Lock Up / The Rotted / Dripback
22 December 2011
Camden Underworld, London
So our 2011 gigging year came to close at the Underworld in a very noisy fashion. First up were London bruisers Dripback who were in no mood to mess around, ploughing through their first three tracks with barely a pause. Whilst not as visually explosive as this year’s Bloodstock appearance due to a severe lack of space on stage, musically the band hit us like a knuckleduster to the forehead. The band present a smorgasbord of sonic violence mixing punk, hardcore and death metal with new song Stig even heading into Red Chord like disharmony.
Not even a broken guitar strap could put the breaks on Dripback tonight, with a roadie taping up Adam’s bass whilst he continued to play closing song Dilapidated Soul. Frontman Wez, who shuffles around the stage like a demented zombie, informed us Dripback would be supporting Biohazard here early next year and on this form it will be worth turning up early.
Dripback setlist:
On The Cross / No God, No Master / Stig / Whimper / Kick Out Time / Distrust / High / Dilapidated Soul
  
The Rotted have a new album, Ad Nauseam, that their rightly proud of, treating us to eight of it’s eleven tracks tonight. Like on record, the new material has more focus and could even be described as catchy, with Surrounded By Skulls and Non Serviam in particularly boring their way under your skin.
As its Christmas and the band are filming for a video, frontman Ben McCrow passed out three bottles of Jagermeister for the crowd to share. Fuelled by that we get the first pit and crowd surfer of the night as the band take us down memory lane with a couple of Gorerotted death metal blasts.Back to the d-beat and The Hammer Of The Witches recalls To Ride era Entombed, whilst Nothin’ But A Nosebleed wrapped things up in a frantic fashion.
The Rotted setlist:
The Howling / Rex Oblivione / Entering The Arena Of The Unwell / Just Add Nauseam / Only Tools and Corpses (Gorerotted cover) / Stab Me Til I Cum (Gorerotted cover) / Surrounded By Skulls / Non Serviam / Apathy In The UK / MotörBastärds / The Hammer Of The Witches / Nothin' But a Nosebleed
  
“We are Lock Up from Sparkhill, Santiago and Sweden”, announced Tomas Lindberg after we were assaulted by opening song Pleasures Pave Sewers. Continuing with the breathless Brethren of the Pentagram it’s hard to believe this is not a full time endeavour with the band remarkably tight. It becomes even more surprising when Lindberg takes time to explain drummer Nicholas Barker came out of hospital one day ago with a diagnosis of pneumonia. Whilst the band considered cancelling these dates, Barker insisted otherwise and he put in an astonishing performance under the circumstances.
Whilst perhaps the least famous of this international grind super group, credit should go to Criminal’s Anton Reisenegger who again, considering this isn’t his main band, nails the vast amount of riffs in this set with dexterity.On the other side of the stage, anyone thinking playing this kind of “noise” is talentless needs to study Shane Embury’s lightning fast playing. Cheekily comparing him to one of JRR Tolkien’s mythical creatures, Lindberg asks if we’ve seen the trailer for The Hobbit.
The set spans all three Lock Up albums, from Triple Six Suck Angels, dedicated, “For the ladies”, through The Jesus Virus “Something for Christmas”, right up to The Embodiment of Paradox & Chaos, dedicated to Dripback and The Rotted.
Of course the band lost guitarist Jesse Pintado back in 2006 and two blasts of Terrorizer, with Storm Of Stress and Fear Of Napalm, were dedicated to his memory.Closing the set with Cascade Leviathan from second album Hate Breeds Suffering, Lock Up leave us wondering when they will next reconvene and grace a stage together again.
Lock Up setlist:
Pleasures Pave Sewers / Brethren of the Pentagram / Accelerated Mutation / Slaughterous Ways / Triple Six Suck Angels / Violent Reprisal / Detestation / Submission / Rage Incarnate Reborn / Feeding on the Opiate / The Embodiment Of Paradox And Chaos / Castrate the Wreckage / High Tide In A Sea Of Blood / Necropolis Transparent / The Jesus Virus / Storm of Stress (Terrorizer cover) / Fear of Napalm (Terrorizer cover) / Vomiting Evil / After Life In Purgatory / Cascade Leviathan
  
LINKS:
http://www.myspace.com/lockup
http://www.therotted.com
http://www.dripback.co.uk
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