Devil You Know Live Review @ Norwich Waterfront

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Devil You Know – ONI – Wearing Scars – Brutai

The Waterfront Studio, Norwich – 11.01.17

GIG REVIEW BY VICKY MILNE

The menu choice tonight for The Waterfront Studio was a mix of tech, prog, and metalcore with a dash of melodic soundscape thrown in for good measure, for the audible pleasure of the Wednesday night gig goers.

The first ingredient in this odd cake mixture was London and Reading based five piece Brutai. Having had an extremely successful 2016, it was time to kick 2017 square in the box. Diving head first into their set with ‘Of Ashes’ and ‘Relapse’, they brought their loud and tech filled synthy metal to the slowly filling room. The clean and roar vocals of frontman Felix Lawrie were on point and clear with the mental riffs blasted out by Henry Ryan. It seemed to take a couple of tracks to find their flow and relax into it, so once ‘Never Change’ and ‘Lucidity’ came into play, they definitely seemed to have found their groove and smashed the tracks out like it was nothing. The pounding bass line provided by Christian Sturgess was all backed up by Mathieu Bauer on drums and the synth melodies from the keyboards of Alex Lorimer who’s backing vocals also harmonised brilliantly with Felix. Rounding off with ‘Deep Flood’ and leaving the audience suitably satisfied, Bruitai definitely made a great start to the new year with this set.

Second into the mix, a phoenix of a band, Wearing Scars. Smashing into their set with ‘Become Numb’, ‘Stand Alone’ and ‘Wounds’, Chris Clancy’s vocals just soared across the room. Crystal clear, superb and supported by groove laden riffs and hammering drums from Andy James (Guitar), Craig Daws (bass) and Lee Newell (drums), it was fairly clear that these Northampton based chaps mean business. A set that was hard to fault as they played extremely tight as if this was the only thing they’d done every day for the last ten years. Flowing seamlessly into ‘Waiting For The End’ and ‘A Last Goodbye’ these guys continued to get the crowd going, heads banging and certainly topped up the atmosphere set by their predecessors. Announcing the last song of the set ‘Butterfly’, I was waiting for the rapping to start, so I was relieved when yet another heavy riff laden song blasted out of the PA. Thank goodness! A brilliant set and I would highly recommend catching Wearing Scars live if you can.

Up next was something completely different. Progressive metalers ONI who not only want to brutalise you with the heavy fuzz ridden riffage, but they want to take you on a soundscape journey with their very own Xylo-synth. Pounding straight into ‘Barn Burner’, ‘Eternal’, ‘Recurrence’ and ‘Spawn and Feed’, the audiences ears were punished with massive chest vibrating guitars and drums. Constant hammering and the occasional drop to the floor breakdowns were lifted up by the synth that immediately took you down to prog town. Flowing through to ‘Kanvas’ and ‘The Only Cure’, the transition between roar and clean vocals was fairly seamless and the final track ‘Coast to Coast’ rounded off their set perfectly. However, I’m pretty sure that the stage could have done with being a bit bigger as they didn’t have much room to move around.

Time now for the headline act and all of a sudden the room is a lot fuller than it was. It was Devil You Know’s time to bring their metalcore mayhem to the stage. Launching in to ‘Consume The Damned’, ‘Embracing The Torture’ and ‘7 Years Alone’, Howard Jones brought his distinctive rich voice to the table, which the audience embraced with a massive amount of excitement. Coarsing through ‘My Own’, ‘A New Beginning’, ‘Stay Of Excecution’ and ‘A Mind Insane’, the mosh pit had long opened up but ended up turning into a bit of a wrestling stage for the very drunk and the over excited kiddies in the room, however, this didn’t detract from the sheer entertainment and noise coming from the front. Epic riffs (Francesco Artusato) and undulating bass lines (Ryan Wombacher) reverberated throughout. Between songs there was plenty of love shown to the crowd by Howard, lots of audience participation. He was even sweet enough to tell everyone “I missed yooouuuu”. The energy in the place was electric, so many positive vibes emanating from the band themselves and the eager audience. It didn’t even reduce down to a simmer when they broke, ready for the encore. Once again returning to the stage to deliver ‘Crawl From The Dark, ‘The Way We Die’ and finally ‘Shut It Down’. Huge sound, massive energy, an excellent performance and total professionalism throughout. A new Devil You Know fan was born this night.