Live Review: Cancer Bats w/Bleed From With & Underside @ Sub89 in Reading!

It’s Friday night and Canadian Hardcore Punks Cancer Bats are in town to party! Tonight is night #5 or as Liam Cormier puts it, the fifth concerto, of “The Spark That Moves” UK tour, which will see them tear up stages literally everywhere upon our shores!

Hailing from Kathmandu Nepal are tonight’s surprise openers Underside [8/10] who are joined onstage by a dancer in a massive tribal mask complete with a dreadlocked afro. The quartet don’t have a bassist in their camp and instead utilize the skills of a pair of guitarists to generate their Metalcore sound. Drummer Nishant Hagjer puts in a powerhouse performance on the kit with a serious amount of footwork giving the band an edge. By the end of the set the crowd are chanting the bands ‘s name so you know they’ve been won over!

If Underside were a surprise choice for this bill then having Glaswegian’s Bleed From Within [9/10] should be even more surprising. But it’s not because they supported Skindred on a pre-Christmas run of dates which was an even bigger surprise! If there was any doubt, the band are well and truly back having dropped their return from hiatus album “Era” last year, the one which appeared on our top #5 albums of 2018! In the live arena they have an extra quality to them, harnessing the power of the recorded material and injecting an extra energy to it. Cuts like “Afterlife” and “Alive” go down a storm and during the final song frontman Scott Kennedy leaps into the crowd and is held aloft while he delivers a verse. Epic.

Having sold out four consecutive nights at Camden Underworld for the 10th Anniversary of “Hail Destroyer” and with superfans MSRY in the audience, Cancer Bats [8/10] take the stage a deliver a set of high energy tunes in a career spanning set to help out their Belgian fill in drummer. Older cuts like “Butterscotch” get a dusting off while “Hail Destroyer” gets the crowd in a frenzy and of course Beastie Boys cover “Sabotage”, which they own, sees the pit go off! New cuts like “Space & Time” and closer “Gate Keeper” are massive sing-a-longs and by the end of the set the crowd is in a sweaty mess! The band will be back for Slam Dunk later this year and live they are simply a joy.