Live Review: Born Of Osiris, Chelsea Grin, Diamond Construct, The Gloom In The Corner

The Gloom In The Corner open up this illustrious heavy line-up. The young Melbourne five-piece smash out their conceptual melodic metalcore with the exuberance that comes from playing a big show with a couple of high profile international headliners, and they seem genuinely grateful to be here. Their drum-heavy sound is paired with a typical but skilfully executed dirty/clean vocal trade-off from Mickey Arthur and their stage show is defined by its energy.

The Gloom In The Corner @ Corner Hotel. Photo by Clinton Hatfield.

The main Aussie support for this huge tour is Diamond Construct, a screaming metalcore four-piece from Taree on the NSW north coast. They only have one guitarist, Braden Groundwater, who laces out some pretty spectacular, wailing riffs and licks. He really does have something unique to say with his instrument, which is fairly rare in this genre. Aside from this, the drums from Adam Kilpatrick are strong, Alex Ford's bass locks in tighter than a clenched fist and the versatile vocals of Kynan Groundwater change up from howling dirty to sweet clean and back again on a ten-cent piece.

Diamond Construct @ Corner Hotel. Photo by Clinton Hatfield.

Time for the wily international veterans. It’s great to see bands like Chelsea Grin and Born Of Osiris in a live setting. On record, these bands have such flawless, sculpted, studio-enhanced sounds; it is airbrushed perfection. Live, however, you get the rawness, the primal, unbridled, imperfect power of it all. It is magical.

Twelve-year vets Chelsea Grin are on fire tonight, the highlight being the vocal trade-off and interplay between the insane, black metal-inspired screech of their diminutive powerhouse of a frontman, Tom Barber, and the death-metal roars and occasional cleans of drummer Pablo Viveros, who handles both roles with aplomb. Another highlight is a blistering rendition of their best cut, the symphonic, drama-filled Lilith.

Chelsea Grin @ Corner Hotel. Photo by Clinton Hatfield.

Born Of Osiris have been around even longer, and their encore-free, sub-hour-long set doesn’t quite do justice to their illustrious back catalogue (particularly conspicuous in its absence in the awesome Singularity). Nevertheless, we still get a tasty earful of many of their other classics – the bombastic, orchestral The Other Half Of Me, the aptly titled Machine, Empires Erased and many more. We also get their stratospheric musicianship and their signature duelling frontmen, Ronnie Canizaro and Joe Buras, replete with the scintillating vocal dynamics and contrast that provides. Both lead vocalists are in very fine fettle this night.

The almost sold-out crowd goes home nicely satisfied with their evening of savage but melodic and progressive deathcore tonight.

Born Of Osiris @ Corner Hotel. Photo by Clinton Hatfield.