Live Review: Impericon Never Say Die Tour - Electric Ballroom, London 05/11/2017
It has rolled around to that time of year again, when the Impericon Never Say Die Tour hits the UK! This year they have brought some of the heaviest bands the US and the rest of the world have to offer!!!
Rocking up a few minutes before doors opened there was already a lengthy queue of avid fans bursting to get in. The First band on the bill tonight were New Jersey metalcore giants Lorna Shore, being the first band playing in such a jam packed tour is always daunting but Lorna Shore has it all under control. Playing quite a few song from their latest release ‘Flesh Coffin’ the crowd were lapping up every breakdown, our personal favourites have got to be ‘Denounce the Light’ and ‘FVNERAL MOON’.
After getting warmed up the crowd were hungry for more and what better to satisfy that hunger than the only non-US band on the lineup, Polaris all the way from sunny Australia.
Having just released their debut full length album ‘The Mortal Coil’ just two days before, these auzzie boys were ready to bring the heavy to London! Smashing into ‘The Remedy’ as there opening song, the crowd were instantly set off into a fury of fists! Following up with another new one ‘Lucid’ and fan favourite ‘Regress’ had long time fans singing their hearts out with frontman Jamie Hails!
Before we knew it Texan band Kublai Khan had entered the stage and oh boy we were not ready!! Having some of the heaviest basslines and riffs we heard all night, Matt Honeycutt and co. opened up pit after pit with songs like ‘The Hammer’ and ‘The Guilty Dog’. Kublai Khan are a band that don’t have any problem with singing songs about some more harrowing issues like racism, addiction and depression which is a breath of fresh air in the music industry.
Next on the line-up were hard-hitting metalcore outfit Sworn In, vocalist Tyler Dennen and his band brought a relentless mix of angsty metalcore and mathcore to Electric Ballroom. Huge anthems such as ‘Endless Grey’ with its starting scream of “HELP!!” echoed across the venue, where as ‘Mindless’ turned the dancefloor into a warzone with circle pits opening up left,right and centre! Sworn In know how to put on an incredible show hopefully its not another three years before they make their way back to the United Kingdom.
Even if you hadn’t listened to anything by Chelsea Grin before hand, you can tell this Utah deathcore group are not a band to be taken lightly! Brutalizing every second of their 45minute set with breakdown after breakdown, we could feel our eyeballs shaking in their sockets! The top highlight would have to be their closing song ‘Skin Deep’ which tore a fresh wound in an already battered and bruised audience!
Penultimate band tonight was non-other than Deez Nuts which definitely brought a much needed amount of party to tonight’s show! Chucking out tune after tune like ‘Purgatory’ or ‘Face This on My Own’ the crowd were getting more and more excited; the only disappointment was a lack of Architects frontman Sam Carter during collab song ‘Band of Brothers’ but that was made up for by the volume that the crowd were singing back every word!! Deez Nuts always seem to put on a top notch show and tonight exceeded our expectations by a long way.
Finally it came time for tonight’s headlining band the powerful Emmure, blending insane hard-core and punishing thrash there’s no wonder why they were headlining this evenings already packed show! Not messing about Emmure hit the audience with large helping of ‘Shinjuku Masterlord’ and were greeted with an equally large crowd chant of “You Think I Give a F**k” during the iconic chorus. The rest of the set continued with this sense of togetherness, the audience singing every word from ‘Natural Born Killer’, ‘Most Hated’ and ‘4 Poisons 3 Words’; it was truly a sight to behold!! Emmure’s set finished with heavy anthem ‘Solar Flare Homicide’ which opened some of the biggest pits of the night and finally a total classic ‘When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong’ to round off an incredible performance and an equally incredible night!
The Impericon Never Say Die tour never seems to disappoint when it comes to picking the line-up every year, this year was no exception to that; from some fantastic newer bands such as Polaris to absolute heavy weights in the game like Deez Nuts and Emmure, every second was off the chain!!!
Review and Photography by Joe Dick