Tonight was a Metalcore fans wet dream with a quadruple bill at the SWG3 Galvanizers featuring in international bill of from America, well Texas to be precise, Nothing More and Catch Your Breath, From Sweden, Solence, and Ankor from Spain
With four bands and a strict 10.30 curfew, It’s an early start with a 5.30 doors time, that may be the reason that the venue was only a quarter full by the time Ankor hit the stage at the ungodly time of 6 o’clock. Although the crowd is sparse, they are very enthusiastic, especially the Spanish contingent in the crowd.
Singer Jessie Williams gets the crowd whipped up pretty easily as they fly through their 30 minute set which blends Metalcore with electronica at break neck pace.
For a band with six studio albums and well known in Europe, they haven’t really made a dent on the British music scene which is a pity as their music is contagious and certainly gets your foot tapping, especially with Williams switching between clean & (semi) dirty vocals. In what seemed like the blink of an eye they were gone, but I certainly think that the British public should give them a go as they’re a lot better than the generic dross that passes itself of as music at the moment.
Next up are Swedes Solence who again have an electronica side to them that stood out a lot more than Ankor, sometimes a wee bit too much delivering something akin to a dodgy European booze cruise, but when they toned that side down a bit, they were really good. Frontman Markus Videsater giving a great example of crowd participation that some of the so called bigger bands could take a lesson from. They were only on for 35 mins but based on their performance I’ll be giving their 4 studio albums a whirl.
Things really stepped up a level when the third act of the evening, Catch Your Breath from Austin Texas take to the stage. The rest of the band are already into the opener ‘Savages’ before vocalist Josh Mowery bounds onto the stage looking like Jay from ‘Jay & Silent Bob’
They were afforded 45 minutes and managed to squeeze in 10 songs to the now full venue. Their songs were a bit softer and still delivered the emotion of their recorded versions from their debut studio album, 2024’s ‘Shame on Me’ that had been seven years in the making from the band’s inception in 2017
You could tell that the crowd were really into the show and really took the band to their hearts, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw them again on these shores soon based on this level of performance, so watch this space….
The biggest roar of the night came when headliners Nothing More who hit the stage with their opener ‘House on Sand’ with vocalist Jonny Hawkins, barefooted and bare chested, complete with some sort of tribal markings on his chest straight into ruling the stage like it was his front room in his house.
Their style is much more than metalcore with elements of nu metal and even hardcore thrown in there along with a few pop hooks and some EDM programming thrown in for good measure. It’s a bit of a hotch potch but it definitely works as the crowd are treated to a performance of the highest level from a band that are clearly at the top of their game.
I didn’t realise that they had that bigger following but the crowd were passionate and seemed to know every word of the fourteen tracks that were performed on the night.
I am more familiar with their work and the songs that stood out on the evening were
‘Let ‘em Burn’, ‘Go to War’, ‘Jenny’ and ‘Fade In/Fade Out’ but to be fair, you could have picked even more than that.
The evening was a great showcase for all of the bands, all similar but all different, and they all gave a great account of themselves and proved that there is nothing better than live music…
