ninehertz

Another Dry Dead Girl Promotions gig and another night of aural thuggery. These guys always put their hearts into promoting a gig and it was good to see some of Plymouth's metal underworld in attendance tonight.

First up were Plymouth's own Rectal Haemorrhage. These guys may have been a bit quiet of late due to being spread to the four winds by Uni commitments and whatnot but the months of not playing together weren't apparent. 30 minutes and three songs (?) showed that the Rectal boys have lost none of their edge dealing out sub sonic, string flapping doom grind that rattles the old fillings! This may not have been a vintage Rectal performance by their own admission but by Christ it was still a fearsome enough performance to cause mass prolapsing amongst the weaker souls.

The last time Gonga came down they were minus a singer due to perforated eardrums, this time he didn't show due to drinking too much the night before...well bollocks to him, these guys don't need him. Taking their cue as much from Kyuss as Sabbath, Gonga's sludgey, psychedelic bluesy rifferama stuck a size ten right up the sphincter! Varied tempos and ball swinging grooves made up for the lack of vocals in spades, in fact I'd go as far as to say the music has more room to breathe without them.

Ramesses guitarist was unable to make it for this gig due to a wrist injury so his place was taken by George from Gonga. Who'd have known the difference? Unsurprisingly, featuring two thirds of the original Electric Wizard line-up, Ramesses plough a similar furrow with Adam Richardson's guttural growling taking things into harder metal territory. I have to say, this performance intrigued me more than the last time I saw them thanks to George's guitar playing that just seems to have more soul than Tim Bagshaw who he replaced for tonight. I do like Ramesses but a bit more sonic variety may have kept my interest for longer during their set as my attention started to wander.

Finally we were treated to 5ive's Continuum Research Project. I'd never heard these guys and was expecting a set of low end droning heavy assed noise...wrong! These guys, all two of them, came out and proceeded to rock out. They may only feature a guitarist and a drummer with no vocals but they turn out an almighty racket. Kyuss spring to mind amidst their rumbling wall of groove with fat assed riffing kicking it with the rolling drums. Again though, as with Ramesses set, I found the old attention roaming a bit. Maybe I'm an old fashioned kind of guy and would have liked to hear some vocals giving things more definition. While the lack of vocals worked in Gonga's favour it would have lifted things a little here.

At the end of the day it was damn good to see some proper rock at the Phoenix. 4 bands and having had myself a new asshole ripped I left the Phoenix drunk and happy!