Adrenaline
Battle Of The Bands (quarter finals)
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall
04/09/04
By Philip Whitehouse
This was my first encounter with
Adrenaline, although I had heard the name floating around for a couple of months now. Let me tell you, after a BotB generally populated by punk and ska bands, they came as a very welcome blast of searing metallic air. The quintet took the stage and immediately ripped into a quartet of songs that sounded like the result of a shoot-out between
Raging Speedhorn and defunct Irish rap-metallers
One Minute Silence.
The dual vocalists (one dreadlocked and clad in skater attire, one shaven-headed with a brutally short mohawk and a frighteningly intense expression) stalked the stage like escaped convicts intimidating a crowd of hostages, alternately barking, screaming and rapping vocals with admirable conviction and not a small amount of presence. The music that backed up these rage-soaked outpourings was a thick, midpaced pummelling of metallic influence - down-tuned and bottom-heavy riffage that recalls
Speedhorn's bouncier numbers as well as it reveals a penchant for twisted melodies. The rhythm section pinned down the grooves in the tracks with precision, making the whole set an intense, enjoyable experience.
By the last two songs, the band had fully thrown themselves into the gig, flailing around the stage, howling the lyrics at the madly-headbanging audience assembled round the front of the stage and generally giving the visual accompaniment required for such an effective aural bludgeoning. An impressive performance from a relatively young group.
8/10
Adrenaline Official Website
