Foreword:
I sent this review to a magazine in Germany
and it got rejected due to Cursed As Angels not playing the material
they are after. So I have decided to post it on here. Heavy Metal covers a plethora of genres and I am not prejudiced against them!
Saturday October 5th 2013
Cursed As Angels
Album Release Gig
The Red Lion, Gravesend
Support: Silas, Unforeseen Prophecy,
Darkeye
Part 1 - The Interview
The evening started early as I arrived
during sound check and knew immediately I was in for a very loud
evening at The Lion.
But then that's nothing new for this
world famous venue stuck in the middle of a, now demolished,
industrial site with new build homes and an Ikea being erected.
This place has truly stood the tests of
time with the Landlord, Terry, being there for some thirty years now.
He is a true lover of live music which makes it such a pleasure to
have been going there for almost as long and see bands come and go
and come back again.
After the sound check I managed to grab
Stephen Jeffery and Paul McIntosh, the guitarists, from Cursed As
Angels for a quick chat.
I asked them how they felt about
finally getting the album out.
“Feeling good!” Was the response
from both, smiling and stating they are relieved and happy it is
finally out.
And it's easy to understand why.
“It's been a long struggle,” says
Steve while they both go on to explain why there has been a five year
gap between their last album and their new offering to the Metal
World, titled 'And As The Orchestra Plays'.
Following the release of the last album
in 2008 there were several line up changes which ended up with the
band splitting up.
Some members continued as Above Ceres
(some of their songs are included on this album) and eventually
reformed as Cursed As Angels with Owen (Omen to his friends)
returning to make the line up complete.
Then Steve decided to cut the top off
one of his fingers on his fretting hand which caused inevitable
delays while this was sorted.
Still, the final product is here with
us now.
Are they happy with it?
“Yes,” they agree.
“The production is so much better
than the last album. There's been a big learning curve since then,”
says Paul with Steve interjecting, “We managed to get all the
effects this time which makes a huge difference.”
Part 2 - The Gig
The first band on is Darkeye.
I've not seen them before but the
bassist is Jeff Barber who also plays in Khthon. And if Jeff is on
the stage you know it's going to be HEAVY!
And heavy it is indeed.
A five track set which delivers nicely
with some nice time changes and the occasional blow to the chest.
One thing I've always liked about
seeing bands play is when they are having fun, don't take things too
seriously and interact with the crowd.
With Darkeye you get all of this.
“This next one is called 'Portent'.
It's about poor tents.”
Classic!
And it'll be interesting to see if Moth
Man becomes a theme for Dead Eye as Pig Boy did for Violation
Complex.
Did I mention there's ex members of The
Complex in them?
I certainly look forward to seeing Darkeye again.
Next up is Unforeseen Prophecy.
I'm a big fan of UP and have seen them
many times where the set has been pretty damned amazing.
Unfortunately this was not to be one of
those times.
Whilst they gave it their all, the
sound was pretty awful and the vocals were barely audible which is a
real shame because when they have the right sound they are awesome
but this is, after all, a review of the night in question.
This is their new guitarist Aaron
Jones' second (I think) gig with them. He appears a little cautious
in his playing at present but I'm sure this will pass in time when he
settles in a bit more.
I can't honestly say much more about UP
tonight which is a shame. Although they did play 'Placebo Effect'
which is a brand new song and a few favourites such as 'Oblivion'
(“That's the slowest you'll hear from us!”), 'Silent Voice' and
'Fractured'.
Silas take to the stage and everyone
seems to be outside smoking or in the adjacent bar nattering.
Once it's realised they are playing the
hall soon fills up and Silas do what they do best... ROCK LIKE HELL!
They play all the tracks off their self
released 'World Of Colour' EP.
It's so clear to see that Silas love
doing what they do and why they do it.
Not only do they rock. They groove,
they funk, they jazz and rock some more mixing all the elements to
give a sound that is somewhat unique and hard to place into a genre,
which suits me just fine, but if I have to I'd say Classic
Alternative Rock.
When I first saw Cursed As Angels –
before they split up - I didn't think they were much to write home
about. Whether it was just me being more of a Death Metal fan or the
sound or the end of a very long day I'll never know but you can rest
assured that I have completely changed my mind now!
Since getting back together they have
done nothing but impress me and tonight is no exception.
The stage presence of all the band is
one of sheer enjoyment to be playing to a crowd that clearly like
what they are doing.
One thing that I always like to see is
a band enjoying themselves on stage. This is always a winner for me
so take heed if I'm reviewing your show!
As this is the album release party for
CAA they play the album in its entirety. This has proved risky
business for bigger bands when they first release an album but not
for CAA.
They take it in their stride and take
no prisoners.
The sound is finally sorted for the
night which pleases me and they steam through the set with Owen up to
his usual antics!
He has a fantastic voice which
compliments the style they play.
The guitarists work together perfectly,
Stephen Jeffery's crowd interaction is immense (jumping in and
playing and posing for photo opportunities is awesome!) and the bass
and drums are heavy as fuck!
I really enjoyed CAA this evening and I
hope this album gets noticed somewhere and the next one gets wider
distribution.
All in all a great night with only a
few minor issues with the sound earlier on. I look forward to seeing
all the bands again in the very near future.
Part 3 - The Album Review
The first thing about reviewing an
album is to recognise the song content along with the music.
There's
no point in having a really great sounding metal song then finding
out the lyrics are about fluffy bunnies!
It's just not metal.
So I
asked the band for a précis of the lyrical content to help me with
this review. No point in bullshitting that I figured it out myself
eh?!
An instrumental intro 'Above Ceres'
leads into 'Control', a song about autism and the everyday struggle
and differences of being autistic.
It fires off the album nicely and it
continues to knock out great song after great song with varying
content dealing with things such as depression ('The Absence Of
Light'), how shit humans are towards each other ('For Destruction'),
Vampires ('Becoming') and being at a funeral and realising that it is
really the end ('And As The Orchestra Plays').
I'm not the type of person that strips
down and analyses every song when I do a review of an album as I
don't see the point.
All in all this is a very solid
sounding metal album with only one criticism. The volume could have a
been set a hell of a lot louder.
That's to say when listening to it on
the same volume settings as other recent albums I needed to turn the
volume up.
A lot!
I'm also not the type of person to give
a mark out of whatever for an album.
I can only recommend or not that an
album is worth your purchase and this is one that I strongly
recommend.
As usual the whole gig can be found on my YouTube page and for more Heavy Metal shenanigans check out my Facebook page!
