Words – Richard Grimm
Photos – Mitch
What a show, what an absolute banger of a show! Possibly the best show I’ve ever seen. Last night I had the good fortune of being able to see Japan’s Crossfaith accompanied by Paledusk and Future Static at the Croxton and let me tell you, I was blown away. I came into this show being familiar with two Crossfaith songs total and I was excited to see these acts in the best way to encounter someone new: live.
Future Static were the first to jump on stage, walking out to some RNB. Which, if I’m being honest, I didn’t like. No hate to RNB but it’s just not something that I have much of a connection with, and if I did, I’d write for everydayrnb.com. Immediately rubbed the wrong way, I was primed to hate everything the Melbourne quintet did, but boy would they turn that opinion around in a hurry.
They walked out and blasted into their first track Chemical Lobotomy. A high energy track that gives off real 2004 era Victory records vibes while still managing to feel new. Like a heavier version of Paramore, frontwoman Amariah Cook engaged the crowd with a very playful, jovial and downright friendly stage demeanor. For a moment I was lulled into thinking I was about to suffer through a set of emo revival tunes only to be blindsided by some proper heavy breaks and Amariah’s false chord screams reminding me of Bethlehem’s Yvonne Wilczynska. The highlight song in the set for me was their cover of Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina. The group clearly has a lot of hiphop/rnb music influence in their writing which I find often feels gimmicky when mixed with metal due to the huge cultural differences between the genres. But their arrangement of this cover really felt like a synthesis of the genres common ground which made for a standout in the set. Their drummer Jackson Trudel’s playing was tighter than my jeans were in high school and both Ryan Qualizza and Jack Smith played some interesting octave style riffs. I couldn’t quite make out if they were doing jumps on the fretboard or using an octave pedal but either way it sounded cool. Future Static is a young group with a lot of talent and worth checking out if you’re a fan of more modern metalcore sounds and open to a touch of genre mixing. I can definitely see them find footing in the future as a gateway band for converting pop fans over to the dark side and for that they have my support.
Okay so the next band is Paledusk and fuck me, if you haven’t seen Paledusk do it. I’d never heard the name Paledusk before entering the building but they are now on my “must see every time they’re in town” list. These guys walked out to the opening of Lose Yourself by Eminem but as they entered the stage, it turned out to be a sample as part of their own arrangement intro which I found to be novel. The Japanese beasts exploded with their first song Area PD and won me over faster than a coal industry lobbyist wins over a politician. It was heavy, frantic and chaotic as fuck with a big dose of zero fucks given attitude. Tempo and groove changes happening so often it felt like I was in a tumble dryer made of riffs. The musical energy was matched by their stage presence with every member of the band barely staying attached to the ground. For the duration of the set, lead guitarist Daisuke Ehara in particular was doing aerial kicks constantly without missing a single note. Which was amazing, because the high tempo djenting was technical enough to leave a lesser guitarist rendered immobile just to keep time.
There are so many elements of the Paledusk experience that you could consider to be the “appealing” element but I’ll list what really grabbed me. Firstly, their genre melting was way more in depth than other contemporary acts. Their music wasn’t just metal(core) with a touch of other genres to be weird and quirky. Every song had deep and intricate influences from hyper pop, rap, hip hop, breakbeat, house, drum n bass to ravecore and likely a hundred other things I didn’t detect. But none of these influences overstayed their welcome or felt gimmicky which I find to the biggest problem with many other bands that try the same thing. Second, their crowd engagement is unmatched. They aren’t just physically embodying the chaos of their music; they’re pulling that chaos out of the crowd. Encouraging people to let loose and setting a leading example of loose letting. I checked out their records after the show to see how they compare and it’s not even close. Their records are good but their live show really is something else. Paledusk are a must see live group and I highly doubt it’s going to be long before they start selling out stadiums and I wouldn’t be surprised if festival headlines are in their future too.
Finally it was time for Crossfaith, the only group of the night I was even slightly familiar with. Crossfaith is definitely a band that tries to deliver more than just a performance, but an experience. 20 minutes prior to their performance, during the changeover, they played some electronic music over the speakers with a computer-generated voice announcing every few minutes how soon until the show. I’m a big fan of this more holistic and immersive approach to performance and I hope more bands take a page out of this book. The lights finally drop and the voice announces the show will begin. Terufumi Tamano struts onto the stage and is an absolute hype beast! He mobilizes the crowd and harvests the energy the previous bands cultivated. As the music ramps up the rest of the band enters and it’s absolutely on. Crossfaith’s signature blend of electronica and metalcore are a real sight to behold with a lightshow pain-stakingly synced to every beat and note of the performance there wasn’t a moment in the set that wasn’t punctuated with a visual display that amplified the experience. The evening is filled with moments of dramatic poses, backlit by red glows and blinding strobes.
Right from the get go we’ve got crowd surfing and circle pit calls and singer Kenta Koie can barely be kept behind the stage barrier while he gives the front row a show to remember. One song later Terufumi is crowd surfing while screaming his heart out! The next we’ve got a wall of death where I spied a guy where a shirt that said “free mosh hugs” who naturally I embraced for a wall of hugs (shout out to that guy). My absolute favourite song from their set was Gimme Danger which was impossible not to get in the pit for. Its hard groove and forward pulse was equal parts club banger and fresh metal riffs. The crowd couldn’t decide if they wanted to mosh or muzz. One of the songs that I unfortunately didn’t catch the name of had a kind of latin influenced groove and the band called for the crowd to get their tarps off. Suddenly only half the room was wearing shirts, gender inclusive, and swinging them over head and if that isn’t a goddman party move I don’t know what is. The only fault I found with the performance was the use of the overdone trope of a planned encore. We know you’re coming back our, there’s 20 mins left of your allotted set time, that time side stage could have been another song. But when they returned, we were treated to a bang up performance of their prodigy cover Omen. Crossfaith ask the question “What if electronica was heavy and what if you could dance to metal” or alternatively “what if all of the MDMA I have ever taken was haunted” and then deliver that answer in an incredibly polished package.
I came out of this show sweating like a motherfucker with a fat lip and ear-to-ear grin. I absolutely can not wait to see all three of these bands again and you should 100% go out of your way to see them live because their records are like a fart in the wind compared to what they deliver live.
Thanks to the Croxton Bandroom crew for having us and a special thanks to Dallas Does PR for arranging access.
EVERYDAY METAL – SUPPORT LOCAL HEAVY METAL
