Ears Under Fire!
Hearts Under Fire are a rarity this weekend as an all female band in the Rocksound Cave. Hailing from Woking they get an early slot on the traditionally under populated Friday at Guilfest but still manage to get a half decent turn out.
Unfortunately the sound is awful in the first song and doesn’t get much better throughout their set, the vocals are barely audible and the guitars and drums sound like they’re not even going through the p.a! It’s a confident performance however and they do their brand of melodic punk well, sure it’s a bit messy in places and when the vocals do come through they sound a little weak but they’re not bad at all.
Lead guitarist Steph certainly looks like she knows what she’s doing but alas the guitars are just way too quiet to hear. The longer they play the more it becomes evident that they have some good songs with well worked structures but there’s no escaping the horrendous sound; far from getting better it seems to get worse with nothing but the bass and singer Sian’s guitar coming through. They add a little keyboards later on in the set but again they are barely audible.
They save the best song until last and show definite promise and it would be interesting to see them in a proper venue with proper sound. To their credit they put on a good performance and they go down well but they are let down badly by appalling sound. Checking out their myspace site later on to hear how they should’ve sounded I’m disappointed that they got such a raw deal. Well worth checking out when they have a sound guy that knows how to mix!