August 31, 2005
Slowly building up their eerie guitars and atmospheric sound, El Cielo sneak onto the stage to start off tonight’s first Semi Final. The strong and unique vocals ring out and as the frontman weaves together his stories of love and loss, it is obvious that El Cielo are in a more lively mood than their heat.
The drums seem to have more presence and really boom down adding power and diversity, with the interesting changes and beats that use the toms to great effect. The guitarist shows flexibility, mixing beautiful eerie lead scales with intense chord riffs. With the clever and random changes in tempo and texture, they have an original twist to this popular ‘Nu-metal’ style.
Even though El Cielo experiment with their sound sometimes we still felt they could go up a few more gears and at times the vocal seemed mumbled and the sound didn’t quite have the ‘umph’ it could have. The songs for the most build brilliantly, adding emotion and energy but sometimes they seemed drawn out and the final killer punch seemed lacking.
In a few songs the bassist added lung-crumbling screams and when the frontman and the bassist interlocked their vocals patterns it really sounded great, but they could use this more to make their sound have more power.
El Cielo’s songs are creative, diverse and interesting. They mix emotions like Delia Smith mixes stew, with ease. You always get the feeling the only people who will ever be able to sing along and be able to predict and remember the song structures are the band, for better or for worse.
Next up The Starrlings take the stage in buoyant mood, as the walking basslines and simple, creative drumming lay down the foundations of the songs, it is evident that we are in for a good old-fashioned show of rock n roll. With the bass player and rhythm guitarist sharing lead vocal duty, they mix rough but powerful harmonies to create a nice variety of vocal sound. The keyboard and guitar solos add a new level of imagination, while really catchy powerful riffs give The Starrlings a ridiculously infectious sound. They know how to write beautiful melodies to create stupidly catchy indie/pop songs. Putting in a passionate performance and really working the crowd they make a strong impression. The whole atmosphere is upbeat, and the crowd really get into it. If we all knew how to do the funky-chicken, we’d be jiving like prime pieces of poultry. Fuck Trent FM, if you want to hear the best mix of music from the last 4 decades, go see The Starrlings.
Power, power, power and more power, oh look! Balance of Silence are here to kick your head in musically. The guitars burst in, flying between fast solos and huge, powerful riffs that, along with the tight and impressive drums create engulfing metal. The vocalist is so at ease with the audience and seems far too happy and polite for such head-stomping music, yet when he swaps from his tuneful, soft singing to his intense, gut-wrenching screams and growls, Balance Of Silence give a new meaning to the word angry. The bass hits you like a truck travelling at 100mph down a back alley. The drummer goes nuts, using has double bass pedal and super-quick fills to make you diaphragm rumble. He is so fast Roadrunner would miss him. It is obvious that they want to get to the final so badly and they play their songs with such passion, conviction and feeling that it’s scary. The music seems to flow out of them naturally and with great changes in mood, tempo and power, Balance Of Silence create an electric atmosphere.
So to finish tonight Trippin Over Wah take to the stage and after their enigmatic performance in Heat 2, we are looking forward to seeing how they do tonight. Their driving, dirty guitars have plenty of grit and with the simple yet catchy riffs, they create a fun and upbeat mix of 70’s and modern rock. The frontman is full of confidence and so he should be as Tripping over Wah seem to have an army of fans present. The songs rely on repetitive riffs and shouty, infectious vocal patterns but tonight they don’t quite seem to have the effect they did before. The backing vocals seemed to lack conviction and there were a few mistakes made. Their sound really relies on the songs flowing and in capturing the audience, sadly the first half of their set tonight didn’t do this and some songs got repetitive and seemed to lack variety. The whole occasion and the pressure of being on last seemed to have worn down Trippin over Wah and it took them a while to get going, but by the last song, ‘Tokyo Joe’ they were playing with more confidence and power and had the crowd worked up too. These guys are one of the youngest bands in Nottingham and certainly the youngest band in the Semi Finals and you have to credit them for the confidence and performance they put on. Their sound is fairly unique too and is played to a very high standard for such a young band, but tonight they weren’t as tight and together as they had shown in the past, but given more time and experience there is no doubt Trippin over Wah could develop into an outstanding band.
The 2 bands to go into The Junktion 7 Battle of the bands final from Semi Final 1 were….Balance of Silence and The Starrlings.
Writen By Steph + Gaz
