Vein and Higher Power, The Flapper, Birmingham - review
There’s a pub quiz going on in the Flapper’s upstairs bar, but down in the basement the patrons have gathered in their masses with the intention of having their brains scrambled by one of hardcore’s heaviest newer acts, Vein.
Texans Narrow Head are first up, and take a very different route to sonic bliss than the two bands to follow.
Before they have even hit a note it is evident they must absolutely love the 90s, with t-shirts that look like a tribute to Swervedriver and frontman Jacob Duarte starting the set with a Kangol fisherman’s hat pulled down over his eyes.
Musically they plunder much of what was good in that decade, taking the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and the heavier of the shoegaze bands and sticking them in a blender behind Duarte’s reverb drenched vocals.
The results are impressive, and judging by the large number of people who sacked off their smoking breaks to pile into the venue during their set, Narrow Head gained plenty of new fans tonight.
These days Higher Power demonstrate all the live prowess that you would expect from a band that seems to be forever on tour.
A 10-date trek around the States here, a European jaunt there… the Leeds’ lads are barely off the road.
The good news is, as baseball capped frontman Jimmy tells us tonight, is that they’re working on new songs for a follow up to 2017’s brilliant Soul Structure album.
The new tracks sound like Led Zeppelin, he says with a mischievous grin.
There’s no doubt that guitarists Louis and Max could easily put their own sheen on reworked versions of Black Dog or Kashmir, but for now Higher Power are sticking to the crossover sound they do best.
It helps that the crowd are up for it tonight from the start, with songs from the aforementioned Soul Structure clearing the area stage-front for some pretty impressive hardcore aerobics.
For the moshers, by the moshers.
Vein are one of the hardcore scene’s biggest hype bands of recent times, but unlike many others that have failed to match the big build up, the Boston crew appear to be the real deal in every respect.
2018’s errorzone album was a heavy, downtuned and impossibly technical beast, that managed to sprinkle a touch of industrial, and even (gulp) nu-metal into the mix and make it sound like the most vital thing you’ve heard in years.
It’s a great record, but seeing Vein live is a bit like completing the circle.
After a short industrial clatter signals the start of their set, the band sets out on delivering 30 minutes of largely uninterrupted chaos to the sold out room.
There’s no lengthy diatribes between songs, no meet and greets with the fans, just pure mayhem – both on the stage and among the crowd.
It seems like no time before the manic Virus://Vibrance has abruptly ended and Vein’s flawless set is done.
The next big things come and go all the time, but in Vein’s case, believe the hype.
