28/08/98
Brutal Truth, Blood duster, Alchemist
Annandale Hotel Sydney
In Your Face Issue 15 October 1998
Brian J Giffin

There’s little doubt this was one of the most anticipated events of the year an a lot of peoples calendars and it was no surprise to find cues around the corner into Nelson St as zero hour drew nigh. Unfortunately the Annandale needs to be heavily criticised for their incredible mishandling of admission arrangements which resulted in half the crowd being let in to late to see Blood Duster. This included our photographer Zandrah, which is why there’s no pictures of the boys with this review. Apparently the idea of having one line for ticket holders and another for those still to pay is one the Annandale hasn’t hit upon, strange considering the places apparent reputation. Adding salt to the wounds of those who weren’t the victims of the sad cock-up is the fact that Blood duster were fucking AWESOME. Compressing their stoner grind sickness into an all too brief half hour set, tha Duster were undoubtedly at their very best tonight, with Fuller and Finn laying down the pounding grooves for Tony’s insanities. And they were tight, which in light of the seemingly ad lib structure of their show is a great indictment of their skills. Blood Duster are the ultimate crowd pleasers with their combination of very heave metal and twisted sense of the absurd and tonight they again proved why there’re so loved. BY the time Alchemist came on there were still people trying to get into the place. Those who had missed the Dusters assault wasted no time in expending their extra energies in the mosh at the front as Alchemist set about weaving their magic and the band responded with a truly excellent performance. Marred at fist by atrociously bad sound in which Roy’s guitar was a murky miasma and Adam’s nonexistent, their sound engineer Guppy finally won the battle with the venue’s troublesome desk and every thing pumped though crystal clear. Unperturbed by the sound problems the Canberra boys were genuinely enjoying themselves tonight and the whole time constraints restricted their set to about six songs they lost nothing in their brevity. “Chinese Whispers” displaying every member in vividly glowing colours and “Soul Return” made a welcome return to the set as the closing song. Squeezed between two grind bands Alchemist brought a different angle to the nights proceedings but any critics were deafeningly silenced and humbled by their mesmerising power. Brutal Truth’s big entry was only slightly spoiled by a technical problem with the guitar amp but they weren’t about to let that dampen their enthusiasm, and neither were the crowd, which by now was shoulder to shoulder for the length and breadth of the room. Chaos reined at the foot of the stage as Brutal Truth tore into their set and the mosh pit was the realm of only the very brave or the very stupid for the remainder of the night, insidious grooves and unrelenting audio violence was the order of the day as Dan Lilker and his grindcore commandos left no stone unturned in their mission of complete musical subjugation and destruction. Ripping at the throuts of commercial idealism with the rabid zeal of a crazy dog, Brutal Truth were smashing down the walls of ivory towers with hammers of iron. Kevin Sharp’s frenetic energy was matched by the merciless volume onslaught of Gurn’s face shredding riffs. Lilker’s pulverising bass grooves and the frantic but impossibly fault less timekeeping of Rich Hoak and everything was equally balanced by the furious blur of flying boys out front. Blitzing through a set which there was very little missing, including an Agathocles cover and a version of “Necrophobic” which sounded more like the Apocalypse than Slayer, Brutal Truth were nothing less than that; Brutal and the absolute truth. Death to trends! Finally it had to be said that in this reviewers opinion, the Annandale Hotel hardly deserves it’s reputation as a leading live venue. It’s too small the lighting desk is totally inadequate and the sound quality is notoriously ambiguous. Added to that is there small minded policy regarding metal bands and the naïve approach to handling large crowds which cast a nasty pall over the evening and left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.
Brian J Giffin