9

Warchild Make Quite An Impression at the Darwin Stage

Heading up the Darwin Suite stage before Friday night headliners Conquest of Steel, Warchild were clearly able to draw quite an audience with their power metal inspired stylings, luckily for them they made the most of this and put in a high quality, if forgettable set.

Musically, this being the battle metal night of Bloodstock, Warchild obviously played the usual blend of traditional metal stylings with more modern power metal touches. Whilst in description this could come off as bland or proving that there is nothing to set them apart from the other bands of the night perhaps, it is not so in reality as Warchild's music has those little touches that retain interest throughout with the particular highlight of their set being the drum-heavy 'Nothing to Share'. Also the guitar solos were particularly notable, whilst they are often an overplayed element in this style of music, they retained enough original touches and hooks in the live environment to engage interest. Unfortunately however, the vocals on display did not manage to meet this standard and in my opinion I felt that they fell flat and rather weak on stage.

The audience were responsive and the room was packed to the brim with eager power metal fans awaiting their Warchild fix, many horns were thrown and many heads were banged. Warchild put on an eager and impressive show and even though at times I felt the music itself was nothing out of this world, the show aspect itself was enough to keep me entertained.

Overall this was an enjoyable set and I can't say I ever found myself bored by Warchild, it's just simply not the sort of set I will be rabidly telling others about in however many months time.