RTM IS ON THE MOVE

All good things come to an end, and after 263 reviews since September 2011, RTM  is closing. 

Fear not though, we have already resurfaced as Maximum Volume and are bigger, better and louder at

www.maximumvolumereviews.wordpress.com

I have some HUGE things planned for 2014, but in the meantime, thanks for reading RTM and see you at Maximum Volume! 

THE GRAVELTONES, The Cadillac Three, Buffalo Summer @Birmingham Institute Temple 26/2/14

You certainly cannot accuse South Wales Classic rockers Buffalo Summer of not working hard. This is the third time inside 12 months that the band have been in the West Midlands to our knowledge - it's probably more. 

All this touring has led to the fact that they pretty damn good. Like we've said before on this blog, if the Black Crowes were Welsh they'd sound like this. 

Still touring their debut record, which is a fine affair - and includes the cocksure stomp of "Down To The River" - but already looking to album number two, from which they play a pair of tracks tonight, the pick of which is perhaps "Money". We like these boys a lot round here, and with the world perhaps ready for a new breed of classic sounding rock, Buffalo Summer could be at the forefront, and that's no BS.

Just before half eight The Cadillac Three finish tuning up. They don't bother with an entrance, singer/guitarist Jaren Johnston just waves a simple "hi y'all" and away we go. 

Not that we should have expected any frills from the trio. This is after all a group who's opening song tonight contains the couplet "I'm southern and it ain't my fault/my daddy came from Louisiana like the hot sauce". The aforementioned track  is "I'm Southern" and acts as the lead on their brilliant album "Tennessee Mojo" which emerged last year and with which RTM has bored everybody since. 

Are they rock? Yes. Just listen to the album's title track. Are they country? Hell yeah. Are they superb? Absolutely. 

In Europe to support country rocker Eric Church (who by the way is fabulous in his own right) these shows are a stop off in that tour's downtime. If the tortuous way they got here was like something akin to Planes, Trains And Automobiles, then the show was worth it. Swigging Jack Daniels and beer onstage (the latter bought by an audience member) for just over half an hour they turn The Temple into a Brummie Honkytonk. From the plaintive "White Lightning" to new US single "The South," it would sound wrong played by anything other than a band from Tennessee - in the hands of The Cadillac Three, though, it sounds damn near perfect. Yee and indeed ha.  

We began the evening with a hard working ensemble, we end it with a hard working duo. The Graveltones have barely been off the road in the last year. Whether it was opening for Rival Sons just across the landing from where we are tonight, or on the bill with The Temperance Movement throughout their various jaunts, the beardy twosome have been here, there and everywhere.

They are still - just like the first time you see them - a little bit strange. The description of an exceptionally heavy blues band just about sums them up because, by crikey, they make an almighty racket. 

Jimmy O smashes his guitar around creating a wall of huge riffs, and drummer Mikey Sorbello bangs his kit around like The Muppets Animal made flesh. Honestly like nothing you have ever seen, Sorbello on occasion uses four sticks during the course of the 70 minutes onstage.

When it all clicks, like on "I Want Your Love" and "Catch Me On The Fly" the band are excellent, but there are moments when it just doesn't and it all gets a tad samey. 

Occasional missteps aside, the Anglo-Aussies deserve credit for being genuinely different and those lazy comparisons with The White Stripes need to be ended now.

Closer "Six Million" - which is also the ending song on their debut "Don't Wait Down", is perhaps the best of the lot. A slow burner, it builds to a tremendous and tumultuous climax. 

With that the most eclectic bill so far this year is ended, and with all due respect to the headline act, as good as they were in large patches, they were rather eclipsed by the two fantastic support bands.

SOULFLY, Savage Messiah, Upon Descent @O2 Academy2, Birmingham

Local boys Upon Descent appear to be having the time of their lives, and well they might too. With a sound that owes much to tonight's headliners, they are evidently Soulfly fans given that they are moshing by the merch stand about two hours after they leave the stage. They make an equally positive impression while they are in the spotlight and they are fully deserving of the reception they are afforded. Tracks like "Shall We Begin" win them plenty of new fans, RTM included, and seeing them tonight is the equivalent of popping your head through a Bloodstock tent and enjoying a band you didn't expect to see for half an hour.

Savage Messiah, by contrast, have been one of favourites for quite a while. That said, we haven't had the best of experiences on the two other occasions we've seen them. Once was a rather ill-starred effort just up the road a couple of years ago when the there were almost literally more onstage than in the crowd, while the second, in the aforementioned Bloodstock tent, was ruined by a simply awful sound. 

