Download Review: Killswitch Engage, 36 Crazyfists, Devil Sold His Soul

It’s Friday at Download and we’re in a big field watching heavy fucking metal! Get tickets for 36 Crazyfists’ co-headline tour with Devildriver!

36 Crazyfists
There is a hubbub of anticipation for 36 Crazyfists, not least from this Hammer writer and assembled entourage, who all count the Alaskan crew amongst their favourite contemporary bands. 36 are a band who have only ever turned in better and better albums and whose live show grows in intensity and power as the years unfurl in front of them. In a day and age of gimmick and fashion the timeless metal band have grown the old fashioned way, and while they may not be playing Brixton after their debut like many more mainstream bands, their grass roots is immovable.

Appearing on stage the cheer spreads through the sprawl of the 60,000 odd faces. And with only 40 minutes to impress they waste no time and frenetically launch into their set. The sound starts off appallingly and portions of frontman Brock’s vocals are lost to the winds as they baffle in and out. There are also clearly sound problems unrelated to the weather and the sound seems muffled. We move back to one of the massive speaker stacks out in the field and the problem is all but solved (the band told Hammer later that the sound of stage was also far from perfect, with monitor issue and the like). Three songs in and the dogged determination and sheer size of the songs distracts us from sound problems and ‘Go Until My Heart Stops’ is delivered as the behemoth it is. The band then welcome onto stage their friend and frontman of Killswitc Engage, Howard Jones, to the stage. A massive cheer goes up and the shy frontman joins 36 in a perfect rendition of ‘Aurora’, the track from ‘Rest Inside The Flames’ he guests on.

The growing crowd all put their fists in the air on demand and the band consecutively bounce and pound through ‘Bloodwork’ and ‘Slit Wrist Theory’ and from the front to the back – some 600 metres away – groups of friends and individuals all sing along to the now classic metal anthems. 36 Crazyfists like Macine Head before them are no-nonsense metal band whose day will come not because of haircuts or pretty boys, but because of undeniable excellence in heavy fucking metal: a world beating live show (despite the odds) and some of the best music in the game.

Come and have a gander at some of the hottest chicks in metal, the rock hotties at Download 2010

Killswitch Engage
At times Killswitch Engage feel like the band who would be kings. In 2003 when End Of Heartache exploded into the scene we thought we had our new Metallica. As Daylight Dies and self-titled, while great records, weren’t the zeitgeist defining tomes nor the fan-solidifiers the band needed. The best part of a decade on, the swelling crowd in front of main stage prove that the critics should keep their tongues in their heads and simply watch as one of the biggest, best and most loved bands to emerge in the last ten years play to tens of thousands of people who know all the words to their songs and need no goading to dance, cheer or throw their fists in the air.

Howard Jones announces through the cheer as they emerge, ‘I’m back!’ and the crowd double their cheer. Yes you are. The last Taste Of Chaos tour saw a beaming Howard finally become the frontman we knew he could be: a presence akin to that of a descending god. Again today the be-shirted frontman prowls the stage like a man lion, surveying his territory – he sees that it is good. He is well pleased.
Maligned tracks like ‘Start Over’ from their most recent release feel huge and deserving alongside the gargantuan metal anthems of ‘When Darkness Falls’ and ‘Rose Of Sharyn’.

Adam D and his wacky shenanigans are a bizarre and often incongruous staple of the KsE stage show. Dressed in a superman cape, shorts and with a ribbon round his neck he screams, ‘I will shit in all of your mouths’ before again launching into an anthemic aural attack. But KsE really aren’t just a duo, Joel and Mike D do guitar tricks and drummer Justin hammer away tirelessly behind the riser.

With unprecedented poignance the nail their rendition of Dio’s classic ‘Holy Diver’ the human sea erupt at what could well become the performance of the festival. Don’t think that KsE are done, become that whirlwind is brewing, and when they make landfall we’re in for a perfect storm.

Devil Sold His Soul
It’s the yellow tent. Oh shit it’s not! It’s the fecking blue tent. Oh shit that’s miles away through 97,000 people waiting to watch that Australian band. Who’s that in the blue tent? Job For A Cowboy? Shit, it WAS the yellow tent! Shiiit.

This takes thirty seconds to say, but it took 20 minutes to do and by the time we finally made it back to the blue tent, sorry the yellow tent, Devil Sold His Soul are into the final furlong of their set. Luckily with DSHS the emphasis is on ‘long’ (and not fur?).

DSHS seemed to disappear two years ago after a concerted effort to break the British underground with their progressive metal dovetailed into post hardcore. And maybe they did. But they’re back with the surprise hit of the summer – an album akin to the result of the tutelage of Luke Skywalker.

And so here they are, bouncing into the lasts tracks of their Donington headline set. The wall of sound if both intense and dense, with all wavelengths covered from the thundering lows to the screaming highs; the sound is also spacious and lush. Tempos switch from lumbering elephantine dirge to blackened blasts, the music changing the colour, contrast and tone like someone with the TV controls.

There may only be 400 people in the tent but the most people are getting ready to watch the greatest rock’n’roll band in history says a lot for the band; and they recognise it as they finish, the singer profusely thanking the crowd.

The force is strong with Devil Sold His Soul, and while their music has just found its feet their live show is clearly already in the can.

Don’t forget to check out Beez’s reviews of A Day To Remember and Unearth

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