Live Review: Deadyet?, Cold Hearts, Seismic Toss, Uncle Buck

Strap on your teeth-kickin’ boots, it’s time for a Brissy hardcore showcase.

Uncle Buck (‘Uncle Back’ if you’re going off the signs) waste no time in seizing total control of the stage and crowd alike. By the end of the first song, vocalist Wade Felsch has the entire crowd wrapped around his finger, manoeuvring at his direction like a puppet-master. Musically these guys go a million miles an hour with a distinct Aussie flavour — think Slayer meets Municipal Waste meets your local Bunnings sausage-sizzle organiser. The four-piece plough through the set at incredible speed yet don’t sacrifice true musicianship in the process, maintaining a steady groove throughout. It’s not often one finds an outfit that can hit this kind of pace and maintain such precision in the process. It will be quite the surprise if these guys aren’t supporting some big names soon.

Sticking with the local theme, Seismic Toss look like they came straight from Comic-Con, lulling the crowd into a false sense of calm. Oh, how deceiving looks can be. The four-piece erupt into a set that musically is something to behold. Criss-crossing between so many different fields of play, they fuse the fuzziness of Red Fang, the complexity of Mars Volta and the overall grunginess of Nirvana. Besides the quality musical element, these guys, most importantly, look as if they are really just having a kick-ass time. The frontman says it best after half-breaking his neck in a headbanging fit and exploring the crowd, attesting, "That was pretty fuckin' awesome, if I say so myself."

Cold Hearts take the stage to a steadily growing audience and a proportionate amount of spillage. The vocalist convulses around the stage as the band races through piece after piece of organised chaos. The set sits in a middle-ground between frenzied heaviness and musical rigidity. The hardcore crew musically resemble a whiplash-inducing sound comparable to All Pigs Must Die, embracing an old-school ‘fuck-you’ brashness and backing up their name with a balls-to-the-wall-style exhibition. 

DeadYet? continue the buffet of outstanding local talent as they kick into full-blown carnage. Opening to a droning, dissonant ringing, they soon burst into a pure onslaught. The inner production-nerd can’t help but notice a cavernous void between the bass and the guitar, however; the six-strings' EQ is lacking some bottom-end that really makes the sound seem somewhat shallow at times, but thanks to some outstanding songwriting with some clear Pantera influence, this production niggle is well compensated for. 

Truth be told, any one of the bands from the night’s stellar line-up is worthy of a headline spot; the whole night is testament to level of hardcore talent Brisbane is producing.