If that leads you to suspect that Savage Messiah are, rather like contemporaries Evile, never going to quite translate their obvious talent into outright success, then Dave Silver and his newly merry men appear determined to change minds.  With album number three ready to drop in the next fortnight, these are important times for the band. They seem ready. Set closer "Insurrection Rising" - the fabulous title track of their debut record - is still perhaps the benchmark for the group, the new CD is most probably going to run it close.  On first listen new single "Hellblazer" and "Cross Of Babylon" take Messiah into more heavy than thrash metal, while "Hammered Down" is very much an Iron Maiden gallop. Tonight's brave show (nearly all of it comes from yet to be released "The Fateful Dark") shows not only the faith they have in their new work, but also it speaks of a band reborn. Very much a case of third time lucky when it comes to seeing them live, and you hope that is a neat metaphor for Savage Messiah's career.

That there's a Brazilian flag on the amp probably gives away the fact that Max Cavalera is here tonight, if that didn't tip you off then the rabid crowd might, and if you are still struggling, the first 30 seconds of opener "Bloodshed" will end all doubts.

Since he brought his band Sepultura out of Brazil in the late 80s, Cavalera has made exactly the sort of uncompromising music he wanted to, and really, the breakthrough records of "Arise" and "Roots" in the early-to-mid 90s were many people's first exposure to extreme metal, if you didn't like grunge it was a bleak musical time and it was Seps who as much as anyone, that offered something interesting and different.

Cavalera still does. When he left the band he formed with his brother, Igor, the effect was seismic. What didn't change, however, was his ability to write riff after riff and great song after great song. New album "Savages" is in that respect more of the same, the band - now featuring the next generation of Cavalera's, Max's son Zyon, on drums -  don't play much from it but what they do showcase is superb.

Onstage for 90 minutes, Soulfly offer the same effect as being bludgeoned repeatedly. Crushingly heavy, the four piece simply rattle off as many songs as they possibly can in as short a space of time as possible, this is fast, thrashy, Groove Metal of the absolute highest order, "Prophecy", casually tossed out near the start, is a showstopper, while "Babylon" and "Sacrifice" sound fantastic. 

There is, of course a smattering of Sepultura, with "Roots" still a veritable tour-de-force and "Refuse/Resist" dripping with menace. Less expected, perhaps is Cavelera playing "Wasting Away" a Nailbomb song, that amazingly is nearly twenty years old,

At the heart of everything is the frontman himself, a big man with a big presence and one who still appears born to be in a metal band, and he turns "No" with its lyrics criticising everything from Rednecks to Hootie And The Blowfish into real knockabout stuff, and returns for the encore with snippets of "War Pigs" and Napalm Death's "Scum".

After "Eye For An Eye" he yells "scream for me, Birmingham" and with that disappears, leaving the other three members to play us out with an instrumental version of "The Trooper". An unexpected end, perhaps, but one, which like the rest of the evening, had quality metal writ large all the way through it.

MARTIN WALKLYIER'S VIKING FUNERAL feat M Pire Of Evil, Exhumer, Rannoch @Academy 3, Birmingham 20/2/14

Originally supposed to be last September, and originally meant to feature all sorts of bands with names like Elvinking and various other Pagan things, things at this gig seem to have undergone some sort of Metamorphosis. Martin Walkiyer, who's "Viking funeral" this was supposed to be is now appearing with one of the advertised supports, M Pire Of Evil (who are now billed as "featuring" him - they also comprise two ex-Venom men - and the opening acts have changed too.

The first of these, Rannoch, have apparently stepped in at the very last moment, which is lucky as they are absolutely tremendous. 

Self-confessed "self indulgence of the highest order" (which round here is a good thing) the local boys play about five songs in the 50 minutes they are onstage - including one that is over 20 minutes long. Christ knows what they are singing about, but with songs like "Between Two Worlds" and closer "The Reckoning" they appear to be playing something that for now we'll call Black Prog (don't worry we'll think of something better later). Superb stuff.

Next up are Exumer. Originally around at the height of the Thrash Metal explosion, the Germans reformed a couple of years ago.

