Andrew Danso

“It’s a learning experience,” I say to a fellow Chariot fan, as he asks, how I’m getting on with the gig. Hardcore metal is literally lots of rapid, angular body movement to the sounds of disjointed rock rhythm. Well, that’s a very detached view, but perhaps this is the best you’ll get with an analysis. Anyway, there was a lot of buzz circulating around The Limelight for The Chariot, and it’s probably because of the sheer spectacle on stage. As the first track rumbled on, it’s a much more cathartic experience than you might think. Turn everything up, bang a few chords together, shout as loud as you can, run around a lot, dress in a middle class fashion, belch Christian lyrics, throw stuff into the crowd, occasionally spit, throw a guitar three hundred and sixty degrees around the body, remember to breathe. That’s how it goes, with greater pauses in between the tunes later on throughout the set, no doubt, due to fitness levels, and the release of testosterone. A little like an exorcism of sorts.


But there’s no telling what was actually being listened too, as this was metal apparently alight on impulse. Describing the sonic assault is twofold; it’s either Dillinger Escape Plan or Car Bomb, and The Chariot’s endless activity on-stage puts them into the same boat.

No doubt, punk and its influence has changed. No longer are you meant to be an anarchist, or post-apocalyptic maniac. Instead, these Georgians represent a kind of stuffed shirt personality, of the norm, like-everybody-else, droning on throughout the day, and wanting to explode whenever something ticks them off.

Yet the show was certainly not unhinged. If you could mute what was coming out of the PA, and simply watch the band jump around, there are patterns everywhere in their frenetic choreography, which makes it all much more populist than their fellow punters would like to imagine. Who else employs dancers for a dazzling effect to go along with their music? Quite a few pop artists, I’d imagine, and pop comparisons certainly dent the hardcore image. Though they captured the spur of the moment reasonably well, this hyper-stylised punk, is still learning about what it wants to do with itself. We’re either in the infancy stages of hardcore metal or at its tail end, but whatever that may be, less is more effective, and these guys plundered on for well over an hour.

6/10 Powerplay issue #143