The Enablers, Ferryboat, Norwich
I can’t possibly comment on the first band seeing as I’m the guitarist so let’s just say that we had fun. INSANIAC followed us up and showed that hard rock is alive and well, burning through a tight set of Wildhearts-esque anthems. Errol is an engaging frontman at times, but at times it felt as if the band were going through the motions rather than putting on a performance, but these occasions were thankfully in the minority because the riff-heavy sound was transmitted well to a quite sparsely-populated ‘boat. An impressively tight and coherent band, even during the almost Slayer riffage of the final song, which suggests that with a few more original ideas they could make quite a name for themselves. They get a (7) but I’ve been told they can do much better.
Having to contend with one of the stupidest and least imaginative hecklers I’ve ever laughed at, BLACK COUGAR SHOCK UNIT come out with all three (!) guitars blazing and proceed to lay waste to the Ferryboat. As soon as ‘Iron Cobra’ hits you can see the marked difference in crowd reaction – heads start nodding and fists are pumped as the abrasive sound that BCSU are well-versed in starts coming in buckets. Bounding around onstage and most importantly, looking as if they’re loving every minute of it, they mix some inventive lead guitar work with a workmanlike attitude to crunchingly simple riffs and know exactly how to write a triumphant chorus. There was a rawness to their sound tonight that was captured on their self-titles EP (go buy it from www.thenewestindustry.com) and it showed how much they thrive on the live setting. They should be playing bigger places than this (9).
I was expecting something pretty darn special from THE ENABLERS but they disappointed me tonight. Rarely slipping into the higher gears they seemed content to push out fairly fast paced rock without many discerning features, which while not being all that offensive, was nowhere near the punchy standards of BSCU. Having said that, there were a few moments when they kicked off but they were quickly swallowed up by the repetitive songs and only a cover of The Replacements’ ‘Wake Up’ really hit home. Disappointing without being all that bad, it’s hard to pick out specific moments that were either shockingly poor or impressively good – I suppose that says it all (6).
Ben
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