HOSTILE, Captain Horizon, Point Black Fury, Zombie Xtras, Chemikill @Academy 3 30/6/12

Its not often, in fact it will most probably never happen again, that RTM finds itself fighting through crowds of people waiting to see the Olympic flame on our way to a gig.

And yet that is the rather odd spectacle that greets us on the way to the Academy 3 tonight. It is a shame that more of these flag waving saps hadn’t made their way to the venue instead, as for the second time in two weeks five local bands are gathered together under the Emma Scott Presents banner.

Tamworth’s Chemikill are first up. Playing music for over 20 years, the five piece are interesting affair. Frontwoman Natalie is growling one minute and hitting high notes the next, indeed it is hard not to think of Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow on occasion, except the music is more heavy than death metal. Set closer “Psycho” is perhaps the high point, but it’s not a bad start at all.

If you judged Zombie Xtras by their name you might think they were some horror punk outfit out of the Mifits school. If you judged them by the appearance of their bass man Rich you would think of a Black Metal band (he is wearing something approaching corpse paint and a t shirt urging us to “smoke crack and worship satan”.)

 Well its time to think again, because Zombie have a sound that veers from groove metal, moves through some Saxon-esque chops (“Killing Fields” and the Jack the Ripper homage “Fry In Hell”) and ends up at hard rock with “Redneck Agenda” and “Devil in the Flesh.” Their’s is a set to confound expectations and they are band worth checking out.

 It is perhaps a surprise to see Point Blank Fury this far down this type of bill. A while ago they were amongst the most promising of the unsigned Midlands metal crop, but then they split and are almost having to start again. However, since a triumphant return in March, they seem to be taking a serious stab at things. Not even the loss of their bass player to Chris Appleton’s post-Fury UK band has perturbed them (tonight’s replacement has had one rehearsal with the band).

So what of the songs? Well “Ashes” sounds as good as ever, “Change Tomorrow” is the type of trad metal epic that gets White Wizard selling records around the world, and signature tune “Night Skies” is just a brilliant five minutes. Lets hope the second time around is a good one for Fury.

On our notes for Captain Horizon, we have written just one thing: Witty. This is not a reflection on their joke telling abilities, more the man christened as Steve Whittington. Witty is just about the best frontman in the Midlands. He could sing the phonebook and make the damn thing entertaining.

Less straight ahead metal than the other bands on the bill, with some almost prog and poppy elements to their sound, they draw the evening’s biggest crowd by quite a way. Indeed, there is an argument to suggest they could have headlined this thing, but no matter. “Light Years” is a fine rocking moment and the new EP (available for free download on their website) is a statement of intent. They will be back.

The first time RTM saw Hostile was when they opened for Hatebreed a couple of years ago. The intervening period has seen them make some headway. Having the patronage of KK Downing (the Priest legend produced their album) and Alex Hill the son of another Priest man, Ian Hill, on bass, has helped them gain a double page spread in Metal Hammer and plenty of hits on Youtube. What it hasn’t given them at this stage – if we are being honest – is any great originality.

 In the changeover between bands the PA is playing Lamb of God and it is from them and groups like Pantera that Hostile take their cues. That is of course not a bad thing, and both are great bands. However, second song in singer Jay Mills is encouraging us to “put our middle fingers in the air” over a song called  “I Don’t Give A Fuck,” which probably gives some clues about where we are headed.

 "Addiction” is an attempt to bring the tempo down mid-set, but just plods along, but after that Hostile do hit their stride and begin to show what the fuss is about, “No Salvation”, “Blood For Blood” and set closer “Dig Up The Power” are free of angry clichés and much better for it.

Hostile could be pretty good if they could channel their anger a little better, you feel, and maybe that will come with time. But on a night that started with the Olympic torch relay, it was Point Blank Fury that took the gold.

GOJIRA, The Safety Fire, Frantic Empire @Academy 2 26/6/12

It’s hot in the Academy 2 tonight. Very hot in fact. And it’s packed. The show is all but sold out, but it makes for a decent atmosphere. Also rather than the usual turn-up-just-the-main-band attitude, the crowd are here early.

Wolverhampton thrashers Frantic Empire find themselves are the main beneficiaries of this and are able, this evening, to strut their stuff to hundreds of people.

Actually, calling them thrashers is a little simplistic, given that they are not ever going to part of the thrash revival as such, but rather they take thrash as a starting point and add something a little more contemporary, so that they are almost a trad-metal take on groove metal. “Lords Lie” ticks the right boxes and they are very much worth checking out.

The Safety Fire have been garnering rave reviews recently for their debut full-length effort “Grind The Ocean” and its easy to see why the metal press is liking them so much. Billing themselves as Prog Metal, they are definitely from the Periphery/Djent end of the genre rather than the Dream Theater/Symphony X one.

