Gig Review

The Defiled
Romeo Must Die, Colision Process, Destroyed Beyond Belief
Wolverhampton, Slade Rooms
5th May 2011


The Defiled              Romeo Must Die         Colision Process        Destroyed Beyond Belief
                     

Destroyed Beyond Belief are a local band opening up tonight proceedings. They are all out there and it’s a bit of a mess to be honest with you; front man doesn’t really know what to say, there’s no chemistry on stage and the drum beats are quite simplistic and dull. They do give it their best but it seems that possibly nerves and technical difficulties may have defeated them tonight. Music wise the clean vocals are not the best and the lyrics don’t really flow with the music. If they sort a few bugs out and gain some stage presence then hopefully next time I’ll have something a bit more exciting and generally give praise to them with any luck.

Collision Process follows tonight with a progressive rock sound which I have a little soft spot in my heart for. Their take on the whole progressive rock is a lot more aggressive and fast paced like Opeth mixed around with the faster paced side of Tool. Very aggressive screaming vocals with a bouncy atmosphere; they manage to have an even balance of aggression and mellow sounds in their songs which is a great feature in progressive metal, they also have no fear of silence as between songs their front man projects his voice loud for all to hear and tries to get some reaction from the audience with some humour and it pays off for them extremely well. The local scene isn’t dying yet it bands like this keep emerging they definitely restore the faith.

Romeo Must Die smash though the dull rows of zombies lay before them and light a fire under the crowds ass. For most of the night the crowd has been quite stationary but these guys do not take kindly to unresponsive audiences. They were the same when I last saw them in 2008 on the Sanctity tour the singer gets on the barrier and leans over all the crowd and gets them singing with him asks for something and will not stop until he gets it. A pit breaks out and people are bouncing; people at the back still don’t get involved so they get spat on by the vocalist. They whole band are built like absolute fucking beasts and really get into what they’re doing. Confidence on a whole new level which you really have to respect as it all adds to the rock and roll show, they’ve left a lasting impression with this crowd and you can tell as people who tried to ignore them at the beginning of their set are now head banging away and jumping along. Playing mostly songs from their new album “Hardships in Season” which was given away for free with metal hammer and the self titled track of their debut album “Defined by Enemies” they really mix it up and show what they’ve got; hope it doesn’t take another 2 years for them to get back up here I definitely wouldn’t turn down seeing them again.

The Defiled obliterate everything. They come on to the thunderous anthem “In the Land of Fools” its instantly clear everybody came here for The Defiled with the screaming girls and people losing their minds. The key to their success at a live show is how playful they are and the image that is inspired by their attitude; their image is a very gothic nature, creepy and horror inspired and they act in a way that matches their image and sound. Especially AvD the keyboardist who is an absolute nut job but I really dig it, on stage it looks as though he has mental problems with all the faces he pulls and the way he smashes that keyboard around; then you’ve got Stitch D who is still too cool for his own good, him and AvD together have a terrific sense of humour and play off each other to keep the show flowing. They only play around 8 songs so it’s a relatively short set but they crack out “Metropolis”, “The Resurrectionists”, “Blood Sells”, “Call To Arms”, their EP title track “1888” and their last song was a request from my friend Josh “Red tape”. Great atmosphere and a good turnout for the band on a headline show and they continue to be a terrific band, people have been saying they have fears of them changing their sound to become more mainstream but I really don’t see that happening.

Destroyed Beyond Belief – 2/5
Colision Process – 4/5
Romeo Must Die – 5/5
The Defiled – 5/5

Review By James Webb

 The Defiled


Stitch D
The AvD
Curse
J.C
Vincent Hyde

 Romeo Must Die


Adam Frakes-Sime
Aaron Darling
Paul Fle
Ben Frost
Will Romain

 Collision Process


Adam Cooper
Matt Glover
Dave Payne
Jon Walters
Dan Willett

 Destroyed Beyond Belief


Sean
Ste
Sandman
Edd
Brooks
Marie

 Band Related Links
The Defiled Myspace
Romeo Must Die Myspace
Collision Process Myspace
Destroyed Beyond Belief Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?