Antagonist A.D. erupt in slow motion but keep the molten incendiary Metalcore blasting out for most of an hour.
That’s the equivalent of 15 rounds of a world heavyweight boxing match back in the bad old days of Ali vs Frazier.
These guys really put it out, as four New Zild bands slam their way through high energy Rock music equivalent of MMA combat.
Supporting the headliners are Martial Law, Brawler and Saving Grace.
Antagonist A.D. will be celebrating 20 years soon with founder and lead singer Sam Crocker.
Their drummer has the most explosive and metronomic artillery fire of the evening. The necessary ground cover for the tandem guitar and bass to race through and strafe the venue.
Machine gun riffing and emptying their bullet belts. (Bullet Belt I remember doing a memorable show last year at the original Whammy Bar, just behind the side wall).
First song is probably These Cities, Our Graves from their same-titled 2006 debut album.
Fuck your racism! gets tossed out by the heavily tattooed singer, who curiously has the demeanour of a League coach, or a fight trainer.
There is a setlist. Lists 16 songs and I count 11performed tonight. It is a rough guide only.
Bunch of fucking animals rises out of the maelstrom of second song in. So much high energy it creates its own mass out of the momentum of the sound wave pressure.
This has been a hard-working band through the first score years of this new millennium. Toured through Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia repeatedly, and so I infer they smashed into the brick wall which was the Great Lockdown of 2020. Like everybody else.
Their songs champion socio-political issues like racism and sexism and weighted heavily towards animal rights. The members could still be vegan, or vegetarian at least.
Proving there is enough ferric iron in Metal music to sustain a healthy body. Without eating red meat.
One song is prefaced by how the singer coped with mental health issues. Then follows, make the most of every second/ The world is cruel/ Every second you die!
In a sense Metal bands like this have stripped the lyrical matter back to the core Sex Pistols themes. They were overtly socio-political, but they dissected down to the heart of the matter.
First look at your OWN useless fucking generation!
Pistols sang in riddles which the Clash decoded. That’s why it hit like a sonic wave of enlightenment in a certain sense.
The reason why I have come to appreciate Metal bands in recent times. This original Punk fan has observed that post Punk converges toward Metal and its myriad forms.
Molten rage is the essential component. It may have its own atomic number.
Inspirational message from the Antagonists. Be a good cunt to the people you love. Followed by a guttural howl of Die!!!
Decodes the riddle of hope I die before I get old. The Old Self has to die to get to the New Self.
Saving Grace is a Christian Metal band from Gisborne. One player wears an Evil Priest t-shirt.
The same age as the Antagonists, as they also kicked off in 2005.
A five-piece band which means two guitars and bass, adding some extra depth to the triple strings attack.
The Metal riffs are at medium pace compared to the faster paced delivery of Antagonist. All bands manage to hurl out swing, late swing and reverse swing.
The burly lead singer who resembles a tradie is joined by a dread-locked caveman for a few songs. The vocal cord shredding declamatory style you hear from the old black American preachers or Blind Willie Johnson.
Which means that a Christian Metal band is just bringing it all back home and refining the attack.
The circle pit keeps getting bigger with each band. I realise that what I’m witnessing is stylised pro-wrestling. Before cage-fighting and MMA there was the great WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Foundation).
Mostly guys and some girls come in windmilling arms and taking leaping kicks. It appears choreographed like the theatre sport of Hulk Hogan, Jesse Ventura and Macho Man Randy Savage.
It looks brutal but there’s no bloodshed. Just catharsis.
There is some God preaching before they launch into Recidivist.
Dreadlocked singer is back on. The barking tandem vocals.
Brawler has a lead singer who acts like an angry street preacher and yells at the crowd to fucking dance!
He looks like a raging Henry Rollins, lots of tats, and cresting the meshed wave strings and drums.
A full-on assault and battery. One song could be called Peaches or Beaches, but it is Creatures. There is the nasty attitude of the Stranglers with the foot on the accelerator.
We can play with the big boys, just give us a chance! Of course they can.
Martial Law are a young Metal band from Hamilton. They have the distinction of having a female drummer.
The only one out of seventeen players tonight. I am not forgetting that the great Metal singer Jenny Skulander from Devilskin also comes from Hamilton. You can catch her playing at the Come Together Big Bash in a week’s time.
This band remind me a lot of Blag Flag at the time of their Damaged album. Especially when they lay into a song called Brainwash which rips into the toxicity of mainstream media.
MSM is in the toilet now anyway. Just waiting to flush the dunny.
Antagonist A.D. along with their support acts demonstrate that the Metal bands aim to hold the moral high ground with highly disciplined rage attack music. In the original spirit of Johnny Rotten.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Jennifer De Koning
Antagonist A.D.
Saving Grace
Brawler
Martial Law
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