PRONG, October File, Spirytus @Nottingham Rescue Rooms 12/5/12

It’s Saturday night.

That means we gig goers are left to play second fiddle to a club night yet again for yet another early curfew show. However, this particular place deserves to be cut some slack.

Any football fan will tell you that they have a lucky ground, a place where their team often enjoys a good day, no matter what.  That is how RTM feels about The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. It probably is possible to see a bad gig here but we never have so far.

So it is with a good feeling we get down there for the 7pm start to catch local band Spirytus, taking their name from a make of vodka (its amazing what you can learn via Google) they describe themselves as a bouncy funk metal band but that doesn’t really do them justice. By turns they rock like Sepultura, before chucking in a cover James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” Their songs are full of twists and turns and end track “Crucify” will strike a chord with anyone who likes Skindred.

Note to bands: If the audience is bored it’s your fault not ours. That fact does not appear to have resonated with October File singer Ben Hollyer. To be fair to the band they are on the wrong bill, but it seems they know it. By about the third song in Hollyer has begun insulting the audience “all of you standing with your arms folded looking like you want to be somewhere else,” he says.  “This is still fun for me.  They need an extra guitarist live, if they want to replicate the rather fine sound on the “Holy Armour From The Jaws of God” album, and would probably have been much better off supporting someone like Malefice for example.

Prong main man Tommy Victor might be the busiest man in rock right now. In between his session work, playing with Ministry and Danzig he has found the time to knock out a truly magnificent new Prong album called “Carved Into Stone.”

It is something of a minor irritation then, that this tour is an excuse to play the “Beg To Differ” album in full. Released in 1990 it was the bands breakthrough and is a fine record. It rocks and it rages and sounds more powerful live – “Steady Decline” in particular sounds viscous.

The instrumental track “Intermenstural DSB” gives the band a chance to cut loose, and three piece does just that, Victor playing a blistering solo and drummer Alexei Rodriguez a revelation behind the kit. There is something of a surprise on bass though, with Matt Brunson of Crowbar waving us goodbye after “…Differ” closer “3^rd From Sun” and being replaced by Dave Pybus who has played with Cradle of Filth amongst others.

Its not really an encore as time doesn’t allow – but the band race through three numbers from the excellent “Cleansing” record including a fine “Another Worldly Device” and the lead single from “…Stone” the classic-in-waiting “Revenge….Best Served Cold.”

After a run through perhaps their best known song “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” Pybus’ stint is over and Brunson is back (no, we don’t know why either) for “Carved In Stone” opener “Eternal Heat.”

Lets hope they are back soon for a proper new album tour, and thankfully the Rescue Rooms kept up its record. I am prepared to bet that the club night afterwards wasn’t as good as the quite brilliant hour and 20 minutes before it, but owners never seem to learn.