Live & Dangerous: Wolfsbane, Obsessive Compulsive

Wolfsbane & Obsessive Compulsive (Clwb Ifor Bach Cardiff)

Obsessive Compulsive

Female fronted Obsessive Compulsive play a brand of spiky, politically motivated punk that is somewhere between System Of A Down and Hole. The band all were pretty good with vocalist Kelli having a rough and ready voice and guitarist Giz playing like Daron Malakian. The real star however is drummer Dani who seems a little out of place with his blast beat drumming and speedy runs. Overall they do well and would appeal too many but not to me I'm afraid I just found them a little too angsty and a bit lacklustre. 5/10

Wolfsbane

If there was a heavy metal newspaper in Cardiff then the headline would have read "Tamworth terrors return to tear Cardiff a new one!" because Blaze Bayley and his reunited Wolfsbane did just that. While in Blaze and his self-titled group he was one of the "serious po-faced metal bands" as he so eloquently put it however now he has returned with original members Jason Edwards (guitar), Jeff Hateley (bass) and Steve 'Danger' Ellet (drums) to as their new album suggests "Save The World." They have rediscovered something that was lacking in heavy metal music and brought it back to the masses that thing being 'fun' and this gig brought fun in spades. Bayley has the energy of a man half his age he bounds around the stage shouting and sounding better than he has in years, the rest of the band are excellent with Edwards solo's tearing faces and Hateley's bass coupled with Danger's drumming crushing skulls. Even the sound in Clwb was pretty good which is unusual; this was rip-roaring run-through of Wolfsbane classics and material from the new album. With standards such as Loco, Kathy Wilson, Black Lagoon and the turbo-charged Manhunt the gig was 1 and a half hours of feel good heavy metal that got the Howling Mad Shitheads into frenzy. Many have waited 16 years to see a Wolfsbane gig, as long as they had for Manowar. Still Wolfsbane managed to be better and louder than Manowar were. Top-fucking notch. 10/10