One Without like the other 2 acts are also
from Gothenburg in Sweden and their style is actually
a distinctive middle point between both the following
bands music, the sheer straight up metal style
that Marionette pride themselves on combined with
the melodic style that Dead By April are famous
for. For the most part I can’t really knock
them, they played with extreme passion and energy,
but I have to say that some of the lead female
vocals went right through me being as high pitched
as they were and the amount of repetition in their
crowd interaction soon begins to get stale after
a few songs. They did seem genuinely enthusiastic
and excitable, I feel I may actually have enjoyed
it a lot more than I did if the jackass managing
the sound desk didn’t piss about, allowing
everything to feed back and become unbalanced
in the mix, maybe next time they’ll play
a venue that has competent staff.
Marionette follow up with by dragging the crowd
kicking and screaming into the depths of hell
with their more aggressive approach. The intensity
never let up, whilst there was minimal crowd interaction
the band never allowed the energy to deplete or
the silence’s to emerge, they just continuously
blasted metal at the audience. Apart from a few
pits breaking out and a few cheers the band don’t
seem to be received very well in comparison to
either the first act or the headliners but I feel
that stage show wise they performed the best.
Their on stage attire was the ultimate in suiting
up, emerging in suits and almost school kid get
ups it’s quite a surreal thing to be looking
at when listening to this type of music. Again
the asshole of a sound guy was neglecting his
duties but this time the guitarists microphone
wasn’t even audible alongside the other
instruments, even so they made the best of their
set and managed to impress me.
Dead By April have bravely embarked on their first
headline run after a mere 3 trips to the UK. With
so little exposure it’s quite impressive
that they’ve managed to pull a half decent
crowd here in Birmingham tonight. Now, having
seen them twice before put on some pretty amazing
shows I had set myself up to expect a fantastic
set; I was utterly disappointed. Some things remain
the same; instead of outrageous onstage aggressive
antics Dead By April opt for a down to earth yet
subtly menacing vibe, the audience is encouraged
to sing along as much as possible and everyone
is going crazy and having a great time, me included.
Right from the very first song I had an inkling
that there was some lip synching a foot, only
on the part of screaming vocalist Jimmie Strimell
when it came around to his clean sections. Obviously
the band had a backing track due to their lack
of keyboardist which is fine, but it soon became
apparent that there were vocals on the tracks
but when I could hear that clean vocalist Zandro
Santiago was using it for harmonies which I can
live with, Strimell however was quite clearly
screaming live as its easy to tell, but when contrasted
with the clean sections they sounded much quieter
and very synthesised, so much to the point that
they couldn’t possibly be live. “Calling”
was the final nail in the coffin, I enjoyed it
as I did the whole set but the amount of syncing
on this song was ridiculous, some points getting
the crowd to sing along would expose the vocals
on the backing track when clearly nobody was singing.
As much as I love Dead By April if they carry
on like this I won’t be attending their
shows anymore.
One Without – 3/5
Marionette – 3.5/5
Dead By April 3/5
Review By James Webb
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