Never Take Them Down
UK rock/metal outfit Beholder get the unenviable task of opening the smallest stage (housed in a pub) on Saturday morning, which largely means playing to a crowd of people suffering from the previous night’s excesses and not necessarily responsive to having their ears pummelled by metal! They give out 200 copies of their new EP (dedicated to the memory of Sophie Lancaster) and it’s all good PR.
Early on the sound is pretty bad but improves before long to reveal big, fat chugging riffs backed with a lot of hair! Considering the hour of the day it’s a good performance but not surprisingly it takes the crowd quite a while to wake up. Songs like ‘Holy Hell’ and ‘Edge of Insanity’ revive the spirit of the early 80s NWOBHM and really that’s what Beholder do; they deliver good old British metal and do it with a passion. ‘Born Into Pain’ finally gets a few heads nodding and it’s turning into a job well done for Beholder.
The only downside really is that there isn’t a great deal of variety and some of the solos don’t really seem to fit the tunes, sounding a little as if they’re just tacked on. That aside for the first band on it’s not a bad way to start the day.