Metal Night At The Green Rooms, The Green Rooms Treforest
The Green Rooms – a tiny rehearsal space hidden away in Treforest industrial estate, dedicated to the promotion of small bands and artists – is reopen and under the new management of, friends of Musipedia Of Metal, Incursion! So what better excuse for a metal night, as one of the first gigs to kick-start the new era! The three bands on tonight draw a small yet dedicated audience. Nearly everyone is a regular to the exciting live music scene in South Wales!
Sepulchre (7) kick off proceedings. The room is still sparse for audience members at this point and the evening is still early, yet the band has a plan to get us hyped! ‘’You lot could do with a sugar rush’’ asserts singer/guitarist Darren as he chucks ‘round sugary sweets. While the image of grown adults stood around listening to metal while chomping on blue-tongue painter’s sweets may have appeared comical to anyone just walking in, the humour of the situation does not detract from the music. Here is some aggressive Slayer-esque thrash, low on the tuning yet high on the intensity! Tinged with hardcore punk, vocals are shouted against frantic riffs and beats, before solos ridden with screechy distortion powerfully cut through the air. Admittedly, I was taken aback at first, yet whether it was the sugar or the metal, the opening band soon had me and a few more moshing!
Beneath The Divine (9) is next in line to impress. By now the room has filled out a little more and its dark outside. Certainly, this calls for some on stage aesthetics. The Green Rooms has been decked out with some nice lighting effects since last time I was here, making for a nice touch. An overzealous smoke machine, while being in keeping with the dark and mysterious sound of the second band, becomes something of a problem as the smoke quickly begins to become a domineering presence in the tiny performance room. Again though, nothing is going to stop anyone enjoying the music! We are presented with a doomier, bluesier, more melodic type of rock, imbued with commanding choruses’ and hooks, yet also excellently utilizing suspense and tension to its advantage. Some of the best moments come in the guitar soloing where the music takes on a distinctly classic rock feel! For the half an hour they have to play, they certainly make an impression!
Finally, Hyperion (7) takes the stage. Contrasting melody and aggression, and slow introspection with visceral grooving, theirs’ is certainly a more unique and complex take on the traditional metal. At times, it seems like the sound systems can’t keep up with the ambitious singing exchanges between members with a large amount of the vocals also lost on the sonic greatness: a point conceded by the musicians themselves when they joke’ ’we aren’t usually this bad’’. We don’t think they are bad at all, their phenomenal playing and strong onstage – or in a lot of cases, offstage – presence, firmly making up for any small production discrepancies I happen to have as a writer. Audience members are happy to lend their support as well, as the room reaches the most energetic it has seemed all night a fun and loud way to signal the re-opening of the Green Rooms!
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