Live Review - Palm Reader & Toy Mountains @ The Black Heart, London 14/02/2017

Valentines Day is usually a day of cards, chocolate, flowers and more importantly love. It’s a day couples come together to express their feelings towards each other in the most sloppiest way possible. We, at When the Horn Blows like to do things differently, we had an anti-Valentines Day at the Black Heart when we caught Palm Reader on the London date of their tour with Toy Mountains.



The Black Heart is by far one of the warmest venues I have been in when it comes to London, hell could open up, but it wouldn’t match the temperature in this room. Once a few people start filling up the room, the sweat starts dripping off the walls, thus creating a perfect environment for Glasgow four piece, Toy Mountains.



Firstly, their drummer has some of the loudest snare drum hits I have heard in a long time, which adds to the post-hardcore brilliance of them. The lads combine heavy guitars with soft and rough vocals, reminding of the days when I was obsessed with Yourcodenameis:milo and Funeral For A Friend. (To be fifteen again). The British underground scene is strong at the moment, and it is great to see bands like Toy Mountains involved. I chuck the term British in there, however these guys actually stem away from that a bit, as with their vocals you can tell they are Scottish, which is refreshing to hear compared to the usual ‘Essex lad’ vocals you get on some bands labelled in the same way.



Up next is Palm Reader, and by now the room is full and beyond the temperature of the Sun!



The lads crash through what you would typically expect from them, intense hardcore at its purest form, the crowd goes mental as soon as they kick into their set, with the whole room shifting on its axis. The band take the crowd back to old favourites, while also showing off some new material, which is almost going in a funk-hardcore (if there is such a genre) direction, which is refreshing to see such a style of band evolving. It is in a genre such as hardcore that you see band appreciation of their audience at is fullest, Palm Reader do not fall short of this. Expressing to the audience how much it means to them that there is that many people in the room right now, almost acting like the best Anti-Valentines-Card.

Well a very warm Anti-Valentines-Card that is.

Photography and Words by Ant Adams