I’ve lived in Cambridge for almost 6 years now, and apart from reviewing one album by a locally-based band, to my discredit I have had no knowledge of or encounter with the local metal scene until now. I was aware of the Portland Arms through word of mouth and having driven past it many times, but had no idea what goes on inside the place. I spotted a flyer for this concert inside the Black Barn record shop, itself a jewel in the Cambridge crown. The last concert I went to took place in Malaysia, which is a bit of a hike from East Anglia by anyone’s standards. It was also nice not to be at the mercy of a train company stopping me from going to London by deciding to cancel all the trains in case it might snow, which was the scenario last time I attempted to go to a gig. I could have cycled – this is Cambridge – or even walked to this one. In the event I ventured on the dark side and caught a City 1 bus.

I didn’t know about any of the bands I was due to see. Discovery is always part of the pleasure, as I know from many nights out over the years. My bit of research told me that I was going to be exposed tonight to variations of melodic death-groove metal. As it happened, none of the bands were from Cambridge or even Cambridgeshire, so that I’ll have to wait for that treat. The first band, operating under the handle #essexmetal, was probably the closest geographically speaking. This was Bearfist. As I am to stiff joints and decomposition generally, these guys are to hair and energy. Three beards out of four band members is a pretty good ratio. The quiet guitarist won the prize for the best one. These beardy boys gave us bass-heavy, brutally melodic pungent metal. “I will drag you down to your fucking grave” roared the vocalist. The screamathon continued as the instrumentalists pumped out sharp and heavy riffs and the impressively thrashing drummer developed repetitive strain. Technically this was fluid and was made more colourful with subtle tempo changes, so we were kept on our toes in every sense. At times it bordered on djent. Essex Man, who was by all accounts a great bloke, gave it large on the vocals, when not by his own admission complaining about having to scream his guts out while having a hangover. I can’t imagine this dose of heaviness cured it but it was entertaining. Bearfist pounded us with their groove lines. The sound quality was really good too. It ended with a groove-thrash-hardcore number, which Essex Man introduced as a “new one”. In truth they were all new ones to me but I did glean from the hieroglyphic of a set list, which Essex Man kindly slipped to me afterwards, that it might be called “Bleed the Wrong Way”. Its deep burning groove captured Bearfist. The energy was always there. A bit of moshing got going. There was a wall of noise. Heads banged. Essex Man and his chums exuded anger. And so I was nicely angry. It’s infectious. Good job.

Haema were next on. Another four piece, they began with a kind of psychedelic tribal grove. The vocalist seemed to be having a crisis, as he gravitated somewhere between growls and a Native Indian war chant. There was an element of acid and most definitely experimental about this. The interesting bassy groove lines were holding it together. “What do you believe?” preached the vocalist, Talking Heads style. This seemed to be a band for rhetorical questions. The vocalist irritatingly became obsessed with spectators not moving to the front and was outdone in the personality department by his guitarist who along with his dreads bounced along to these obscure pieces as if he really believed, man. This challenging and avant-garde experience reminded me of the first time I saw Ephel Duath. You didn’t know what was coming next. Spooky samples, tribal sounds and dark electro beats were used as the vocalist got into the crowd during the course of this strange acidic brew. It now became metal disco night. As magnetic drum patterns emerged, the vocalist bopped around, growled and acted like a metal disco diva. It was all very mixed and up and psychologically disturbing. Haema are different and indeed the strangest band I’ve seen in a while with all this mixture of psychedelia, electro and alternative metal. I applaud them for that. As the vocalist growled and wailed and preached, I made a mental note to just go with the flow. But there was no flow, well not in any conventional sense. The set ended with “Free Man”, which is the only song of Haema’s that I had heard before. It had life and energy and urgency, and maybe it helped that I was familiar with it. Haema’s show came to a close. The vocalist, who exuded strangeness of personality throughout, raced immediately to the exit as if he needed to throw up. I wasn’t sure about Haema, but they started to win me over and I began to warm to them. This is certainly an interesting band, and I need to hear more.

Five uniformed men took to the stage and played fast and technical progressive metal. This was Raze the Void. As the barefooted vocalist growled and gesticulated like a traffic policeman, I began to wonder which Scandinavian band they were reminding me of. I came up with Insomnium. But it didn’t go on like this. Having a duo of guitarists made for a stronger sound but the band’s music didn’t project as well as the that of the previous band. I felt alienated from the music. In fact Raze the Void were remarkable in different ways. A feature of their repertoire is to break off into progressive passages, and divert from growls into clean and even spoken vocals as if they were telling us a story and we were witnessing something of great moment. Unfortunately I couldn’t tell you what this moment involved but I do know that the music came from their “Obsolescence” ep, and the clean vocals were absolutely dire. As the songs lurched from one passage to another, another side of this band came out. Without doubt the lead man, who reminded me with his appearance and facial gestures of a hairy Paul Merton, had charisma. Raze the Void moved into a mix of Death and Roll to go with the hypnotic wall of sound and those occasional dreadful clean vocals. Although I personally wasn’t connecting to this at all, the lead singer whipped up the crowd who seemed more appreciative of it than me. There was a lot of theatre and a lot of heaviness but this wasn’t doing much for me, I’m afraid. To be fair I do acknowledge that Raze the Void got the crowd going, the lead singer in particular had graciousness and personality, and this was a live show. I can’t however say that by the end I was left with a desire to listen to any of the band’s recorded work.

It’s always good to start with a catchy riff, and Karybdis did so by starting with “Rorschach” off their latest album “Samsara”. Melody oozed out from every pore as vocalist Rich screamed. Karybdis drew out the epic qualities of their songs. Meanwhile the drummer impressively created thunder while the bassist provided depth and the guitarists added colour. Whilst Raze the Void had looked military in their black outfits, Karybdis’s appearance and music were more unified. They have an impressive confidence and maturity about them, and are audience-friendly. A down side was that Rich’s introductions were drowned by unnecessary sampled sound. The songs however had great structures and I sensed there was an anthem in there somewhere. I certainly felt melancholy in the murder of “Whispers”. Groove lines, solos, melodic metal and hardcore energy all combined powerfully. I quickly realised that Karybdis is more than a reasonable Scrabble score. This is a good band. Soilwork meets Killswitch maybe, but without any clean vocal nonsense in sight. Rich provided the perfect accompaniment to the musical balls of fire, twirling guitars and walls of noise going on around him. This, I reflected, was a band, which would appeal to frustrated, angry people and is the perfect escape valve. Yet there is sophistication of technique and structure. As the set continued, the output was more the metalcore kind, leading to a more abrupt end than I would have hoped for. This was a pity as Karybdis clearly know how to create epic worlds even in metalcore structures, and that would have been a more satisfying way to finish. I don’t know the band’s work sufficiently to know if this was a set list choice or down to the time constraint of a late-running gig. The last song on Karybdis’s set list was “Constipation” – well, we were all freed up this evening. As I looked around me, everyone looked worn out and happy so Karybdis and the bands before them had done their job.

I really liked the Portland Arms. The setting and the sound were good, and I met some great people while there. For the cost of a fiver, a Megarider bus ticket and a couple of drinks, this was a first class evening’s entertainment. I really appreciated that these bands came to provide Cambridge with a bit of musical education. I wish them all well.

(Andrew Doherty)