It’s rare to turn up to a local gig and find the room already heaving shortly after doors. London based four piece In God’s Way are already in their stride – clearly an early start and the centre of the venue is already a sizeable pit. It’s fairly calm at this point, a few people colliding, one person flawlessly leapfrogging someone while the band deliver some incredible riffs from the stage. Musically they’ve got kind of a classic death metal sound, some great lead licks playing amongst drop tuned riffs. Incredible vocals too. They’re apparently a relatively new band but you wouldn’t know it – definitely one to watch out for.
Next up are Colchester mathy-hardcore legends Rad Pitt – compared to the rest of the bill they’re a bit less brutal in sound with riff heavy songs about David Lynch and a hatred of Piers Morgan. Both guitarists, Matt and Chris, spend the entire set in the pit while vocalist Reece marches back and forth around the stage screaming at us from a height. At one point there’s a human pyramid which reaches 4 people tall, albeit for a second, and then later in the set a few people are doing push ups, one person dead lifts another audience member. All the while the band are putting weird time changes into hardcore riffs.
After a short break Clacton based Mechromorph take to the stage. Their bio describes them as a slam/brutal death metal band and, yep, checks out, this set is brutal. Nasty riffs, double bass driven drums, utterly terrifying vocals – what’s not to love. I’m pretty sure my face is locked in riff face from the first chord to the end of the set. They’re joined on stage by Patty from Existentialist for one track (Lunar Psychosis, I believe) which gets a huge response from the crowd.
The projector screen is down and the stained glass window is out as Existentialist take to the stage. If Mechromorph were brutal, Existentialist take it one step further – the pit during their set, at points taking up most of the middle of the venue, feels like the kind of place you could easily lose a tooth; bodies are flying everywhere. The riffs are fast paced, the drums are heavy, the vocals are aggressive yet everything sounds incredible. Original guitarist Sam steps in for a couple of songs in the first half of the set and appears to be enjoying every minute of it. Half way through the set the band disappear for a few minutes, returning to perform their new record Terminal. It feels a lot more theatrical to the rest of the set, the whole thing could soundtrack a truly terrifying horror movie but the performance itself is quite haunting. Even through this the crowd never dies down, there’s more and more stage diving and a wall of death. Eventually the pit makes it’s way on stage for the most insane stage invasion I’ve ever seen; at one point someone crowd surfs on stage before being lowered down onto the crowd below to carry on crowd surfing. The night finishes with a triumphant feeling as the band recognise their achievement – putting on a hometown headline show in the biggest venue in town is no mean feat, doing so while performing an extreme style of metal is even more impressive. The new material sounds incredible, definitely a record to look out for when it drops at the end of June.