CANCER BATS @Library Institute 10/3/13

It was Axewound that got RTM here.

The supergroup (ish) released the “Vultures” album last year and we like it – liked it a lot in fact. We saw them at the Slade Rooms and they were fantastic. What we didn’t know much about was their singer and guitarist.

So in the best traditions of the music obsessed we go to work. We had heard of the Cancer Bats, of course, but never really got around to checking them out. But after the Axewound show when frontman Liam Cormier had been especially impressive, we got hold of a couple of their albums – and boy were they good!

So hopes were high for seeing the band for the first time tonight and we certainly weren’t let down. The crowd is packed by the time the four piece hit the stage and begin with a crushing “Bricks And Mortar” which sees the audience rabidly chanting the chorus. Happily this sets the tone for remaining 75 minutes.

New Album “Dead Set On Living” is well represented, with its “Road Sick” sounding especially good, while older songs like “Shillelagh” and “Pneumonia Hawk” are delivered with such passion that they too, sound fresh.

However it is perhaps the end of the gig that shows why this band is so good. They cover “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys – neither a song or a group that we have any time for around here – and make it crush. They turn it into their own and it sounds absolutely massive. They then finish off with their own tunes in “Hail Destroyer” and “….Living’s” opener “Rats” and it rounds off a fine night.

Cormier himself acts as the ringleader throughout. Incredibly energetic, he also posses both an easy charm – he is happy to wear a hat that is thrown from the audience, and then lead the assembled crowd in a chant of “my new hat” to celebrate.

This is allied to what appears to be a genuine humbleness as to his bands rise in the UK. The first time they played here, he says, was to 20 people, then things have steadily grown to this packed out gig in front of hundreds. You suspect, he and his colleagues are totally appreciative of this.

Cancer Bats might be billed by lazy journalists as a “punk” band, but tonight they show they are so much than that. Bassist Jay is wearing an Entombed t-shirt and Scott Middleton spends the evening tossing out riff after memorable riff. Ok their roots are in hardcore, but like Hatebreed this is a hardcore band with a metal heart. And one that is very, very good live.

Thank goodness for Supergroups!