Will Haven

*Defenestration *warm up Will Haven's crowd tonight on the top floor of the Manchester University Union. To imply that their performance was risible _would _be silly. More accurately, the Kettering metallers displayed a routine worthy of a school bike shed. You can say it was all about the music, maaan, but that’s what CDs are for. The whole live experience involves watching a band and Defen’ have a heck of a long way before they finish preening and tweaking and just basically looking halfway comfortable and even a little bit like they know why they’re on a stage. Incidentally, vocalist *Gen Tasker *has the voice of a really, really freaky teenager who is unsure as to their correct gender/anger. I was left cold.

To emerge to a visceral soundscape that embodies the very recesses of your aural passages is one thing. It’s completely different doing this and then whacking out great big riffs and beats and screaming like a horny badger on some sort of amphetamine cocktail. *Will Haven *haven’t ever hit the big time, so to speak, in terms of record sales but there is no doubting that this is a band that is at the forefront of intelligent metal. What is it? Experimental metal? Possibly, but the frequent and frenetic interludes - especially those contained within recent album Carpe Diem - serve to adjust the crowd’s temperament in bitter expectancy – eager for the power to fold their bodies once more.

*Will Haven *are a self-confessed metal band. There are no twisted ideologies present to conform to their own needs. They play music. This probably disappoints some people, but the quartet need only prove themselves on a stage. For the duration of the hour-long set the energy emitted was rousing and captivatingly communicable. Jolting bodies caused purely by the energy of four American men, thrusting their heads toward the ground in simultaneously rhythmic fashion is a sight to behold. Despite the slight technical difficulties incurred, *Will Haven *continued their noise. If the noise stopped, somebody, somewhere, probably would have died. Behold.