Theirs is the type of thrash that has one foot on the monitor while the other foot kicks you in the face. Tough, fast and uncompromising, they explain that they are nursing hangovers. Perhaps this hasn't helped their collective mood, but there is real anger in tracks like "Possessed By Fire" and "Fallen Saint." Arguably best of all is "Weakest Limb" a song which is, as singer Mem V Stein - who has biceps as big as his voice, which trust us makes him huge - puts it, "is about chopping your arms and legs off because you are sick in the head." 

People can look round all they like for a thrash revival, but with very few exceptions (Savage Messiah, Diamond Plate and Evile being the obvious) modern metal hasn't produced much great stuff in this area. Good job, then, that the old guard are around still and whilst we usually prefer our thrash with a touch more guile than a fairly blatant copy of early Slayer, it is good to put your studded belt on and pretend its 1983. That's what Exumer are for.

If the early part of the evening is mired in confusion, it is cleared up straight from the horses mouth soon after Stein's men leave the stage. A crestfallen Walkiyer appears and explains the tale of woe that befell this show - which was to be the last time he performed Skyclad songs in this country.

Elvinking, who were due to be his backing band at these gigs, decided not to travel unless they got paid in full first, it didn't help that they only decided this six days ago. Add to this that Ravens Creed, who were originally the opening act, couldn't play as their singer is stuck in a Syrian war zone and many people would have cancelled altogether. What happened here, though, is that M:Pire Of Evil are bumped to headline.

Two of their number - guitarist Mantas and singer/bass player Tony "The Demolition Man" Dolan - used to be in Venom, indeed the former was a founder member. Playing together for a few years as M:Pire this is their first time in Brum ("the last time we played here was at The Hummingbird, is it still there?" Dolan enquires) and they are very, very good indeed.

Split between Venom songs and their own tunes, it is a crushing, heavy set. Venom songs "Don't Burn Witch" and "Die Hard" sound as fresh as when they emerged from that rancid studio thirty years ago, while MOE tracks like "Temples Of Ice" and "Hell To The Holy" are instant, horns  up, heads down classics. 

Walkiyer joins them - still apologising - for a two song run, which includes "Blzck Metal" - and if you want to know how influential Venom are then consider this: they named a genre after that song - before "In League With Satan" proves the Devil always did have the best tunes.

That this took place at all was of great credit to all involved. That it was so good was quite amazing. An evening that was - on so many levels and for so many reasons - an unexpected treat.

SONS OF ICARUS, FIGHTING WOLVES, Lightfire @Asylum 2, Birmingham 19/2/14

"This is our last one," says Lightfire singer Scott Sieradzki. "It doesn't have a name yet."   He is quickly chided from his left. "Well it does," he laughs. "But it's stupid, so we aren't using it!" That exchange tells you much of the Cannock bands ethos right now. Here to try out some new songs, but above all to have a good time, they are the type of group a local scene needs. Solid alternative metal- they speak in interviews of being Karnivool fans, so must have taste - they are active on social media and on the live scene, so have built a fanbase along the way. With new songs readied, even if they have daft titles, Lightfire could be hot soon if they continue to develop.

Just before Christmas 2011 a young band called Fighting Wolves supported Saint Jude at the Academy2 one freezing cold Sunday night. Their single "One Minute More" was getting airplay on Planet Rock and many - RTM included - were tipping them for a bright future. Then the momentum rather stalled.

Well, that is until now. Because now Wolves are back, back, back with album "Chapter One" on sale, and playing Birmingham for the second time in little over a month. Even better they have lost none of the enthusiasm that set them apart a couple of years ago.

Still bouncier than a Kangaroo on a trampoline, they have songs to make them way above the type of band that normally plays to 20 people on a Wednesday night. Singer Paul Blue possess a cheerful demeanor that not even not liking last nights support band, or tonight's snare drum issues can spoil. Well he might too, as songs like "Give Me A Sign" and "I Told You" sound not unlike turn of the century Irish heroes Wilt, while slow burner "The Ocean" is more epic in scope and works well. 

Ending with "...More" and having it still sound good, there is still time for Fighting Wolves to find a home for their ambitions and they may just be one big support slot from a little breakthrough.

RTM has seen Sons Of Icarus before too. Main support to the almighty Clutch last year, they impressed despite sounding nothing like Neil Fallon's men.

Tonight, they attack first song "Love" like, frankly, they damn well mean business. There is nothing original here - indeed as Andy Masson, Sons singer/guitarist, notes jokily, "the next one sounds like the one before it and the one before that, but it doesn't matter as it's all metal." As a summation it will do, and there are, after all, only so many chords you can play. The tracks do sound similar but what they all have in common is they are very, very good.