The fantastically named Sean McWeeney on vocals is the bands star turn, while the twin guitar-guitar duo Dez Nagle and Joaquin Ardiles come to the fore on tracks like “Circassian Beauties.” The band end their brief half hour set with catchy single “Huge Hammers” and appear set fair to be headlining venues like this themselves in the near future.

French titans Gojira’s rise to doing just that has been largely due to the fact they have excellent songs rather being part of a “scene”. Perhaps the world was slow to catch on at first – and lets be honest France hardly trips off the tongue when thinking of metal hotbeds -   but that is definitely not the case any longer.

If the 2008 album “The Way of All Flesh” was good, then “L’Enfant Savauge” – released this very week - is even better and the band are rising fast. Indeed they arrive on stage and rip through “Space Time” from their first album as Gojira, "Terra Incognita", as if they eager to captailise on their new found fame.

The 70-minute set is pretty much evenly divided from the aforementioned “…Incognita” and “….”Flesh” records, as well as three songs from the new album and a trio from the monstrously heavy “From Mars To Sirius” CD and showcases the bands prodigious abilities both as songwriters and musicians.

Led by the Duplantier brothers – Joe on vocals and Mario on drums – the band is riding on the crest of a creative wave right now. New tracks “Explosia” and “The Axe” are fine affairs sitting easily alongside set closer “Vacuity” one of the stand out moments on “The Way of All Flesh.” They are soon back for an encore with puts together “Toxic Garbage Island” together with current single and new albums title track.

The band, who are greeted like heroes throughout, seem genuinely touched at the reception and promise to be back before Christmas to play more new songs.

When they do, if its anything like as good as this it will be one of the gigs of the year, because tonight Gojira were truly remarkable.

PEARL JAM, X @MCR Arena. Manchester 20/6/12

The very second the last song – a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World” -  starts Pearl Jam at the MCR becomes a conventional arena gig. The house lights go up and all of a sudden 15,000 people are able to see the enjoyment that is in the room.

It is a trick used by every band of this size;  RTM saw Springsteen do it in this very place in 99 during “Born To Run,” Metallica did it before the iconic and incredible “Load” shows in the mid-90s and just about everyone since has given it a go.

During the rendition of “Rockin…” PJ front man Eddie Vedder was chucking tambourines into the ecstatic front rows. Standing next to the extremely fit and agile singer is X bass man and singer John Doe. A few hours earlier his band had opened proceedings. It’s a tricky ask to go on before a massive band at a massive gig, but X do it well. Reminiscent of REM at the best, the LA group have been doing this for 35 years. Opening with the brilliantly titled “Your Phone Is Off The Hook but You’re Not” they get their heads down and play for half an hour with the minimum of fuss.

Lets get one thing straight from the off. Pearl Jam are no longer remotely “grunge.” The movement may have existed in the minds of PR men anyway, but no matter. Pearl Jam are nothing more than a classic rock band – and an exceptionally good one at that. Their back catalogue stands up with nearly anybodies and for more than twenty years, Messrs Vedder, Gossard, Ament and McCready  (together with a succession of drummers) have been creating music that has simply connected with people in the way that only great music can.

They are beginning their European tour tonight and they choose to do in typically understated fashion with the quiet ballad “Release” before things kick in a little with “Do The Revolution.” Mid period work “Given To Fly” mixes with later stuff like “The Fixer” – with its jaunty chorus and summery hook – in a truly career spanning set.

There is plenty of stuff from brilliant debut album “Ten,” indeed “Why Go” and “Even Flow” sound as fresh as ever, but really the whole thing is pretty much faultless, even chucking in a Joe Strummer cover, complete with a moving speech about the former Clash man.

Vedder is a convivial and thoughtful host, dedicating a track to Radiohead following the death of one of their crew members at a festival in Canada (Pearl Jam, you will recall, were involved in a festival tragedy early in their career.) The band appear to be acutely aware of their history too – reeling off the exact date they first played this city and playing “Pilate” for the first time in exactly 12 years.

The second encore was a chance to play to the crowd – literally in one case as “Come Back” is played on request of an audience member - and includes “Better Man” and “Jeremy” as well as “Alive,” still perhaps their best-known track. With its huge chorus and deliberately drawn out last solo, the song was just made to be sung by thousands of people.

And then, with a cheery “we’ve never played this song in Manchester before,” from Vedder we are right into the lights on celebration of “Rockin’ In The Free World.” This, though, was the only time this felt like an arena gig, which is entirely to Pearl Jam’s credit. They could have been playing your living room, such is the intimate feeling they engender. One of the few arena bands to change their set every night, (and RTM is gutted they don’t play “Life Wasted”…) they still manage to keep things fresh and almost small, despite having sold millions of records.

