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.

Why everyone should go to at least one metal gig in their lifetime.

So metal, not everyone's favourite genre of music as it's often associated with church burnings and goat sacrifices. However hopefully by the end of this post you'll realise it's not all about covering yourself in the blood of a virgin and dancing around a satanic pentagram.

I can remember my very first metal gig which constituted of a selection of local bands from the Oxfordshire area playing in a very dingy village hall in my home town. I was reasonably apprehensive as I heard rumours of 'pits' and 'hardcore dancing', both of them involving kicking the fuck out of anyone near you. I put my fears behind me and went along anyway and was pleasantly surprised as there were certain unwritten codes of conduct for this sort of behaviour.

1. You don't have to 'pit'- The pit tends to open up but if you're not feeling particularly violent you can just take a few steps back away from the carnage and appreciate the band without getting the sole of someone's shoe imprinted on your forehead.

2. People look out for you - If you do get brave and fancy a bit of a brawl but the worst happens and you find yourself square on your back while you look up at what looks like a riot you usually find many hands grabbing you and pulling you back to your feet. How thoughtful.

3. The no bullshit policy - Chances are if you go in the pit you know you could get the odd fist to the chin/nose but luckily if this happens most of the time the music will stop and everyone goes their separate ways, with no need for any more conflict. Obviously this isn't always the case and you do get the odd person losing their mind a little.




Some other pretty excellent things about metal gigs are some of, what I can only describe as, 'events'. The first one being a circle pit where parts of the crowd decide to run around in a huge circle before a particularly heavy beatdown. These look pretty skill when you're watching them and are even more fun to be in. I was part of one of the largest Gallows had ever seen at Hevy festival which I'm reasonably proud of.



The second and arguably the most dangerous is a wall of death. This is where the lead singer often asks the crowd to split into two and on his count, and often when the tune reaches almost holy savagery, asks the crowd to charge face first into each other. Now I love metal and most things about it but there are some things I draw the line at and re-enacting Braveheart scenes at gigs is one of them, it's a pretty messed up concept to say the least but they do look pretty sweet from a far.

But above all the best thing is the energy, whether it's singing/screaming/guttural croaking the best lyrics with your friends (my Architects and Norma Jean chums will know all about this) or simply watching a band throw down to the highest calibre on stage other gigs rarely come close. Another fun part of these gigs is where the lead singer of most metal/hardcore bands get involved with the crowd instead of performing behind a wall of Goliath body guards which adds a nice personal touch. Now if only Eva Spence of Rolo Tomassi did that some more....

So yea, go and throw down or just stand and watch, either one is rad.

Architects, Norma Jean, Devil Sold His Soul and Lower Than Atlantis

So a couple of weeks ago I pretty much witnessed the best gig of my life. 2 of my favourite bands, Architects and Norma jean brought their ferocious noise to Bristol and it was glorious.

Unfortunately it was a bad start to the gig as we got there slightly late and missed the exciting Lower Than Atlantis a band making serious headway at the moment. Lower were an intersesting band to bill with the other 3 acts considering they have a more mellow, rock-like sound instead of spine busting metal. so yea, I cant really pass judgement on them but they sounded good enough from the merch stand and the bar.

Then came Devil Sold His Soul a band who specialise in a more melodic sort of metal focusing on a mixture of screaming and delicate vocals. These guys never fail to put on an excellent show and usually sound almost CD perfect. However the sound guy ruined this and they ended up sounding like they were playing in the next room. The drums were too loud and the vocals were too quiet, disappointing all round but they did melt my face at HEVY Festival earlier this year so I can let it go.

So then southern metal giants Norma Jean took to the stage. If you've never heard Norma Jean and you're not sure what southern metal is it's a slightly more raw from of metal with savage guitar work and vocals that sound like they should be rupturing the lead singers throat passage. Norma Jean busted a lot from the new album Meridional which pleased me no end. They played the sort of groove metal that saw the dudes throwing down while some ladies were swinging their hips, as in actually dancing, like in a club, amazing. They did treat old skool fans to material such as Memphis Laid to Waste and Like Bringing a Knife to a Gun fight, arguably some of their best tracks.