For 45 minutes they show their immense potential, "Make Amends" is catchy and heavy, but, flying in the face of Masson's jauntiness they are able to change things up, with a poignant ballad, "Fallen" which is dedicated to a recently deceased family member, and "I Want It All" which builds to a pleasing crescendo.

Elsewhere a cover of Alice In Chains' classic "Man In The Box" is faithful, before they climax with new single "Let It Burn" from a debut record which is due to land this year - it promises to a be one to look forward to.

Three bands for £5 in a tiny venue above a rehersal studio is exactly what underground and unsigned rock music is all about.

It is easy to deride bands sometimes for not breaking new ground and smashing boundaries as we all look for the next big thing. The fact is though, Rock n Roll needs brand new Classic Rock and you could do a lot worse than start with Fighting Wolves and Sons Of Icarus, as both were in top form tonight.

DREAM THEATER @Wolverhampton Civic Hall 15/2/14

There's an episode of The Simpsons from back when it was funny (about 20 years ago) when Homer decides to take an interest in Marge's love of the (ironically given who this blog is about) theatre. Surveying the programme, he is trying to seem like he is keen to watch. "Oh this looks good," he says. "An evening with Phillip Glass....just an evening?"

That sort of sneering may well have been the reaction of many to the news that this tour is being billed as "An Evening With Dream Theater" and a three hour Prog Metal extravaganza is in the offing. The very term is enough to send some people running for the door and DT are a band that divides opinion. 20 minute long songs about a French aristocrat, songs about Freemasonry and 45 minute long songs about mental illness aren't for a lot of the general public. But plenty do get it and there are 3000 people packed into the Wolverhampton Civic Hall tonight, for the bands first appearance here in nearly three years.

At this point it might be wise for RTM to declare an interest. You see, your humble writer is one of those people that gets it. In 2009 the band released the "Black Clouds And Silver Linings" album. We didn't know much of them prior to it, but the record had a profound effect. Within weeks everything they had released was procured, from the tentative debut album, to the numerous live albums and EPs. Within months I was buying Steven Wison records and listening to Pink Floyd. "...Linings" is the album that has most shaped RTM's current taste, and I still consider it be the best of the last five years, so you better believe that this is a big deal.

What makes Dream Theater engender this emotion is hard to quantify. Yes, they are arguably the most technically gifted collection of musicians in any metal band but that doesn't explain why people that can't play a note (RTM has it's hand up here) get so excited, yes they have fabulous songs, but so do thousands of other bands.

For what it's worth, the best theory I have is this: that like Iron Maiden, everything about everything Dream Theater do is planned to the nth degree. You know exactly what you are going to get from Messrs Petrucci, Myung, Labrie, Rudess and Mangini and it has got quality writ large all the way through it.

That goes for the setlist tonight too. The same as it has been on every date of the world tour so far,(some people may say, "where's the spontaneity?" But you don't go and watch Hamlet and complain the plot is the same two nights in a row do you?) it not only acts as a showcase for the brilliant self-titled record that emerged last year, but also a homage to the 20th anniversary of the "Awake" album, as well as the 15th birthday of the concept opus "Scenes From A Memory."

Even the intro tape is a change from the norm. There is no "Thunderstruck" or "For Those About To Rock" here, instead the big screen shows a superb film involving all the groups album covers. Then the curtain falls to reveal the band, and "False Awakening Suite" is played before "The Enemy Inside" follows. Both of these are from the new album, which sees drummer Mike Mangini, - forever destined you suspect to be "the new guy" no matter how long he has the sticks- really find his feet, and his confidence shows tonight.

What follows is an assault on the senses, both musically and visually, with a big screen behind the band playing some films vaguely connected with the songs, interspersed with live concert footage, and it is quite, quite majestic. 

Act one lasts for 75 minutes and sees "Trail Of Tears" really come into its own, together with the instrumental "Enigma Machine," which allows the whole band to cut lose, with Mangini having a solo spot, while Keyboard maestro Jordan Rudess had earlier appeared stage front with that thing that makes a keyboard like a guitar (no I don't know what they are called ....) and rocked out like Jimmy Page.

