Live Review: The Royal w/From Once We Came & Faces Of Eve @ Camden’s The Black Heart!

Camden’s The Black Heart is tonight’s venue, unassuming and without signage, at most 100 people could fill the place.

Hertfordshire’s Faces Of Eve open tonight’s set with frontman Benjamin Black donned the theatrical half and half mask as seen in the video for ‘Rail/Grit/Line”. The band play through a set covering off material from their debut EP “The Story So Far” and self-titled debut album with efficient power and promise adding that extra pace and energy. Frontman Benjamin Black’s soulful pipes are well utilized alongside the barrage of DJentisms that the band produce, and that’s a big part of the bands appeal. While he can give the likes of Slaves‘s Johnny Craig a run for his money, in some ways the band are held back by a muddy mix from the venues sound booth, with the vocals a bit lower in the mix that they should be. “Sanctuary For Heavy Hearts”, “So Below” and “Feed” are all set highlights. Hopefully some summer festival dates will on the bands agenda. [7/10]

From Once We Came are playing a home town show to close out their part of the run with The Royal. The band smash through a set of their own material while delivering a master class from the lesser lights of heaven. Guitarist David Silver gurns his as through the bands set pulling every kind of guitarist pose imaginable while he shreds his way through the bands set. Frontman Thomas Smith’s hardcore bark packs a punch and the appearance of members of The Royal on stage to scream the call and responce of for the bands signature song “From Once We Came”. The band may only have one song available for purchase in “No Call Backs” but on this evidence they need to get into the studio sharpish. The venue maybe small but the pit action is in full swing throughout. [8/10]

How The Royal have managed to pull together a DIY European tour playing small venues is some sort of miracle. Getting in a van in their home town of Eindhoven Netherlands and arriving at Folkestone seems crazy. But here they are both happy and humble. One of the surprise highlights of UK Tech-Fest last year, the band tell us exclusively after the show that they will be back at UK Tech-Fest this summer. The band smash through a high octane set full of Metalcore highlights from their albums “Seven” and “Dreamcatchers”. JD Liefting’s unclean backing vocals and lead guitar work add a weight to Sem Pisarahu’s uncleans as the bands dual guitar attack harmonize to perfection.  The energy and verve in the set is immense and the band are second to none in the live arena. The Royal are exactly what Metalcore should be in 2018.  [9/10]