; running to one side to roar at the VIPs, standing stock still to morph a ‘little boy lost’ frown into a ‘serial killer’ smirk, and mucking in to meet and greet those that crowdsurf to the stage. Time simply flies in this band’s presence and it’s, therefore, something of a shock when the time comes to brave the frigid, fresh air once again. As least our ears and our hearts are still burning.

Photo by Tim Reynolds

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/01/five-finger-death-punch-shadows-fall-waterfront-norwich-301109/

Album Review: Turisas - The Varangian Way (Director’s Cut)

With a tour of the UK just kicked off, it’s time to don furs and war-paint and join us in celebrating the thrilling battle metal of Turisas. If you’ve never been to one of their gigs before you’re in for one hell of a surprise! When asked to describe how their style of rousing folk-flecked music came about their lead singer, Mathias ‘Warlord’ Nygård, responded with “This comes from deep inside. We play around with history, there’s fantasy imagery there, but I hate fantasy metal with all those dragons or whatever. There’s no substance there. We actually believe in what we’re doing”.

Their latest album is a fine example of what he‘s talking about. ‘The Varangian Way’ tells the tale of a group of 11^th century Vikings, or Varangians, and their journey through the Baltic on a quest for glory. It’s literally bubbling with orchestral instrumentation amidst a thunderous momentum that propels you through the tracks. ‘To Holmgard And Beyond’ is the rousing lead track and it has a blinding battle-cry to which few can resist. Then there‘s ‘Fields of Gold’, bright and sparkling, with striking lyrics like “Is a draw the only win? Would a tie double the loss?” It bristles with a steady rhythmic underscore, pulsating drums, sweeping keys and brutish vocals. Which brings you to the utter joy that is ‘In The Court Of Jarisleif’ with a mesmeric accordion that simply dances over a sequence of tub-thumping.

The whole album is a pure celebration. It’s uplifting and, actually, quite oddly amusing. I defy anyone who hears this album for the first time not to smile. What it does best of all, though, is provide something different to the trend of machismo that runs through heavy music and, therefore, something thought-provoking. With a talent for writing such theatrical pieces you could easily imagine Nygård to move to composing soundtracks or directing movie musical scores. Who knows, this album itself may even end up in the West End! In a way, it truly is a work of art, a symbol of what can be achieved with a little imagination - and Nygård certainly isn’t lacking in that department. “Okay, people think this is crazy but there’s a reason it works. There are so many interesting, inspiring old stories that are still connected to our reality. These aren’t just meaningless lyrics, we’re telling a tale here”. And he’s right; this really is the most fun you can have while learning history.