Misery Signals
The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Locked In, Go Ask Alice, Before The Devil Knows You Are Dead
Sin City, Athens, Greece
02/10/2009
After three almost gig-less months a decent show is wanted as much as an effective diet after grandma’s Christmas table. Or even more. Get a rad line-up and it’s party alarm for everyone. After touring (in) Europe metalcore bosses Misery Signals were ready to hit Sin City’s stage along with progressive rage spreaders The Number Twelve Looks Like You.
As opening act Before The Devil Knows You Are Dead were about to tear the club up while bombing the crowd with relentless deathcore riffs, but things didn’t go really smooth for them. Although songs themselves were pretty sick, it seemed that dudes were trying to play instead of well, simply playing and chopping our heads off. The set contained their usual tunes like “Before The Devil Knows You Are Gay” and “My Love I See Your Miasma”. Better luck next time, boys.
Go Ask Alice followed. With these lads it’s either you hide in the corner and try to save yourself or kick it ‘til you pass out. Energetic and furious as hell they provided a great all-body-parts-including-warm-up: swinging hands, nodding heads and all sorts of stuff like that. Diving into off-kilter rhythms that are both complex and unpredictable and throwing out gamma of emotions ranging from rage to euphoria they managed to make their performance extremely pleasing to hear and watch. Closing up with “Heart Needs Heartbreak” and receiving an almighty cheer this band proved once again that the local scene isn’t hopelessly fucked up.
It’s pretty hard to not look like total dicks in front of an audience that has never seen or heard anything of a band you’re playing in. And it’s even harder to make a decent first impression. I don’t know how Locked In felt about playing their first Athens show, but they definitely did well. Not minding the skeptic looks and absence of motion they gave their best playing a highly catchy mixture of fast and pissed hardcore with shredding melodic parts adding some extra portion of sing-along and “yer moshin’” moments. After a couple of songs you could already witness the behavioral change – loads of dudes were jumping around in the front and back rows were diligently nodding their heads. Stimulated by this feedback (all) band members raised the bar while rushing all over the stage, incessantly bouncing and overwhelming us with their tunes. In few words: great job.
The Number Twelve Looks Like You play the kind of music that is almost unclassifiable. It’s fast, noisy, melodic, chaotic, catchy, exploding, vicious, confusing and twisted at the same time. And if it’s hard to hear, imagine playing it. But this mob was one of the most professional ones I’ve ever seen. Without sound check they carried out a set that was absolutely errorless, accurate and synchronized. Vocalist Jase was effortlessly producing an astonishing variety of phonic effects starting with deafening screams progressing into quiet humming, while the rest of the band was backing him up with sudden and stunning sonic waves. Despite the fact that their performance might have left some of us absolutely clueless about what the hell was going on, it was far from appearing rigid or tedious. Well other like it pell-mell and for those TNTLLY’s show was manna from heaven.
When Misery Signals get on stage it’s obvious
that they’re the one everybody’s been waiting for. As his band mates dive head first into insane riffs, frontman Karl gathers in front of him an army of reckless dudes that merges into a vast mass of raised fists, hands held high, swinging heads and screaming mouths. Not thinking of slowing down they successfully spread the venue assault commanded by Karl’s impressively fearsome vocals. The tunes were catching you by the throat with a tight knot of pure metal guitar parts and ingrained hardcore tones, then turn to calm melodic notes giving you a chance to gasp some air to eventually be swollen by more killer bursts. Bodies collided, people were piling up onto the stage, leaping off of it, sharing the mic, grabbing Karl and dragging him down but when he straightened up and outstretched his arms it was all about complete and utter apotheosis.
After the last notes were fallen silent the band remained on stage to shake hands, sign autographs, take pictures and receive numerous compliments for this truly mind-blowing performance. Daaamn, this was good.
Marga Rarity.