Live Review: sleepmakeswaves, This Will Destroy You, Gay Paris, Serious Beak

There’s nothing to get the ears ringing like a night of loud, passionate and sweaty post-rock, the first two bands tonight taking a decidedly heavier approach than the two they preceded. True to the genre, every member was a functioning cog in an intricate machine. The artists threw their whole-selves behind their performances: guitars weren’t strummed so much as furiously slapped, drum skins recoiled at vicious crunches, things got a little more worn, a little more out of tune, and bass? Well, nobody pays attention to the bassist to be honest. Truth bomb.

Serious Beak came out nice and early to the standard, healthy, post-rock support crowd. Their ‘metal music without the singer’ chugging guitars and bass lines had heads bobbing and the like. 

Gay Paris were your standard heavy rock, screamo vocals and all. The guys, as per the rest of the acts, gave it their absolute all, but it was hard not to think that the Metro had had a hard time finding four post-rock bands with big enough profiles to play the gig.
It seemed crazy when reading the bill that This Will Destroy You weren’t the headliner. Surely they would have been in their native Texas. Here, they were relegated to support duties and as beautiful and powerful and mind-blowing as their set was, one could only wonder how much more impact it would have had if the drums were up the back of the stage where they belong instead of being the support-act drum kit front and centre, over-powering the intricate guitar melodies. What a drumming masterclass it was though. To the band’s credit they always shy away from the expected, unleashing some really intricate, refined drum beats. Their explosive flourishes left the audience stunned.

sleepmakeswaves played like a band with a weight that had been lifted. This was their 55th and final show on a world tour. Back in their home town, they never shied away from getting on the mic and letting everyone know how thankful they were and how trying their journey had been. Luckily, the sap was saved for the microphone, because the rest of the set was balls-to-the-wall heavy, melodic guitars, equal parts clean and distorted. Great Northern, along with other keyboard-fronted songs, proved a fantastic change of pace. Where This Will Destroy You had the intricacy and brilliant compositions, sleepmakeswaves had the benefit of mix balance and all the passion of a band at their peak.