Live Review: Refused, Sick Of It All, High Tension

Walking to The Tivoli to see Swedish hardcore punk icons Refused is an interesting experience: the punks are out to play tonight, old and new.

For those unknowing, openers High Tension are a supergroup of punk from all across Australia featuring members of Young & Restless, Love Like Electrocution and The Nation Blue. In reflection of their experience, their music is innovative and diverse in arrangement and sound.

The band opens the show this evening with their stoner-infused hardcore punk. Their sluggish approach to the punk methodology and use of larger drums and slower grooves creates a sound that is much heavier, and explosive, than more traditional acts. To top off this aural brutality, frontwoman Karina Utomo takes the stage and begins to high-pressure-blast the audience clean of prejudice with her intense and interactive vocal performance. Utomo is surprising to watch as she sings dark and gloomy melodies then seamlessly bursts into a high screech or low growl at her leisure. She exhibits amazing talent as a vocalist. High Tension challenge traditional punk formula and ethos for an impactful experience, but one can't help but feel their performance would be more enjoyable in a smaller basement/floor show environment.

Sick Of It All take to the stage with consistently high energy. This band have been around for 30 years, and this writer can only watch in amazement as every member bounces and spins out of control while performing seamlessly. Lou Koller bellows a raspy roar that somehow sounds like the voice of ten men. His bandmates chant in response to stir the primal environment into a circle pit time and time again. Koller’s onstage banter panders to their mature-age audience as their fans drag each other into an inescapable whirlpool of adrenaline and testosterone. At some points, in the eye of the hurricane, it is amazing to see punters chanting along as their fists rise high, fighting back against the surrounding chaos. It's like watching a living watercolour painting. Sick Of It All put on an amazing performance and do a great job of lifting the crowd’s energy and excitement for Refused, but towards the end of their set the lack of variety beckons for a break.

Arguably one of the best things about punk music, regardless of its form, is that it forces you into a physical and/or ephemeral experience. It takes an idea, grabs you by the shirt and headbutts it into you, much like the frontman of Refused, Dennis Lyxzen, does as he parades into the crowd during their classic track Rather Be Dead. Refused perform in a way that puts the listener in a state of mind: they make the crowd anxious by beginning the performance with a 15- to 20-minute synth drone, resembling the characteristics of a violin. White panels of light turn on and begin to flutter, and strobe, exponentially until the crowd is lulled into a state of silence. They roar as drummer David Sandstrom comes on stage to begin the performance.

Unlike most punk bands, Refused don’t seem out-of-character on a large stage. Dressed to impress with amazing sound, instrument selection and a crafty minimalist light show to boot, Refused are a professional act that don’t seem out of place on a pedestal, surprisingly. Disappointment strikes when some members of the crowd make it very clear they don't want to hear Lyxzen speak his mind about current art in pop culture and society’s social and economic trends. The vocalist isn’t disheartened, though, and eventually responds gently with a positive outcome for the entire audience.

Refused spend their set dipping across their feverishly beloved catalogue, offering a career-spanning retrospective that includes new tracks such as Servants Of Death and mid-set fillers Dawkins Christ, Destroy The Man and Thought Is Blood — from 2015's hiatus-breaking album, Freedom — right alongside classic cuts including The Shape Of Punk To Come, The Refused Party Program, The Deadly Rhythm and, of course (along with Elektra and Tannhauser/Derive), ever-present natural encore New Noise.

The group's surprising and contrasting arrangements provide an intense feeling of empowerment and confusion that somehow magically turns to euphoria in the performance space. Refused are a band of seasoned veterans whose overwhelming live performance should be experienced by all.