Finally we have the head liners: Architects. A band I've been waiting well over a year to see and believe me they did not disappoint. Again the set list was a mixture of the bands last 3 albums. I was particularly keen for their newest music from the album Hollow Crown. It was every bit as savage and beautifully abrasive as the CD. One highlight of the night was the song Early Grave for me, listen to it and you'll understand. The 'pits' were disgustingly violent as was to be expected and I distinctly remember getting a fist in the side of the head at one point, but as you all must know, It's not a sick gig unless you get injured. There was a very touching moment between Sam Carter the lead singer and the crowd where he thanked us and other Architects fans for giving his band the opportunity to put on a sell out tour. Now I like when bands stay modest about their success it's refreshing because it's good to see they haven't become egotistical dickheads who think their fans owe them everything.

All in all it was an excellent gig with some truly spine-rupturing performances and after scooping what was left of my face up after the gig I went home a very happy, sweaty mess.

The Expendables, the best terrbile film I've ever seen.

So yea, The Expendables, every action film lovers fantasy, wet dream, christmas and birthday smashed together in a savage orgy of gratuitous violence. There was only one problem, It was a terrible film.

The plot and its development was truly awful. A band of highly skilled mercenaries are sent to a small South American island to overthrow a horribly stereotyped dictator. What? I thought Stallone had already done this in Rambo? Nevermind eh? As for the development there was no back story to any of the main characters which could have been pretty fun, no disgustingly violent flash backs from previous missions to increase the violence levels and everything seem to happen within the blink of an eye.

The script was bleak as shit for instance Stone cold treated me to such wonders as "you think you're a tough guy" and "you piece of trash". Full on cringe city. Admittedly some one liners were reasonably funny but in a terrible 80's action film sort of funny.

The acting was something else. I've seen every actor in that film act BETTER in other films. It's almost as if Sly asked everyone to become a worse actor for his film. It literally blew my mind. No one acted as badly as Mr Dolph Lundgren though, he was in another realm of terrible acting. I actually remember thinking to my self this HAS to be a joke, that's the best he has to offer? I think the absolute pinacle had to be Mickey Rourke and his character Tools little memoir of being in Burma or some fucked up place. I vaguely remember him saying something about being up to his knees in mud and blood, thinking he was going to die, getting out alive then watching some chick committing suicide and this lead to an enlightening line about saving the girl and saving your soul. I wish I could have made more effort with that recollection but it was so offensively terrible I chose to forget most of it.

There was even a point where some of the characters had genuine emotional problems one about a cauliflowered ear and the other about some chick. NO! NO! NO! Don't try and give these people real emotions they blow people in half for a living! I don't want to see Statham moping around about some girl with a new boyfriend I want to see more of him throwing knives into peoples throats and shooting people 15 times in the stomach to make sure they're dead.

Also has Jet Li's accent always been that awful?

However as my title suggests this truly is the best terrible film I've ever seen. The plot development was tragic but that lead to the action scenes coming around quicker. The acting was terrible but what action films have you ever seen with good acting in? Only war films have good acting and action in. Without the bad acting I would have been bitterly disappointed and as for the characters 'emotional side' it was dealt with quickly and effectively, after all who needs emotions when you have an AA-12?

So now we come to the best part, the violence, the ultra violence. Violence so glorious It makes you feel like a man, a real man the sort of man who revels in the thought of wrong do-ers getting just what they deserve in the form of 56 bullets to the torso. The fight scenes were bone crunchingly breath taking, everything was big, from the noise of a spine being busted on the floor right down to each individual punch. I would go into greater detail but to ruin the visual experience for someone who hasn't seen it would be a tragedy.

As for the combat it was a typical 80's bloodbath where the good guys didn't really need to aim and the bad guys (who are meant to be trained soldiers) cant hit a man stood 20 meters away. And of course more people are dying than actual bullets being fired. The explosions were borderline arousing and pretty much made me weep like a 10 year old and I spent most of the last 20 minutes going "whoa, FUCK".

If the film had not had its all star cast it would have been truly terrible, this was just a violent excuse to celebrate all the very best action heroes of the last 20 years and I for one think why not? This film was glorious for all the wrong reasons and will certainly go down an action favourite.

This ladies and gentlemen was ACTION 101.

Reading Festival, A glorious ordeal.

Obviously I'm not very good at blogging, this post isn't even relevant anymore considering Reading Festival was 3 weeks ago. However if you are reading this disgustingly late post, thank you, hopefully it won't be as testing as some of the experiences I had over the bank holiday weekend.

Right from the start my Reading Festival was looking bleak. I spent most of my time in the week running up to the weekend checking BBC weather and dying a little inside when all I was faced with were 'severe weather warnings' and those unsettling little graphics of angry looking storm clouds.

