Review by Robert Moody

Pix by Carla Mundy

When there’s a queue of several hundred people outside Rock City at 5pm on a Monday evening, with the temperature only a couple of degrees above freezing, there must be something special going on. Sure enough, it was the triumphant return of Metalcore pioneers Asking Alexandria, who in a little over 2 years have gone from virtual unknowns to being one of the few UK bands who can fill Rock City with little to no radio airplay.

With Rock City only allowing about 10 minutes between the doors opening and the first band, With One Last Breath, taking to the stage, we did unfortunately miss the first couple of songs. What we did see though was a powerful performance of melodic metalcore, with lead vocalist Spencer Costello working the rapidly growing crowd into a frenzy with some powerful vocals, counterbalanced by the melodic vocals of guitarist Sam Graves. By the time they closed with “After The Suffering”, there is little doubt that this is not just a support band, – they are more than capable of headlining their own shows.

Next to the stage was Utah’s Chelsea Grin. This band have been touring relentlessly over the past couple of years and are playing their second full UK Tour in less than 3 months having travelled across with Miss May I last October. All the hard work is clearly paying off as they were greeted enthusiastically by the crowd, and it is clear that many people are in attendance just as much for this band as the acts to follow. Chelsea Grin fall firmly into the ‘Deathcore’ genre, there are no illusions about this music. Alex Koeheler’s vocals are nothing but growls and screams, the guitar work flips between technical riffs and open string breakdowns, and the drumming is mostly relentless throughout the set. Again, you’ll never hear this band on your average radio station, but this doesn’t mean there weren’t hundreds of dedicated fans of the band watching, chanting along, and participating in moshpits which make the UFC look like a picnic between friends – by the time they left the stage they had undoubtedly won over a few more fans.

After a short break we were then joined by Phoenix, Arizona’s Blessthefall. Having already played multiple headline tours of the UK in recent years, the band are now taking the opportunity to play to larger crowds in support of their recent release ‘Awakening’. Blessthefall sit much more towards the melodic end of the genre, with more uplifting melodies and singing generally prevailing over screaming in Beau Bokan’s vocals. The band worked their way through a set mixing well known older tracks like “Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad” with current singles such as “I’m Bad News, In The Best Way”. There is also ample time for the band to interact with their fans, and the band clearly enjoyed the reactions of those in attendance. Blessthefall have experienced a number of lineup changes in their years a band, but they seemed very comfortable on stage this evening, and looked well set to push on a band – expect to see these guys playing larger venues in a headline capacity in the near future.

So with the crowd (and the room) adequately warmed up, we were joined by York’s own, Asking Alexandria. Opening their set somewhat ironically with a song named “Closure”, the whole room launched into overdrive, with the majority of the crowd bouncing along and singing along to every word. Without doubt this band knows how to work a room, and vocalist Danny Warsnop has no hesitation in letting the crowd take over the vocals for him. An unusual feature of the set was the delivery of the songs – the group released a remix album last year featuring a number of Dubstep and Bass versions of their tracks, so these were quite often worked into the performances in the form of a Dubstep breakdown. For the most part the performances were of the original tracks, but the additional layers gave some of the tracks a different vibe from the bands who had preceded them. The set was not particularly long, but the amount of energy from both the band and the crowd meant that no-one felt short changed, and by the time Asking Alexandria closed out their encore with the dance beats of “The Final Episode” they had confirmed to everyone in attendance why they continue to grow so rapidly as a band. With major US Tours beckoning later this year, there’s no doubt that you’ll be hearing more from them.

And you can see all of Carla’s pix here: