Gallows
Pickled Dick
Kingston Peel
9/8/06
(pics from The Barfly show)
There’s a group of guys who like they’ve been in a very serious car crash. There are remnants of fake blood capsules strewn around the toilets. Oh, and that goddamn craving for the taste of brains has come over me again. Looks like Leeds’ finest zombie-core export, Send More Paramedics, are back in town!
So, how best to start this most black-humoured of occasions? Probably not with Pickled Dick, a trio who play excellent melodic punk rock in the vein of early Snuff, but whom are met with little more than sparse applause.
Gallows are a different proposition entirely; the twisted hardcore rock n’ roll wreckage of songs like ‘Abandon Ship‘ and ‘Last Fight For The Living Dead‘ positively seething with all the rage and resentment you’d expect from a band whose existence has been dogged by countless misfortunes. Boasting a tattooed, wild-eyed lunatic of a frontman in Frank Carter, this lot are as compelling as they are unsettling; and on tonight’s evidence, they’ll settle for nothing less than your total devotion. Look out for this lot on the road as they have a live set that eats their record on In At The Deep End for breakfast and the record is a corker, so you work it out.
How far exactly can one band take their obsessions with 80’s thrash, hardcore and classic splatter films? Send More Paramedics have had their share of detractors, but tonight, the opening blast of ‘Nothing Tastes Like This‘ is enough to dispel any remaining doubts of the band’s potential.
Forthcoming album ‘The Awakening‘ is their most accomplished and varied record to date, and the sight of blood-splattered vocalist B’Hellmouth gleefully urging the pit to greater efforts is proof enough of SMP’s onstage confidence. The sweat is dripping off the walls of the Peel as new track ‘Blood Fever‘ whips the crowd into a mass of flailing bodies, and by the time the band finish with the anthemic ‘Zombie Crew‘, they’ve got a whole army of would-be-undead minions chanting along in unison.They’ve always been an entertaining band, but never before have Send More Paramedics sounded so essential. Never heard of them, you say? Well, get that nice juicy brain of yours over here!
BURRRP.
Alex Gosman
