Chris Earl
Perhaps the heaviest band on the bill, Fit For An Autopsy have had a stellar last five years of existence. Breaking out from the shackles of deathcore and making crushing, monolithic tunes that come close to rivalling Gojira in some instances, this is their second time in the UK in less than a year but judging by their reception, they’re adored over here. Opening with ‘Hostage’, the first track on their newest record The Nothing That Is, they have the crowd in the palm of their hand from the off, with a sea of raised fists and banging heads greeting them. Joe Badolato has one of the best voices in the game at the moment, nailing both his growls and soaring cleans like few others at the moment, particularly on tracks like ‘Sea of Tragic Beasts’ and the modern metal classic of ‘Far From Heaven’ which send the crowd into a gloriously loud singalong and leaves Joe Badolato and the rest of the band grinning like Cheshire cats.
Since the mid nineties, Hatebreed have never stopped. Not content with putting out some of the most legendary hardcore/metallic hardcore records of all time, they’ve since veered over to the mainstream and taken over that too. Yet, they still command the respect and the love of the diehard hardcore fans because let’s face it, how many bands could open a set with ‘I Will Be Heard’ and it not be the most beloved song of their set? The energy in the room takes a notable step up as the band take to the stage and it’s kept up for entirety of the next ten songs. Jamey Jasta is a mesmerizing, confident yet relatable frontman who’s bellows of “Who was alive before 1995” receive a rapturous response and sees the pits filled with people well into their mortgage payments. Closing the set with their modern rager ‘Looking Down The Barrel Of Today’ and promising to see us next year, the crowd are exhausted but delighted at the carnage they just witnessed.
The night is headlined by simply one of the biggest metalcore bands of all time. There’s no other way to put it. Despite having one of the most stacked packages of recent times below them, it’s clear that everyone is here to see Killswitch Engage. As the band make their way through one of the most ridiculously emotional, heavy and vast setlists in modern music (Even with some notable omissions like ‘When Darkness Falls’), the crowd is screaming every single word along with them. The opening salvo of ‘Strength Of The Mind’, the untouchable ‘Rose Of Sharyn’ and the often overlooked ‘Reckoning’ is glorious to behold. Between a shout out for Justin Foley, who powered through the show with illness (You’d genuinely never know) and some classic Adam D banter about defecating in the street, Jesse Leach is as earnest as they come. His effortless switching between screams and cleans (Backed up with some heavier cookie monster moments from Adam) are wonderful, even when the enraptured crowd threatens to take over at times. Perhaps the only disappointment in the set is the lack of a guest spot for ‘The Signal Fire’, but that’s a minor issue. Every era of the band is represented by at least one track and even songs from their new album get a good reception, particularly the stirring ‘I Believe’. Their set ends with a four track run that simply can’t be beaten by most bands in heavy music. From the forever CM Punk aligned ‘This Fire’, to the catharsis laden modern classics of ‘My Curse’ and ‘The End Of Heartache’ to the iconic, influential and perhaps one of the songs that the entire Metalcore genre was we know it is built upon, in ‘My Last Serenade’, the night ends on a triumphant note.