In today’s Times the question was posed: “Are Pearl Jam the last great American band?” This is nonsense of course, as fine music keeps being made. That said, Pearl Jam are one of the best bands in the world of any nationality. And how they proved it tonight.

POPA CHUBBY. Rockit Fuel @Bilston Robin 2 18/6/12

You can tell a lot from a name, usually. But sometimes those impressions might be wrong.

You can, for example, tell that New York blues man, Popa Chubby might be a big fella. In fairness that doesn’t quite do him justice, but Popa Massive might not scan so well.

 Equally you should really be able to tell that Rockit Fuel were dynamic and exciting (even if they can’t spell…) when in actual fact, that’s not quite true either.

The Worcestershire three piece are by no means bad – in fact, frontman Lance Perkins is clearly an extremely talented guitarist – but they don’t offer much in the way of thrills or spills. The song titles are straight out of the Blues Rock Handbook, “Have Mercy On Me,” “Troubled Man” “On Our Knees” all good songs, but absolutely nothing memorable. They also chuck in the ubiquitous cover -  their’s is “Communication Breakdown” and off they go. An entertaining, if not diverting, 45 minutes.

Then its time for – in the words of The Popa himself – a “Blues Rock Partay” ostensibly in town to promote new album “Back To New York City” Chubby – or Ted  to his mates – has an extensive back catalogue, including the magnificent “Deliveries After Dark” CD from 2007. The new album is none to shabby either.

It is a shame, then, that he chooses to waste much of his set playing covers. He’s at it as early as second song in, when “Hey Joe” makes an appearance, but it gets a little wearisome when an instrumental of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” takes about 15 minutes.

The end of the show highlights all the faults of the previous two hours. “Hallelujah” morphs into “The Ace Of Spades over the course of twenty minutes and is closely followed by “Little Red Rooster” to close things. The blues purists might have loved it, but RTM would have much preferred to hear some originals

The real pity is that when Chubby and his band were playing their own songs they were superb. The excellent “Pound Of Flesh,” the rip-roaring rabble-rouser “Its About You” and the two new tunes he plays, “Mindbender” and “Peoples Blues” were excellent.

Everyone involved can clearly play – and do so exceptionally well – but there is no need for every song to become a drawn out jam. There is little need, either for a show that racks up nearly two hours 40 minutes. The Monday night Bilston crowd was thin anyway and there is about 20 people left at the end of proceedings.

 Not a bad evening but not one that you will remember for long. If this is a “partay” chaz Chubby, then RTM will stop at home next time.

FURY, Silent Resistance, Hurtseason, Steeltrooper, Revenant Dead @ Academy 3 16/6/12

These are real boom times for the Midlands metal scene. Down the road at The Roadhouse there is a battle of the bands featuring five bands hoping to get a slot at Bloodstock, while here there is the first of two bills in a fortnight featuring 10 groups in all under the Emma Scott Presents banner.

Brummie metallers Revenant Dead have drawn the short straw on this packed evening with a 7.15 start time not really conducive to a packed crowd. It seems they have spent a fair bit of time listening to Skeletonwitch, as they are from the same stable, heavy metal riffs over a harsher vocal delivery. RTM only sees a couple of songs, but they are worth further investigation.

Staffordshire’s heavy power metal mob Steeltrooper follow them and are – frankly – a revelation. Here to plug the excellent “Eternal Warrior” record, they also play a new song called “Art Of Destruction” which offers hints that the next opus may be just as good. The only downside to what would have been a total triumph are the sound problems that dog them throughout, particularly affecting second guitar man Loz, but it is a measure of their abilities that the manage to perform so admirably.

Hurtseason are making their way back after a period of inactivity. With their last recorded output coming out in 2010, the Coventry band appears eager to make up for lost time. Singer Tom Scott – clad in a Soilwork t-shirt which gives a clue to the bands influences – offers an impressive range and guitarist Mark James is capable of delivering punishing riffs, and with new single, set closer “Vanity Ruins” set for release, they could be about to enter an exciting next chapter.

Leicester’s Silent Resistance have bought a significant number of fans with them up the motorway, and as such are perfectly happy to lead a sing-along of the track that gave them their name, before launching into evident fan favourite “Echo.” They can back up the adulation by providing a vibrant and energetic set. With a fan base,  an EP in the shops and evident talent to craft decent modern sounding melodic metalcore they might just break through if they can find the one killer song they need.

Tonight, though, is Fury’s big night, and dammit if they aren’t about to take the chance with both hands. The Worcester four piece are already big enough to warrant a chant of their name when the lights go down and have enough confidence in their abilities as a headline act to play nearly an hour long set.

For a band with only two EP’s out, the self titled five track CD from last year and this years “Burn The Earth,” lets be honest Fury are astonishingly proficent. They look like they are having the time of their lives too, with singer Julian Jenkins and drummer Alisdair Davis frequently having to stop themselves grinning, as if they can’t quite believe what is happening.

