Noise annoys
Alesana are a six piece post hardcore band from North Carolina and today they get the unenviable task of trying to enthuse a hungover crowd at midday on stage 2.
The band certainly do their best and are on the ball straight from the off with plenty of bouncing and singer Dennis Lee working the crowd well. They get a small turnout by the standards of the weekend but don’t let this put them off. The music is as you’d expect, pretty full on and thumping but like many other bands with early slots the sound isn’t great and when you couple this with the indecipherable gravel vocals of Lee the impression isn’t that favourable.
The only break in the wall of sound is the odd brief melodic interlude and some decent backing harmonies from the guitarists but this is soon blown away by another barrage of hardcore. It probably doesn’t help that they have 3 guitarists, it all just adds to the general mess. They get no visible movement from the crowd and although those at the front give them a decent reaction there’s precious little acknowledgement further back.
The set contains songs like ‘This Conversation is Over‘, ‘Tilting the Hourglass’ and ‘Apology’ but the sad fact is that when a spitfire does a flypast during their set, it’s the highlight. They do have some promising moments but today at least the overall impression is that they are lacking in variety and without decent sound they just come over as an indecipherable mess.