Rinoa, While She Sleeps, Hold To This and Sons of the Sand.

Rinoa said a final farewell to their fans this year as they gigged for the last ever time with support from While She Sleeps, Hold To This and Sons of the Sand. This time they brought their savage noise to The Croft in Bristol.

The venue itself was pretty basic, the best sort of environment for this sort of gig. There was also a local Grindcore/Death Metal mini festival playing on the other stage downstairs which attracted an interesting mix of two scenes for each gig.

So after nearly walking into the wrong gig I made my way to watch the first band on the bill, Sons of the Sand, in a room only about twice the size of my living room. These guys weren't your typical hardcore band they had slightly more melody and included long instrumental sections throughout their songs. However they did leave in the harsh vocals to my delight.

Hold To This are a more traditional example of hardcore. Think heavy riffs laced with snarling punk vocals rather than screaming. They were an excellent choice to follow Sons of the Sand because they were slightly more energetic and woke me up a bit. The lead singer had all the right attitude and swagger for a up and coming hardcore band and spent most of the gig in the crowd starting pits and shouting in peoples faces. In a slightly more touching moment one of the people on the receiving end of this treatment was the lead singers dad who then got a little kiss on the cheek after the song. Awww.




Probably my favourite band of the night While She Sleeps rolled out with all the dramatics and arrogance of a hardcore metal band picking up momentum within the current scene. These Sheffield metalers know how to entertain and perform a solid set. All 5 members of the band thrashed around the stage, jumped up and down for the entire set clearly still keen to be recognised as the next name in metal. I like this though there is nothing worse than a band playing energetic music and staying still. The band played through pretty much all of their début album 'The North Stands For Nothing' and judging by their performance these guys should expect good things to happen. By the way be careful if you fancy google imaging these guys you might get a graphic surprise if your safe search is off.

Finally Rinoa took the stage for one of their last ever shows and they performed with all teh emotion and power of a band wishing to end on a particularly high note. For anyone not familiar with Rinoa they sound more like the first band on rather than While She Sleeps and sometimes some songs sound similar but you can't ignore their talent. Arguably more instrumental than vocal orientated this is more rhythmic hardcore. When the vocals do kick in however they had such an abrasive harshness I did actually wonder if the lead singer had damaged his vocal cords. So after performing a blistering set Rinoa said a last emotional goodbye to Bristol and left the stage to a rapturous applause.