9

Heading Down the King's Highway

Scorpion Child were one of two headliners on this Lord Of The Riffs tour alongside Monster Truck, with the two alternating between who performs last each night. As the tour rolled into London and Camden's Underworld it was Scorpion Child who were set to come on first and they delivered an excellently catchy, at times mesmerising performance. It was great to see the venue completely sold out for this tour and throughout Scorpion Child in particular it felt absolutely heaving. It is fair to comment that a lot of the people in the venue were there to catch Scorpion Child and they were not left disappointed.

The band drove through a host of tracks off of last year's self titled debut release, and despite some very recent line up changes within Scorpion Child, they sounded brilliantly tight. A lot of this was down to the absolutely stunning performance from new drummer Jon Rice, formerly of Job For A Cowboy, as his highly technical yet pounding delivery behind the kit was the real driving force. The band have also recently dropped from being a five piece to four, as Christopher Cowart now pulls double duty in taking up rhythm guitar alongside lead. Again, nothing is lost in the performance at all tonight, as he has clearly taken to this task very well, his solo work of course still being the key strength getting the biggest cheers and response from the crowd. The influences taken from the likes of Led Zeppelin (especially vocally) and Deep Purple are more than clear, but especially in the live arena, this band are able to pull in a Metal element to it all, obviously helped by Rice's thundering performance. It had a bluesy feel, but my word was it heavy at times.

Much like Monster Truck who came on after Scorpion Child tonight, the scope for the band is huge. There will definitely be bigger shows in the future, and it is more than advisable to check them out when it happens.