I sacked most of these unpleasent feelings off and on wednesday night began to feel the first waves of excitement creeping up my spine until a friend quickly doused these feelings with a text that read something like "bring wellies, it's a fucking bog here". Now no one likes rain really but I don't know if anyone hates it as much as I do. Rain actually has the power to annoy me, to the point where my face gets a bit warm and I can't really hold conversation for long in case I snap at the person unfortunate enough to be in my company at the time.

So with some stylish new wellington boots I got to the station and went to collect my tickets from the handy machine situated in the lobby. To my horror I didn't have the card I used to purchase the tickets. I could have kicked the fuck out the machine there and then I was so angry so I reluctantly handed over £20 of my 'reading fund' to buy yet ANOTHER ticket.

So I dragged my sorry arse to the platform and thought to myself, no worries it's just one train ride and then it's party time for 96 wonderful hours. But no delays on the line meant waiting another 40 minutes for a train. At the time I didn't think this would cause to much of an issue, until I got to the queue for my wristband.

If I had got there in time I may have missed out on the 2 hour queue in the pouring rain and foot of mud I had to endure. Now a lot can be said for dressing appropriately for festivals, If only I ha listened to my parents and taken a 'sensible' mac. The coat I chose to wear could probably take about as much water as there is in a toddlers sneeze before soaking right through, not ideal for the 2 inches or so of rain we had that day.

Now the campsite itself was an absolute disgrace it's certainly not about clambering through a foot and a half of mud to get everywhere and it's certainly not about almost having to swim through mini streams that had decided to run down two parts of our camp.

Also, if you want to party all night at a festival, take a gazebo and camp chairs, I had neither and it made it almost impossible to want to stay up and drink when you have no shelter and your legs feel like your veins are on fire. However over the weekend the weather changed and we had the full meteorological spectrum to endure, torrential rain, freezing nights, blustery mornings and then blazing afternoons. This made choosing suitable clothes a nightmare because you don't want to be too hot or too cold. Especially when you're too drunk to regulate your own temperature.

However when I finally saw some bands all the bullshit of the previous day faded away much like my feeling of what it life used to be like sober. I won't go into massive detail about every band I saw that weekend but here are some of my favourites.

PULLED APART BY HORSES - I can only really describe their music as indie thrash, that girls can dance to. But yea if you like your music with a bit more energy and your live shows full of guitar throwing and equipment climbing get these guys smashing their way through your ear canal.

QOTSA - Purely because Josh Holm was full on wrecked but still managed to play a beautifully tight set. He even stopped playing to comment on what a beautiful evening it was and how happy he was to be playing for us 'beautiful mother fuckers'. Amazing.

CRYSTAL CASTLES - Because Ethan Kath is the bleakest man alive whereas Alice Glass assaults security guards who wont let her crowd surf. She also crawled onto the stage on all fours at the start of the set amid seizure inducing lazers and a fuck ton of dry ice. Also Doe Deer sounds even filthier live.

ARCADE FIRE - Purely for their politeness. Only headlining act I've ever seen who were genuinely grateful and touched to be playing the main stage.

ROLO TOMASSI - Eva Spence, if you don't know who she is watch the video for 'party wounds', then you'll understand. Also I have a lot of time for walls of death at 11 in the morning. Again if you don't know what this is, google it.

LIMP BIZKIT - Fred Durst did the rollin movement during rollin, my life is complete.

BIFFY CLYRO - Ludicrous beard/hair colour combo.

DARWIN DEEZ - For his, and his bands, excellent choreography and dancing skills in between songs.

BLINK 182 - Fucking Blink 182 man. Also upside down drum solos make the solo 100% better.

And so Monday came and with it the feeling of dread and despair that comes after drinking for 90 of the 96 hours of the weekend. The thought of taking my tent down and carrying it home almost made me cry so it stayed there, a stark reminder of sleeping rough. My head felt like it was made of lead, I could feel each and every one of my internal organs and my legs felt like they belonged to somebody else. Upon leaving the festival and joining the outside world, part of me felt scared, it was time to be a normal member of society again, feeling sober felt new and strange and I looked like the ghost of a ghost. However if you haven't done irreparable damage to your body, you haven't had a rad enough festival.

Reading 2011 anyone?

Toy Story 3, prison brutality and the holocaust.

