SILENT SCREAMS [5] kick off tonight’s proceedings with a short set that mixes fast, heavy riffs, climbing solos and melodic choruses.
They’re an odd choice of support with a sound that’s more on the classic side of metalcore, and unlike the bands they’re supporting, there are no visual gimmicks – or rousing choruses – to remember them by. It’s singalong anthems like Kill Or Be Killed, Epidemic and Defame Me that this crowd really wants, and NEW YEARS DAY’s [7] Ash Costello delivers them at the top of her lungs. The loyal bunch out front don’t care that it’s almost the same setlist from their last London gig at the Barfly, bar the addition of Angel Eyes (complete with cameo from Chris Cerulli). If you’ve seen NYD once, you’ve seen them 10 times, but they play every show like it’s their last.
Dry ice and green lights set the mood to eerie for MOTIONLESS IN WHITE’s** [8]** entrance. Chris prowls across the stage, legs wrapped in ball-throttling PVC trousers, and launches straight into Death March. The crowd chants back, over a drum beat that’s more tin can than Satan’s lair in the boxy venue, but it’s a minor detail. Keys player Josh Balz nods like a gothic Darth Vader in a hooded robe as he adds the distorted synth, and the riff in Unstoppable rings out clearly over the blastbeats. Chris stops mid-set to earnestly thank the crowd for demanding a UK leg of the tour, and dedicates an excellent cover of Rammstein’s Du Hast to two German fans who, he says, have been to every show. Some would say that if the highlight of your set is a cover, there’s a problem with your own tunes, but the groovy A-M-E-R-I-C-A proves that’s not the case.
Ash Costello joins him onstage for Contemptress and the pair make sure to play up their obvious chemistry. By the end of the song they’re clasping each other’s faces, inches away from kissing. Token slowie Sinematic has Chris, wreathed in dry ice, bewailing a lost love as the crowd’s arms wave in unison.
It’s clear he’s held them in his palm from the opening notes to the last bars of closing track Reincarnate, and they’ll go home happy. Then, finally, Chris can take off those trousers.
