October Crisis

Gig Reviews

Academy Unsigned
Academy 3
22/01/08

Within seconds of their full-throttle opening track, October Crisis had generated a big, impressive sound that made everyones’ ears prick up in anticipation. This naturally got it all off to a good start, and the stomping well-paced metal intro of ‘Burning Fuses’, cool slide start of ‘Cut-Throat’ and lead guitar work throughout (though the impressive tapping in ‘Nuisance Grounds’ was slightly lost due to lack of volume) kept everything at a sound level.
The problem was that there was nothing really new or different on show. Things did begin to increase in creativity at certain points but could’ve gone further. And this wasn’t helped by the fact that the vocals weren’t completely tight, and while the lead singer held high-pitched scream lines well, the unscreamed vocals sounded a little uneasy. Their best moment was mid-way through the set in ‘Here’s To Their Demise’. Featuring a melodic opening guitar line, some nice drumming, deep crunching breakdowns and good chord progressions, this was demonstrative of the greater extent of diversity and originality that they should aim for.
All in all it was a decent performance with a good sound and good riffs; they just need to tidy the vocals in the non-screamo passages and branch out a bit more with their songs.

6/10

Set list:

1. ‘In The Gasp Of A Breath’
2. ‘Burning Fuses’
3. ‘Here’s To Their Demise’
4. ‘Cut-Throat’
5. ‘Nuisance Grounds’
6. ‘Tension’

Polly