First things first Toy Story 3 is amazing and I'm pretty sure there should be separate screens for children and adults. Children don't understand Toy Story, they were not there in the beginning and need to keep their hysterical views about Woody or some other character bumping their heads to themselves.

Enough talk of children anyway I was genuinely shocked by some scenes in Toy Story 3 but I think you have to have a decent enough knowledge of other films or studied what happened in nazi Germany to really spot them. The film itself is basically the original cast being sacked off by Andy who has discovered more rad things than toys like women and trying to grow a mustache. The toys get donated to a childrens day care centre which at first glance seems amazing because all the toys are dying for a good 'play' which freaked me out a bit. The way the toys talked about being played with is either a reference to sexual frustration or drug abuse, both of which made me feel uneasy, but still, it was pretty funny.

Now I mentioned prison brutality in the title because the toys are thrown into the pre school part of the centre where toys are treated like trash and generally have a pretty shit time. Now the 'new' toys who everyone meets upon arrival first seem really sweet and pretty cool but it soon turns out there's a system in place where all new comers have to 'do the rounds' in the hellish pre school torture room whilst the older toys are living the good life with the older kids.

All this is fine until Buzz and co are locked up in prison sells and guarded round the clock, abused and treated like filth. What's worse is outside looks like an actual prison, in a warm and fuzzy disney-like way of course. Toys occupy prison towers while others patrol the perimeter night and day. There's even a place for unwilling toys to be put in solitary confinement, which I wont ruin for you because it is worth a chuckle.

Now, I mentioned the holocaust because there is one line in the film that shocked me beyond belief. I wont quote the actual line but to sum it up, death is the only escape from the day care centre. Broken toys are thrown away to be collected by the dumpster truck but the most shocking thing of all is the door way to the rubbish chute looks suspiciously like the ovens the nazis used to incinerate millions of innocent people.

This was almost too much for me and I actually glanced around the cinema to see if anyone had the same reaction as I did, they didn't, which leads me to believe I am seriously over sensitive and probably need to get a life. CURSE YOU A LEVEL HISTORY!!!

Anyway putting bleakness and Disney Nazism aside the film is actually terrific its beautifully paced and there wasn't a single dull moment throughout. The jokes are just as rad as the first two and there's even a cheeky Star Wars reference chucked in which pleased me to the max. Also you anime geeks keep an eye out for a cameo appearence from a character from My Neighbor Totoro, but yea, GO AND SEE IT!!

P.S. The film also has like 8 new dinosaurs in it, which of course is amazing, so there's another reason to see it.

Iron Man, more like 'lets whine about shit man'

Ok, so the title of this post is a little harsh but It's exactly what I thought when I made my way out of the cinema. Don't get me wrong it is still a wicked cool film but there was just a little bit too much talking for my liking and not enough fighting and lasers and fighting.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am basically a child when it comes to action/adventure/sci-fi/horror movies. Anything with aliens, monsters, lazers, explosions, fighting etc and I'm pretty much sold. Take a look at my post about Clash of the Titans, awful acting but it has Medusa, the kraken, giant scorpions and sorcerers made of fucking wood in it, what is there not to like?

Without ruining the storyline for you it basically follows on from Stark's shock announcement at the press conference in the last film, then progresses to an angry Russian dude and an absolute twat of billionaire trying to do away with Iron Man, standard superhero storyline.

But what's this? Stark has only gone and sold out and started nailing his secretary which leads to him actually falling in love with her. Now this I wouldn't usually have a problem with, but a disturbing proportion of the film is dedicated to Stark blundering his way through apologies about 'how he's feeling' about as coherently as a ketamine addicted mime which quite frankly annoyed me.

Iron Man should be about rocket propelled uppercuts and busting peoples chops with his palm laser not how to sort your girlfriend out if you're disgustingly rich with no people skills. When the fight scenes did come however they were pretty cool especially when War Machine started throwing down but I felt there was too much time spent flying around evading rockets rather than actually fighting which looked good, but left me wanting more.

Uber geeks will probably be nursing a semi during the talks between Nick Fury from SHIELD and Stark, because of the rumored Avengers film being released. I just hope the Avengers isn't everyone sat round talking about feelings and having big group crying sessions with each other when it could be the brawlfest of the century if done properly.

Stark should probably take some pointers from Stallone and the rest of the Expendables, I'll be the only one crying in that film because it will be so gloriously masculine I literally wont be able to handle it.