Sunna

“Life is Loud” is brandished beneath a poster for tonight’s tour sponsors, rawk-mag Kerrang. Maybe “Black is the colour” or “Piercing's are not just for Xmas” would be a better slogan for the quiet, band t-shirted groups, sipping pints in the Joiners tonight. Seems like everyone is disconnected, but not as much as me, the boy not in black...

Enough negative observation, onto the evenings live proceedings. First up, London metallers MIOCENE which is easy for them to say… but the name doesn’t matter, as they make the kinda noise the Deftones and Rage Against the Machine would be proud of. And whilst making this "loud" sound become very much their own; all four members of the band look immersed to the point of drowning. The lead singer, with his “listen to (Black S)abba(th)” edited tee and skinhead, pours out his somewhat tangled heart and mind over some technically incredible drumming, funky distorted bass and the hair-band wearing, dreaded guitarists huge riffs with added nice’n’noisy solo’s. All the breaks were huge and tight and the only thing left to say is this band should be kept in your rawk-lovin' sights…

Next up were Crackout, whom Drownedinsound interviewed on this very evening. Off stage they were polite, quite’ish and v.nice people, although the lead singer was the mumbling, quiet type. They hit the stage and I mean hit the stage! The following half an hour or so of upbeat punk, with off-tune vocals (always the best non-conformer punk sound, in my view) made these three lads bounce and play like their lives depended on it. Their show reminded me of Symposium(rip) and somewhere in the energy there were bits of that sound, a feeling of early feeder and lots of US punk bands. Needless to say, the drummers jazz influence were not the clearest influence upon the set. All in all a good band to watch, so again, keep an eye out (ouch!).

Headliners Sunna have been tipped, probed and dragged around by the big boys. Their album ‘one minute science’ got pushed to the limits of uk rock marketing and judging by the “sold out” sign on the door, it all worked out right. Well, not perfectly, seeing as the guitarist struggled to the stage with crutches, the bassist (geek fact: formally 'A's roadie) looked like he’d had a bit too much of something-or-other, the now-standard rock-Dj spent most of the gig trying to get the pa levels right and drummer Richie Mills (formally of Cable) looked like he’d been to the California school of rock, breaking a few hearts along the way. And the lead singer spent the whole set having his tool-influenced vocals glossed and polished by the Dj dropping in extra studio-toned vocals. To me, this all sounded far too pre-packaged for a rock gig. If I wanted to hear things as they should sound I'd buy the record.

Past single ‘Power Struggle’ was the set’s saviour, getting the kidz bouncing and the room shaking – although Crackout seemed to shake the speakers and the foundations much more with the mere 3 of them. A very disappointing headline set, too much mouldy grunge for my liking and judging by the reaction to the set being cut short (i.e. almost no reaction) it seems like Sunna, might need to do their homework before heading out again. They should of watched the first two newcomers to see how it’s done, although I’m sure they had better things to do. UK rock isn't dead and certainly not the clichés; but turn it all up full blast because it's "LIFE" that "is loud" not just the music!!