It tells you all you need to know about they go down that a moshpit breaks out before as finishing number “Burn The Earth” starts up.

RTM saw them for the first time three months ago and wrote “A twin guitar attack, you know the reference points – a spot of Maiden, a bit of Priest - but that’s not a bad thing. Keep an eye on these boys, they may just have a chance.” We stand by every word of that, except two. There is no “may just" about it. Fury have a chance of being very, very good indeed.

GINGER WILDHEART,The Guns, Baby Godzilla @The Asylum 5/6/12

We hadn’t come across Nottingham’s Baby Godzilla before aside from reading a tweet from Ginger that said “Baby Godzilla plan to go big tonight. This is frankly terrifying.”

Even that, though, doesn’t really prepare you for seeing the guitarist swinging from a beam before the first song starts and the drummer hanging upside down from the same vantage point before it finishes.

But whereas other bands, notably Dillinger Escape Plan use the stage as an assault course, Godzilla take it a little bit further, playing most of their set from the floor, creating their own personal moshpit. So much so that RTM – sitting quietly at the side and not blessed with the greatest balance in the world – swaps our stool for a chair in fear of being knocked down.

The music? Well the music hardly matters, but think former Ginger touring partners Hawk Eyes  meets the aforementioned Dillinger and you would be close, but Godzilla – who bring the drums off stage for the last song - are a band best seen live you suspect.

The Guns are the band that has to follow that. And the South Wales mob do a good job of it. Far more conventional that Godzilla their songs bring to mind early Groop Dogdrill or GU Medicine (both of whom have appeared with Ginger in the dim and distant past), they have that dirty British rock and roll thing down pretty well.

Their “Follow The Guns” album was recorded in 2007 but delayed and perhaps because they have played these songs so long, or perhaps because they are live and full of adrenaline they are a much heavier proposition than we had been expecting. Set closer “Gordon’s and Lemonade” has a carefree singalong vibe and their set is an impressive one.

As mentioned in December RTM has a long history with the man now know as Ginger Wildheart. Between the years of 1991-96 he produced some of the greatest moments in the history of British music. Simply put, on a string of three albums and countless EP’s, the Wildhearts for five years could do no wrong. And if their gigs might have sometimes been a shambles, they were always exciting.

The intervening years – the on-off Wildhearts, the side projects, the solo albums of varying qualities and styles – have been less kind perhaps, but you don’t just like Ginger, rather like a football is forgiven a lean season, if you are a Ginger fan, you support him.

As such, RTM must lay its cards on the table. We don’t like the new solo album “555%”. The one that’s taking the rock world by storm, the one that has got him in The Sun, the one that had the listening parties trending on Twitter, the one that made a quarter of million pounds on the Pledge Music site before it has been released and got Ginger a spot on the Download stage in the process (Ginger dismisses anyone who doesn’t like the album as a “moaning cunt” onstage later.)

Whether we like it or not, though, is immaterial, as we still bought the damn thing.

Around about 10 years ago, we went to the much-missed JB’s in Dudley to watch The Wildhearts do a warm up for an arena tour supporting The Darkness. They did a blistering half hour of hits and came back and played a load of obscure Wildhearts stuff. It was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen Ginger play.

Tonight we are told, is to follow a similar format. First, the band are going to play their Download set and then they are coming back. That however, is where the likeness ends.  First they play “Another Spinning Fucking Rainbow” from the new album, before throwing in a massive curveball. 20 years of following Ginger has taught you to expect the unexpected, but even still it was a shock that he’s dusted off the incredible Silver Ginger 5 album and the band – the same one he had at Christmas, three guitarists and Ingrid the Swedish backing singer who is infused with the spirit of Bez from the Happy Mondays it seems – is racing through “Anyway But Maybe.” “Mazel Tov Cocktail” is transformed into a huge party before two rarely played Wildhearts classics “Do The Channel Bop” and “Inglorious?” (which was played at the Christmas shows) close things.

So far, so Ginger. Here he is at Download and he’s eschewing the hits – and even better, he’s still brilliant.

As promised they are soon back for a much longer set, there’s a smattering of new solo tracks (“Just Another Song About Someone” the standout) a few Wildhearts rarities “In S.I.N” making an always welcome appearance) and a few album tracks like “You Took The Sunshine From New York” and “The Hard Way” For our money, though, the highlights are the pair of SG5 songs “Girls Are Better Than Boys” and “Sonic Shake.”

In 2012 this is a different Ginger. He’s having fun, and these days you don’t think the gig is going to end either as a fight or in chaos, and he might just be as tonight’s last song says a “Geordie In Wonderland” at last.

This is Ginger minus the same hit singles he always plays and, whether you like the solo stuff or not, he was magnificent.