Act two is made up largely of half of "Awake" but it is preceded by perhaps the first funny rock video since Ozzy dressed as Alanis Morisette. Theater - who wrongly get labeled po-faced - send themselves up brilliantly, Rush, take note, this is how you do it., 

The second part, happily, is just as good, "Lie" is just an incredible catchy metal song, while "Space Dye Vest" is brilliant and weird all at once, best of all though is the section's closing song. The new album's centrepiece epic "Illumination Theory" in all it's glory, is so good it provides the evenings highlight. 

They are back for an encore of four songs from "Scenes From A Memory," beginning with overture 1928 and ending with a glorious "Finally Free," before they say their goodbyes to rapturous applause.

An evening with Dream Theater? "About flippin time! " said James Labrie in his best Dick Van Dyke accent early in the show, and you know what? He was right. Three years ago, the show they played in this room was the first gig of the year on RTM. It's a little too early to say "gig of the year" in 2014 but anything that beats this will be a bit special.

Mind you. Dream Theater did promise to come back so you never know......

MONSTER MAGNET, Church Of Misery @Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton 14/2/14

Ahhhh Valentines Day. The most romantic day of the year, the chance to spend the evening with the one you love.

In RTM's case that means five hairy arsed blokes from New Jersey, but Monster Magnet do fit the bill. You see, when we first met - at a Rob Zombie gig just round the corner about 15 years ago - it was love at first sight. We've been in a fairly heavy relationship together since, and whilst we've cheated on them with various other metal bands with a penchant for Sabbath and awesome songs (most notably Orange Goblin, with whom we've been having a torrid affair for a long time) Dave Wyndorf's men are still our first stoner rock love.

By contrast, our first time with tonight's support Church Of Misery wasn't as memorable. Opening for Cathedral a while back (they are signed to Cathedral singer Lee Dorian's record label) they appeared to be a little cartoonish - singer Hideki Fukasawa was wearing a purple jump suit with bell bottomed flares - but this time, with their appearance more normal, the music sounds better too.

Their set is essentially a monstrously heavy Sabbathy sprawl. Fukasawa is stick thin and looks as though his hair weighs more than he does, but when he sings he manages a guttural raw to shake the foundations. Lord knows what the ordained men of this Church are singing about, but aptly it appears angry and dark. Misery this time around are a joy. Our second date with them went well, maybe next time we can go all the way. 

The internet has largely taken the mystery out of setlist guessing, so we already know that it's a good job we like Magnet's new "Last Patrol" album a lot, because they are playing the thing note for note. Yes, ladies and gents, we are in album show territory.

Actually, "...Patrol" lends itself to this treatment. Not as immediate as the "Mastermind" album which preceded it, repeated listens reveal it's true majesty. So whilst we might not be rocking with the Gods and Punks tonight, we are dealing with a mighty fine slab of music. 

In this setting, what is a great record on vinyl is transformed into something even more alive. Beginning with the understated "I Live Behind the Clouds" and ending around 65 minutes later with the plaintive "Stay Tuned," it is a quite brilliant journey through a work of twisted genius. It could have only come from Monster Magnet, but it takes them into areas they just haven't been in before. Straight after "....Clouds" comes its awesome high point of the title track, all 10 minutes of it, it is at once classic Magnet stomp, and when Wyndorf wails: "Melt the ghosts inside my head/The same ones who told me rock was dead", you sense he is singing of his own rebirth, and his recovery from drug and depression problems and a return to musical form in the last few years after some patchy work and one album that he has completely disowned.

Highlights elsewhere include the cover of Donavan's "Three Kingfishers" and "Mindless Ones" with its echoes of 1999s immense "Powertrip" but really the whole piece (and that is how it has to be viewed) sounded incredible. 

They return for four more songs - the evenings one concession to anything conventional, as they knock out some crowd favourites - and of these "Dopes To Infinity" is rapturously received, before closing song "Space Lord" brings the house down.

When long time member's, bass player Jim Baglino and even more shockingly, guitarist Ed Mundell quit, there were justifiable fears for the future of Monster Magnet, instead the new line up - indeed, lead guitar man Garrett Sweeny is superb - have regrouped and come back with an uncompromising and challenging record. Live, tonight, it was the same story.

Unquestionably it wasn't for everyone and there were people in the audience who didn't enjoy hearing the whole of "Last Patrol" being played, who would have liked the aforementioned "Powertrip" and "Negasonic Teenage Warhead " to be aired perhaps. This, though, was a band who was doing exactly what it wanted and pleasing itself. And, if you bought into that, then this will be remembered as one of the gigs of the year. Because Monster Magnet doing what they wanted to sounded quite fantastic.