Live Review: Paledusk – The Star & Garter, Manchester
4th July 2023
Support: Where Oceans Burn, Love Is Noise
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price Photography
Sandwiched between UK Tech Fest and 2000 Trees Festivals – and some shows with Born of Osiris – tonight marks the first of three headline shows for Japanese Metalcore mob, Paledusk. Shows in Glasgow and Leeds will follow this week, but it all starts at Manchester’s Star & Garter, a venue I have been to criminally few times.
Support on these dates comes from Manchester three-piece Love is Noise; and tonight we also have the equally Mancunian, Where Oceans Burn, who’re getting themselves readied for Radar in a few weeks’ time. In a fitting opening to the evening, trying to pin down the genre the band operate in is a damn-near impossibility. From the opening sludgy heaviness to the use of broad symphonic elements, this four-piece are just the kind of band you want to kick off a show. Dysmorphia ups the vastness and props to the lone two-stepper who’s trying to get an interaction halfway up the room.
The three musicians of the cohort, Ben, Ross and Calum, seem to have some sort of psychic understanding as pin-point precise hits rock you back (I would say in your seat, but it’s all standing). Vocalist Alex calls for movement from the early Manchester crowd as infectious grooves compete with heightened musical aggression. He even introduces a new song as being “a heavy one” and he’s not joking; Euphoria is another newbie, this time more anthemic and imbued with a hint of the emotional. One moment they are plucking heart-strings and the next they’re ripping it clean out of your chest; all the while inspiring you to contemplate the nature of the mid-song breakdown. I shall definitely be checking them out down at the Victoria Warehouse at the end of the month.
It's an audacious move to use The Beatles’ Yesterday as an intro-tape – especially in Manchester – but Love Is Noise is a band that appears to revel in the defying of convention. Theirs is a sound that sees emotionally charged vocals and cosmically resonating keys competing with chunky riffs and a bass tone that threatens to destabilise the tracks across the way at Piccadilly Station. Probably the most cerebral of the bands tonight, Love Is Noise produce a plethora of ‘Post’ vibes, whether that be Rock, Punk or Grunge, the band’s modern progressive style encompasses them. To my unskilled ear, there’s even a hint of the Muse rearing its head from time to time.
Songs about the end of the world vie with the emotionally wrought Nothing and the love song, Euphoria Where Are You? And it all feels simply too big to be contained within a venue this size. There’s the Alt Rock feel of Anathema, c. A Fine Day to Exit, at times as, like the bands either side of them on this bill, Love Is Noise defy accurate definition.
Paledusk are a long way from home and are at show twenty-five of twenty-eight in thirty-three days. You wouldn’t know it though as, from the outset, the four lads take to the stage to blaring sirens and Eminem’s Lose Yourself. From the opening of Area PD, Paledusk is an unstoppable mass of unbridled energy and their enthusiasm is swiftly imbibed by the impressively sized attendance.
I would say the band serve up a slick dose of progressive metalcore, which they undoubtedly do, but that would be like trying to synopsise 2001: A Space Odyssey by saying it’s a film about some monkeys and space and stuff. Paledusk’s sound is built on the shifting sands of that modern metal, alongside Urban rhythms, R&B and J-Pop; there’s even some Latin Jazz going on. Slay!! has a definite punk undercurrent as the crowd is beckoned forward and there’s a blatant disregard for the hearing of all involved.
A surprisingly large number of people join in on Happy Talk and the sheer chaos, reminiscent of early Slipknot shows, sees a crowd surfer chancing his luck. The band themselves are clearly pumped by the reaction they are getting, with the kind of roundhouse kicks rarely seen by a guitar player on a stage this size.
The oddly titled I’m Ready to Die for My Friends gets a singalong as newer songs Q2 and Lights bring the short show to an end. The band return for a single encore of Toppa and then it’s done. Paledusk are certainly giving it a shot and have an immensely fun and entertaining time on the stage to offer. Hopefully, they’ll be back soon as they’re well worth some attention.
All photo credits: Rich Price Photography
