The Architects

The room is only half full when A Textbook Tragedy take to the stage. It’s their first time in the UK, but their brutal metalcore is received enthusiastically. Action-packed and heavily rhythmic, they’re exciting to watch, but lack the melodic interludes that usually bring metalcore to life.

Technical difficulties aside, Misery Signals deliver a good set. Butch riffs, gruff yelling and their violent stage presence are nicely contrasted with occasional background shimmers or melodic breaks.

The only problem with these two support bands is that they are rather generic. Nothing wrong with that: if you know what you like, and you like what you know, genre classifications can be useful. But the bands that succeed are those that create a new sound, something indefinable in the known musical vocabulary, requiring new genre-terms to be coined. Architects do just that.

This is technical, complex hardcore, fused with grinding, blistering metal, with sporadic twiddling guitar layers, mellow parts, and clean singing. Time signatures change flawlessly, the band are unbelievably tight. Explosions of sound at the beginning of the heavier sections hit the body full on, whereas other breaks are darkly ambient.

Vocalist Sam Carter’s shouting is almost languid, as he swipes his blonde fringe out of his eyes and leans out into the crowd. The rest of the band headbang into oblivion, making it all look so easy. The merchandise table meanwhile is doing a roaring trade in t-shirts with a stylised blue whale motif. A fitting choice of animal: powerful, mighty and mysterious, with bursts of eerie song.

Classics like ‘Always’ and even material from the debut album get an airing, but tonight is predominantly about the new album, Hollow Crown. It seems to be in the same vein as 2007’s Ruin, but improved and perhaps a tad more metal. Latest single ‘Early Grave’ is an absolute belter, stirring up ridiculous excitement for the album’s release on the 26th. Touring on an as-yet-unreleased album is always a risky business. The law-abiding (or campus-bound) fans haven’t heard the majority of these new tracks, so enthusiasm is naturally limited.

The Brighton boys are technically brilliant, give it everything and deserve credit. Maybe it’s because of this unknown material, maybe it’s because of the 10.30 curfew, or because the venue is so small that only one person can “windmill mosh” at a time, but for some reason, unfortunately, tragically, this gig just never seems to get off the ground.