Live Review: State Of You w/Chaos Reigns at The Black Heart!

We are joined by the legend that is Chris Underhill from Hardcore injected Punks My Latest Failure as we ascend the stairs to the live room at The Black Heart in Camden. That’s tonight’s destination of choice as an EP release show finds State Of You playing cuts from “On A Knife’s Edge” for the first time in the live arena. Opening band Dog Rotten have dropped out, seemingly at the eleventh hour and there is no replacement, however thankfully Chaos Reigns, who themselves have only just released a new EP in “Sweet Violence“, have extended their set to keep us warm on a cold winters night.

As cool as it would have been, no one expected Mikey Chapman of Mallory Knox to reprise his role on “The Lotus King” but in all honesty there is no need as Hardcore Punks Chaos Reigns [8/10] have enough energy to keep the lights on for a thousand years. They waste no time in tearing the place up, getting a packed audience to sing, scream and chant along as they wreak havoc on the stage, “Fight / Flight” a worthy opener after an ocean of feedback. Their fierce brand of the genre feels both old school and yet strangely fresh and on tonight’s evidence alone it won’t be long before they’re playing Slam Dunk Festival. Their new material is vibrant and expressive, the outfit showing no fear in stepping outside of genre stereotypes with the odd left field moment including an almost Jazz like avant-garde passage that feels like it was inspired by System Of A Down. Frantic, frenetic and schizophrenic they have a few more technical riffs in their armoury and “Big Beat Manifesto” is a stone cold winner.

Tonight is a celebration and when headliners State Of You [9/10] take to the stage it seems obvious that vocalist Steve Sitkowski has been pickling his liver. What’s strange however is that despite the rockstar persona he portrays on stage with his hand regularly outstretched as if pushing his demons away, he doesn’t let that effect his performance for even a second. Channeling his inner Liam Cormier, there is that distinctive twang to his vocals which never leaves, the passion in his lyrics coming across every exceptionally well. As the band blitz through a set of high energy sonic abrasions, some old, some new, none borrowed but some blue it’s clear that some of the nuances that make the new record so great have been lost in the sonic storm. Not that it’s necessarily an issue, they sound great in this stripped down, all out sonic assault on the senses. Instead the floor is occupied by a bouncing mosh pit with the feeling that if the venue was bigger it would be stage dives and high fives all round and rightly so as the riff slingers are in electric form. A blistering rendition of “Two Of A Kind” is one of the many standouts and live is has more caffeine, more sugar and more fat than it does on the EP, which is saying something given just how good it is. Bigger stages than this call to State Of You like sirens voices on the breeze, the only question being if they can hold it together long enough to reach them…