TCTC and Chimaira: delight on different sides of town

Pick and mix, it is good when you can do it and when it works out. No, we don’t mean - biology… The gig scene has finally gotten under the full-sail following the Chrimbo lull and alongside the annual NME Awards shows/tour, there are individual dates to choose from. Tonight, my bunny Harvey, we pick one support and mix it with another headliner.

The Cooper Temple Clause
Brixton Academy, Loco

Although reportedly busy recording their third album, The Cooper Temple Clause, the finest Reading outfit, turn up and play with exultation and gratification. They start the 45-minute set in a pensive, slowish mode and steadily build to an explosion of energy, complex passages, instrumental jams! Rocking and moody, dark and erupting, psyche and, at times as pastoral as a cinematic melodrama (circa the 1940s)…

For most part songs are performed motionlessly; TCTC do not care much for the physical - tonight are restricted visually as well - aspect of it and let the music do all the boasting with solid off-beat drumming, playful keys, effects to match and vocals that guide to another subliminal divergence. This lot are creating their own sonic vistas and, in the process, ain‘t getting as much recognition as their deserve.

TCTC’s best known songs, such as ‘Music Box’, cause a near nirvana among the fans who dig this act for their pushing forward into a soundland without limitations. ‘New Toys’ is announced as their next single that takes a slowish, melodic intro before developing into a huge, rocktastic and, ultimately, epic track.

The Cooper boys were only supporting the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who, despite all the media championing, are still failing to become U2-size popular in earnest. We suspect it’s got something to do with music…
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Chimaira
Mean Fiddler, Loco

Some five miles up the road, in a downtown club, Chimaira are headlining a show that is shaking the foundation harder than the last time, on RoadRage II visit few months back. The reason is they have a new drummer - since that first presentation of ‘The Impossibility Of Reason’ album - who is giving them an altered kinda backbeat. And, the recently installed sticksman, Richard Evansend, took 12 days [!?] to learn the band’s entire catalogue, we are informed.

Not surprising because Evansend is - some mighty skins-mutha who appears to ideally fit the band: clean, precise and economical playing, a powerhouse without any apparent hard hitting. Even when he is introduced to us via a drum-solo, it is not showy and overwhelming but a showcase for his skills that stretch from the lightest touch - cymbals played by drumsticks with finesse of brushes before a legwork-only routine that was simply at a supersonic speed and damn intricate. Well, the band being Metallica fans, they have found their own Lars Ulrich - and we mean it is a large compliment!

Evansend‘s thunderous pounding doesn’t overshadow music that is, although as loud as the late Concorde’s landing, adorned with melodious guitarwork by Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries that would make Ritchie Blackmore stand and take notice even in his proudest Purple days. [Or, Kirk Hammett - okay, Rob?] Songs from the currently revived album’s bonus CD are represented by the opening track, ‘Indifferent To Suffering.’

There was, of course, ‘Parting of the fans‘ by ‘Metal Moses’: singer Mark Hunter asks fans to maintain a gap until he gives the sign for the ‘wall of death’; man, what a clash! Slam, bang, karboom! Just like the show - it sounds huge, one imagines, similarly to a closing of a doomsday book by the Creator.

Chimaira is a band that has a map to the HM future.
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Tour dates (remaining):

07 February - Academy 2, Birmingham
08 February - Hop & Grape, Manchester
09 February - Rock City, Nottingham
10 February - King Tuts, Glasgow
11 February - Corporation, Sheffield
12 February - Joseph Wells, Leeds
13 February - Soundhaus, Colchester
14 February - University, Liverpool
15 February - Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin
16 February - Limelight, Belfast
17 February - Northumbria University, Newcastle
18 February - Venue, Edinburgh
19 February - Soundhaus, Northampton