The Dillinger Escape Plan, Poison The Well, Ephel Duath + Pink Spider
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall, 2nd December 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Local support bands are always an intriguing proposition, particularly with a line-up of such intensity as tonight's. Either they'll be a desperately unprofessional gang of youngsters gazing about them with a 'how the hell did we pull this off?' look on their faces as they take the stage to warm up the crowd for their peers, or they'll be a complementary and pleasing addition to the show's line-up. Thankfully, Pink Spider fall into the latter camp tonight. Melding System Of A Down-esque nutterisms to a dash of Sikth-like catchy technicality, and fusing these to their own fairly pummelling concoction of nu-metal gone very mental, the group blaze their way through an impressive set, gradually winning over the initially arms-folded crowd. The singer's stage presence helps this along considerably, his utterly maniacal gaze sweeping the audience then tilting upwards to the ceiling, as if imploring the demons pulling his strings to go the extra mile. They wear their influences on their sleeve a little too much for my taste, but I wouldn't be averse to seeing them again. A decent warm-up for what's to come, then. 6.5/10
Sadly, Wolverhampton isn't exactly the most clued-up area when it comes to the weird and wonderful world of extreme metal, so despite my ranting on about Ephel Duath's brilliance to my group of mates and anyone else who'll listen, the poly-genre mash-up of fractured spazz/jazz/hardcore/black metal/psychedelia that explodes from the stage takes the crowd completely by suprise. Frontman Lucio looks as dangerously unhinged as it is possible to be whilst not actually being bundled into a white van, stalking the stage and screaming his lungs out at the clearly bewildered crowd. The live trombonist, a new addition to the group, throws out Badalamenti-esque solos from time to time, whilst the rest of the band swings effortlessly from mellow swinging jazz to raging noise workouts in the blink of an eye. Mesmerising stuff. 8/10
Next it's the turn of screamo darlings Poison The Well - a show particularly anticipated by a friend and former flatmate of mine, who used to keep me up at three in the morning by playing choice cuts from Tear From The Red in the room next door. Suffice it to say, he and almost everyone else in the crowd goes suitably nuts when the band launches into their set, triplet wristed machine-gun riffage mingling with jangly emo choruses and utterly brutalising breakdowns. It's punishing, involving stuff, if a little samey (diversity seems as much of a dirty word to Poison The Well as it does to, say, Hatebreed). However, when the closing one-two punch of 'Botchla' and 'Nerdy' threatens to turn the entire Wulfrun Hall into a circle pit, there don't seem to be too many other people clamouring for experimentation. 7.5/10
Finally, it's time for The Dillinger Escape Plan to give us their explosive, confrontational working-over. Literally exploding into life with 'Panasonic Youth', and never relenting in aggression or intensity throughout, the boys deliver a breathtaking performance, effortlessly delivering choice cuts like 'Destro's Secret', '43% Burnt', 'When Good Dogs Do Bad Things' whilst flinging themselves around the stage like ADD-addled children on a mixture of speed and PCP. New singer Greg Puciato looks kind of like Bruce Banner halfway through transforming into The Hulk, but surprises us by revealing that before they went onstage, he and a couple of the Dillinger guys went upstairs to the Civic Hall to watch a couple of songs of Whitesnake's set... then they explode like the fragmentation grenade of technical wizardry and white-noise fury that they are once more. Life-affirming stuff. 10/10
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall, 2nd December 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Local support bands are always an intriguing proposition, particularly with a line-up of such intensity as tonight's. Either they'll be a desperately unprofessional gang of youngsters gazing about them with a 'how the hell did we pull this off?' look on their faces as they take the stage to warm up the crowd for their peers, or they'll be a complementary and pleasing addition to the show's line-up. Thankfully, Pink Spider fall into the latter camp tonight. Melding System Of A Down-esque nutterisms to a dash of Sikth-like catchy technicality, and fusing these to their own fairly pummelling concoction of nu-metal gone very mental, the group blaze their way through an impressive set, gradually winning over the initially arms-folded crowd. The singer's stage presence helps this along considerably, his utterly maniacal gaze sweeping the audience then tilting upwards to the ceiling, as if imploring the demons pulling his strings to go the extra mile. They wear their influences on their sleeve a little too much for my taste, but I wouldn't be averse to seeing them again. A decent warm-up for what's to come, then. 6.5/10
Sadly, Wolverhampton isn't exactly the most clued-up area when it comes to the weird and wonderful world of extreme metal, so despite my ranting on about Ephel Duath's brilliance to my group of mates and anyone else who'll listen, the poly-genre mash-up of fractured spazz/jazz/hardcore/black metal/psychedelia that explodes from the stage takes the crowd completely by suprise. Frontman Lucio looks as dangerously unhinged as it is possible to be whilst not actually being bundled into a white van, stalking the stage and screaming his lungs out at the clearly bewildered crowd. The live trombonist, a new addition to the group, throws out Badalamenti-esque solos from time to time, whilst the rest of the band swings effortlessly from mellow swinging jazz to raging noise workouts in the blink of an eye. Mesmerising stuff. 8/10
Next it's the turn of screamo darlings Poison The Well - a show particularly anticipated by a friend and former flatmate of mine, who used to keep me up at three in the morning by playing choice cuts from Tear From The Red in the room next door. Suffice it to say, he and almost everyone else in the crowd goes suitably nuts when the band launches into their set, triplet wristed machine-gun riffage mingling with jangly emo choruses and utterly brutalising breakdowns. It's punishing, involving stuff, if a little samey (diversity seems as much of a dirty word to Poison The Well as it does to, say, Hatebreed). However, when the closing one-two punch of 'Botchla' and 'Nerdy' threatens to turn the entire Wulfrun Hall into a circle pit, there don't seem to be too many other people clamouring for experimentation. 7.5/10
Finally, it's time for The Dillinger Escape Plan to give us their explosive, confrontational working-over. Literally exploding into life with 'Panasonic Youth', and never relenting in aggression or intensity throughout, the boys deliver a breathtaking performance, effortlessly delivering choice cuts like 'Destro's Secret', '43% Burnt', 'When Good Dogs Do Bad Things' whilst flinging themselves around the stage like ADD-addled children on a mixture of speed and PCP. New singer Greg Puciato looks kind of like Bruce Banner halfway through transforming into The Hulk, but surprises us by revealing that before they went onstage, he and a couple of the Dillinger guys went upstairs to the Civic Hall to watch a couple of songs of Whitesnake's set... then they explode like the fragmentation grenade of technical wizardry and white-noise fury that they are once more. Life-affirming stuff. 10/10
I really should try harder to get a job...
