Live Review - Nicolas Cage Fighter, Stay Gold Brunswick 12/08/22.
I'd like to preface this review with an Acknowledgement of the First Nations peoples of the Kulin Nation. We observed and enjoyed this gig upon the lands sovereign to the Wurundjeri of the Kulin Nation, and for that I would like to offer my respects.
Now, as is tradition for me it seems, I'd like to open with more of an anecdotal/meta perspective on things prior to the meat of the gig review. It's relevant to the show and music, promise!*
*- promises not legally binding
Setting The Scene - NCF and Metallic Hardcore.
For myself, life has been fairly insane the past month or so. Having to simultaneously juggle housing, employment, moving and mental health issues has run my frontal lobe ragged and left me begging for any small crumb of serotonin or dopamine I can muster. Which doesn't seem like much.
A timely offering then, for Nicolas Cage Fighter to bring a slice of both thuggish bravado and candid honesty with their latest opus, The Bones That Grew From Pain. As much as of a life-affirming ode to resilience as it is a lens on the mental chaos inflicted by modern life and mental health concerns, it's no surprise these metallic hardcore up-and-comers are hitting huge strides in the scene.
As for the scene itself, I'm absolutely thrilled that we seemed to have done a circular loop past the overproduced, djenty, crisp metalcore of the 2010s, and are crawling back into a rust-riddled basement of caustic thrash and old-school hardcore. Indeed, 'metallic hardcore' seems to be a self-referential attempt to distance ourselves from the former sub-genre, as a statement.
Whatever. I'm not going to Fantano-beard. S'far as I'm concerned, there's music I like, and music I don't like. But, like the surge of interest in doom and sludge metal, there seems to be a counter-cultural pushback on quantised, clean and safe heavy music. People are aching for dirt. Organic, honest and direct musical statements and shows. And boy howdy, did all and sundry deliver that last night.
The Main Event
So, exhausted and filled with executive dysfunction that I wasn't sure if I'd even make the trip up, I steeled myself, took a breath and vowed to make the trip back up from the Bellarine Peninsula to Stay Gold. I also brought along a friend from the States to enculturate him into the ways of local 'core in the burgeoning scene.
I'm very glad I did.
Speaking of executive dysfunction (oops!), I have to give my apologies to openers Deadweight 80 who I missed by a bee's dick due to mix-ups with set times on the Events page. Always double-check, people! Punters, let me know how these guys went.
If their bandcamp is anything to go by, it sounds like a complete mia culpa and I dun' goofed on this one. Check them out, 'cause if their firebrand metal-hardcore multi-car pileup on disc is anything to go by, I'm sure I can safely assume they did a job of getting some nasty shit out there with high energy.
Atoning for my inattentive-type-ADHD sins (blame it on my ADD, bay-beeeh) I made damn sure to be ready for the next cab off the rank.
Less of a cab than a jury-rigged Mad Max/Borderlands Frankenstein of vehicular slaughter, Brisbanites Shokan brought a knuckle-dragging beatdown up the gutter and onto the sidewalk. Unlike the lines of staggering partygoers in the Valley, there weren't any safety rails here.
Spitting barks and prowling the stage, there were no apologies from frontman or band alike for the ferocity of tunes such as 'Rat Fucked'. Shoutouts alike were given to the local scene *and* the 'elitist cunts' who help drive the environmental conditions conducive to us all needing to blow off steam at a hardcore gig in the first place!
Phew. Yeah-nah-yeah-nah, here we go. The week/month/years' conglomeration of stressors was starting to melt away with that sweet, sweet catharsis.
Now, if Shokan was an act of vehicular manslaughter, someone commanded Howl's Moving Castle and fucking dive-bombed it onto the venue with Relapse. Wowser.
Taking the metal/hardcore dial and cranking it way to the left, these guys brought an absolutely blistering set. With a vocalist equally happy to jump in and two-step/mosh etc with the audience as he was to belt out a talented array of barks, rap-style scats (vocal scats, people) clean croons and Annotations of An Autopsy level pig-squeals, the jarring melee between djent-y, choppy metal and planet-sized breakdowns juxtaposed super nicely with some melodic interludes, solos and licks.
Much like the prior band and pertinent to this more street-ready metalcore lineup, I have to note it is just great to see drummers and bassists flailing away and dropping some sneaky fills between the floor-stompin'. Really added an extra texture and separates things nicely from your usual 4/4 brodown 2D 'core thugs.
By this point, I'm almost sad it's a school night and we couldn't drag more of these cavemen-with-serious-chops outta the various 'burbs in Melbourne.
There seems to be an unspoken writ law with Stay Gold to allow space for the whole two-step thing, but every bone in my crusty metalhead body was drawing me the front to at least throw down some headbangs for the openers. I had to get up the front, risk of copping Connies to the jaw from some pit-ninja or no. (Not yucking anyone's yum here, I just needed to get the neck moving!)
And finally, the main event for the evening. Rocking up and swinging wildly into it with not even a hint of prelude, Nicolas Cage Fighter immediately demonstrated how and why they're slowly but surely accumulating a tumbleweed of loyal punters at shows.
Forget the whole previous analogy of things crashing into things. The closest I can manage is when the Rebels ram a goddamn Star Destroyer into a Star Destroyer. The latter being our faces. Bringing the dirtiest, meatiest and grindiest gristle of the metalcore side of things to bop-heavy antics, this was just plain dirty, in the best way.
A coupla false starts on a certain setlist title and some self-deprecation was among plenty of the friendly banter dished out between tracks, but when that china tsh-tsh-tsh'ed and the palm mutes started, it was on like Donkey Kong.
Excising grisly but solid cuts off the new album and a couple of tracks (including an encore) from Cut You Out EP, the whole set was a direct, no-frills and blistering mix of thrash and old-guard hardcore. Edging on death metal but never quite dropping into that territory, this was a seriously girthy set.
Well done, NCF and crew. Ya nasty, and I love to see it.
