Live Review: Tech-Fest Techabilitation 2023: Friday (1 of 3)!

There is a certain irony that just as we arrive in Derby for what could be the final Tech-Fest event in Techabilitation at The Hairy Dog, “Beginning of the End” by Spineshank should surface on the Spotify playlist we’ve been listening to on the drive. In truth it’s not so much the end as a new beginning as mastermind Simon Garrod turns his attentions to being a guitarist in Eschalon after a decade of event management. They have their first single “Helios” out there in cyberspace and it’s a banger…

The Guinness is flowing as opening act Gutlocker [10/10] take to the stage, the Woking Groove Metal act honoured to be playing having been regulars at Tech-Fest as fans for years. A well oiled live machine, they waste no time in delivering a set largely extracted from their 2022 album “To Be Alive” of the finest order, deviating for the ever popular crowd chant-able Jamiroquai cover “Deeper Underground“, a classic from the soundtrack to the 2003 Godzilla movie. They know how to work a crowd and get the blood pumping with fits in the air and vicious little ditties like “Sent Them All In“, the audience enjoying a set from a band who quite frankly shouldn’t be on this early. Guitarist Pete Tucker is all gurns as he slings the riffs and bassist Ben Rollinson has grown a beard since Rabidfest in November and it has to be said that while that show found the band more relaxed, tonight they’re fired up with vocalist Craig McBrearty offering a more ferocious performance…

Winter Hotel [9/10] look like they have come straight from the office to the venue, suited, booted and ready to for a fight, adorned in black shirts like they’re about to execute a mob hit. Armed with last year’s EP “To Burn Beneath The Spotlight” they cross multiple subgenres of brutality in death defying leaps, from Mid West Emo tinged Metallic Hardcore with Slamming Beatdown Deathcore all wrapped up and served with a side of fries and they go down a storm. Vocalist Warren Porter offers up some feral moments in his constant throat splitting uncleans and then talks to the audience between songs in total contrast, gentle and kind rather than inciteful and wild and their guitarists look like they’d gut you like a fish. “Act III: Of Loving” has to be the most polar opposite title to a soundscape ever and this is an utter triumph.

The ridiculous quality of bands playing tonight continues with Collapse The Sky [9/10] a heavily tattooed and hairy five piece who bring the Bloodstock experience of bigger stages, something which they use every ounce of to work the crowd and get a decent Mosh pit going as they fire headbangable riffs in all directions like gunfighters in the Wild West. Vocalist Lee Margaillan has a certain soulful quality to his aggressive tendencies and has the twitch of a man who might stage dive at any point but not tonight, letting cuts like “Blackwater” and “Worship” do the talking instead. They’re sweaty and breathless by the end of the set having left everything on the stage, a testament to just how good they are.

Northern Ireland’s Archives [9/10] have been causing a commotion for the past three years and specialise in creating the kind of stout and fierce material that is laced with memorable hooks. Having released an unholy trinity of singles since their 2021 album “Decay” in “Self Inflicted“, “Matriarch” and “No Sweat” which have demonstrated growth in musicianship and tonight they’re on fire. To be fair they have to be as each band that has come before them have kept them honest and on their toes, hitting the tracks out of the park like home runs and so the five piece are left with no choice but to thrive under the pressure. Honest and captivating, we expect 2024 to be a huge year for them.

An extended sound check from Red Method [10/10] finds tonight’s headliners messing about with “Blind” by KoRn but in truth it’s the promise of a long awaited sophomore album for 2024 that is more exciting than a potential cover. That is announced by vocalist Jeremy Gomez early on in the set and said to be in it’s final stages, something which only serves in enhance the party mood of a Friday night in Derby. A new bassist and new drummer have slotted in perfectly and join in the synchronised headbanging and classic sinister poses which are all part of the show, the stage not really big enough for the six piece to throw themselves around as much as they might like. A slick live machine having played cuts like “The Absent“, “Messiah” and “Cycle of Violence” from debut album “For The Sick” somewhere approaching five years at this point, everything feels as utterly effortless as it is energetic. If the one song to emerge fresh since in “Slaves To The New World Disorder” is anything to go by then the album is going to find them claiming a crown…