Live Review: Year of the Knife - New Cross Inn, London 22/05/2019

New Cross Inn is a venue well known in the hardcore scene for its ever growing popularity in hosting a range of hardcore gigs, including past shows we have attended such as Vein on their tour with Higher Power, and Lotus Eater on their support tour with The Last Ten Seconds of Life. On this night, we added a new set of bands to that list; Year of the Knife, with supports from Chamber and Cauldron. 

Cauldron are a five-piece from Birmingham. Whilst still relatively new to the scene, the band have recently found themselves on some well-respected shows since the release of their first, and currently only, EP’s last year. Hitting a stage in London can always be a daunting task, as I’m sure many bands trying to break into the scene will know. However the band needn’t have worried as members of the crowd were singing lyrics back to them and throwing down to their tracks. The vocalist delivered high vocals which didn’t falter once. By the end of the set, we were wondering how he was left able to talk as he gave his all to his music. The band came across as hard working and their stage presence and strong vocals will be sure to get them far in this industry if they carry on. Now we will all await further releases and be hoping for an album or lengthier EP from the boys soon.

Chamber hail not too far from Cauldron, also coming from the West Midlands as a five piece and also somewhat new to the scene, releasing their first EP via Venn Records last year. The band were amazingly high energy and throughout the entire set, they just looked like they were having fun which is always the best thing to see from a band. If the band are having fun, then chances are, the crowd will be having fun too; which we can confirm they definitely were. People were running round the room until choruses started playing and they all dived towards the stage to shout the lyrics in time with the vocalist. 

Similar things could be said for the crowd for Year of the Knife, and the mic grabs seen during Chamber doubled as Year of the Knife played. The room created a giant horse shoe in the centre of the room for the two steppers and the rest of the crowd reached as far back as the room would go, with some even standing on merch tables to get a good view of the stage without getting hit by potential crowd killers. On the release of their album, Ultimate Aggression, which came out February this year, the gap in-between the release of this and them touring the UK has given the crowd plenty time to learn every word to each song they played, which really showed on the night. It felt like a much anticipated show and the passion their audience had was outstanding. Year of the Knife are definitely a rising act in the hardcore scene, especially after their recent tour across America with Stick to Your Guns. We look forward to seeing what more is to come from the band. 

Words and photography by Hayley Fearnley