Crowbar and Dripback at The Dome, London - live review

The noise that spews out of London hardcore crew DRIPBACK [7] is a soiled and venomous bilge. “I know we don’t look like we give a shit, but when we come out we give everything,” barks vocalist Wez4. He’s right. The sound isn’t great tonight and it’s been a few years since the band’s last album Failed Futures but, with a third album reportedly on the way, their unholy hardcore/thrash racket continues to take no prisoners. CROWBAR [8] are sitting on a 30-year career and the room is packed, but grand entrances aren’t their style. In fact, 15 minutes before showtime only a few fans clock that it’s frontman Kirk Windstein up onstage tuning his own guitar. “We’re gonna kick your ass,” he bellows later, as the Louisiana sludge veterans thunder into opener High Rate Extinction, and over the next hour they pummel the crowd into oblivion. Crowbarare still an electrifying live proposition. Kirk’s gritty howl has lost none of its potency and recently returned bassist Todd ‘Sexy T’ Strange hulks over the crowd, bludgeoning with heavier-than-Hell, low-end blows. Planets Collide and All I Had (I Gave) are two of the megalithic cornerstones this genre was founded on. Combined with the monstrous, skull-cracking grooves of Plasmic And Pure from the band’s triumphant 11th album, The Serpent Only Lies, this is a devastating show of force.