Review: Emily Castles
It’s a drizzly Monday evening in Highbury, north London, but a large gathering of party animals are clustered outside the neon pink lights of The Garage – with a hint of menace in their eyes.
There may be some disappointment tonight, with death metal legends Foetal Juice sadly pulling out of ‘The Vomitour’ due to a family emergency – but the stage is opened up by Street Soldier from York, who put on a high-powered show of punishing hardcore, following their appearance on the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock last year.
The stage is then hijacked by six men in high-vis jackets and balaclavas. What unfolds is an hour of complete barbarity with chants including ‘Get back in the van’ and ‘Where’s the Stella?’ – you may not have realised that ‘London Tradesman’ was a genre of metal, but Pintglass are here to prove otherwise.
There’s even a section where they begin asking members of the crowd their trades, whilst other fans are rushing to the merch stall at the back of the room to grab their own high-vis jacket before jumping straight back into the moshpit. The latest Pintglass album is Way Of The Geeza, including songs such as ‘7AM start’ and ‘Cafe Brawler’. It’s all very tongue in cheek, but a good bit of fun.
Tonight’s headliners Party Cannon are no strangers to gimmicks themselves. Pre-set, the crowd begins blowing up their own balloons, and within seconds the boys from Fife unleash a giant inflatable shark into the open arms of an eager mosh pit.
Party Cannon even bring their ‘Bez’ equivalent in the form of someone wearing a giant skull mask with a party hat on top – dancing in the middle of the stage throughout the set. With four albums under their belt, including Bong Hit Hospitalisation and this year’s release Injuries Are Inevitable – there is no doubt that the Scottish lads bring fun and humour to the world of death metal.
After almost 15 years together, musically the band are excelling – there’s aggressive drums, guttural vocals and fast, harmonic guitar – everything you could want from a straight-up death metal band. But Party Cannon offers fun, a night out – and by the looks of the young-ish crowd as they exit the venue tonight, there’s going to be some sore heads in the morning.
