11/03/98
Alchemist, Deathless, Thumblock
North Gong Hotel
Dirty Issue #9 1998
Cheesus Crust

Tonight’s show was the best line-up of heavy music I have seen for a while, with each band offering it’s own unique slant on the way heavy music can be played. Local lads, Thumblock, kicked things off with their own brand of scrape the mud off the floor rock. It was great although slightly surprising to see Wayne still there in the corner, slapping the four string. Thumblock ambled through a set of mainly newish tunes, including my current fav, Jaspers Brush, and even managed to play overtime due to popular demand. Looking forward to seeing the guys with that new line-up soon. Deathless were a band I looked forward to seeing. Partially based in the UK and partly in Oz, Deathless’ core members are David and Damien (Both playing bass) and a drum machine. Tonight, though, Peter from Front End Loader lent his drumming expertise to the brew, which was interesting in theory, but soon swallowed up the drum machine in the mix, rendering the poor instrument redundant. Deathless’ approach to music makes a lot of sense to me. I hear so many bands in the ultimate quest for fuzz guitar with a guitar sound that sounds like a bass anyway, so why not forgo guitar altogether and just have a bass? Although most punters seemed to think them a little to abrasive for the pub, I found Deathless – who are not quite industrial, not quite metal, melodic and slightly reminiscent of Godflesh – to sound quite interesting. Alchemist are in my top five list of favourite Oz bands, so it was pleasing to see them draw a crowd tonight (at last)! Tonight’s short set consisted mainly of songs from Spiritech with a couple of tunes from Lunasphere chucked in for good measure. Unfortunately it seems the band has outgrown its first album Jar of Kingdom but I suppose that’s all part of moving on. The set was tight, which only a regular gigging band can achieve, and front person, Adam, seems to have goten down pat the knack of shuffling between keyboard and guitar. Most people seemed pretty impressed. So here’s hoping there will be even more folks present when they venture back to the Gong later on this year.
Cheesus Crust