Live Review: In Hearts Wake w/Gideon, Silent Screams & Black Coast @ Camden Underworld 06/10/2017!

Opening the night to a sparse crowd, Stoke-on-Trent five piece Black Coast [4] play a flawlessly tight blend of Melodic-Hardcore-Metal that keeps everyone entertained while The Underworld gradually fills. “Crows Of The North” and “Lawless” stand out from the bands short but sweet set tonight and if they keep up their current vein of form, it shouldn’t be too long before we see bigger things from them.

Camden has a lot of love for Coventry five piece Silent Screams [4] from the pulsing lights and heart beat intro to the closing notes. Their Metalcore approach with clean vocals from bassist Tom Craig and unclean vocals from Joel Heywood, they are very much reminiscent of Metalcore bands from the genres height. Camden shows them the love with spin kickers and circle pits throughout their set and Silent Screams have the audience in their hip pocket from the off. New song “Low” is a highlight while set closer “Everything Else” sees frontman Joel Heywood leap into the crowd for high fives and hand shakes during the chorus.

Alabama bruisers Gideon [5] bring our favourite brand of hardcore to London with rap screams from vocalist Daniel McWhorter and spin kicks throughout the set from bassist Travis Higginbotham. Breakdown piled upon Breakdown, full throttle and unrelenting, “Freedom” is a mid-set highlight as is “Cursed” from the bands current album “Cold”. The fact that the band are wearing Stray From The Path and Hatebreed t-shirts pretty much says it all – wearing their influences on their sleeves! It’s a brilliant set from Gideon and there is no doubt that they will be sharing bigger stages with other bands before too long. They’re a respected band among the Metal community and it shows on their recorded material with guest spots from Bryan Garris of Knocked Loose, Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed and Caleb Shomo of Beartooth.

Australia has delivered a number of classy Metal bands over year and Byron Bay’s In Hearts Wake [5] can count themselves as one of them. While songs from current album “Ark” sound flat on the album itself, in the live arena it’s a whole different ball game. The new songs sound ten times better, faster heavier with more groove, bounce and verve than the album versions. Opener “Passage” served as a warning on the album, whereas here it sounds like a calling. “Frequency” goes from a mid-album filler to a live sing-a-long with added edge and even album weak point “Waterborne” becomes a pleasure. Midway though the set there is a game of capture the flag during “Survival” as vocalist Jake Taylor crowd surfs in a blow up boat from the stage to the sound booth to exchange a bowl of fruit with the vegan sound engineer for an SS Humanity flag. “Divine” gets the crowd going again and it has to be said – In Hearts Wake’s set is a triumph. The new songs sit well against the older material and their is a lot to be said for the poor production value and mixing of the album “Ark” itself given what is witnessed tonight. It’s either just poor or a blatant attempt to sell more albums by dampening down and commercialising the bands sound. On this evidence, they don’t need it, they have the World at their feet.