Bullet For My Valentine / Candiria / Scary Kids Scaring Kids

Scary Kids Scaring Kids are neither scary nor kids. They look closer to thirty than thirteen and their music falls within the boundaries of such ineffective cliché that they’ve as much chance of terrifying a crowd as Casper The Friendly Ghost.

These six post-hardcore silhouettes from across the pond have peddled their prototype Iron Maiden-riffs a long way from Arizona to reach Nottingham tonight, so it’s a shame they take the stage mere moments after doors open, meaning they’re largely ignored by the people still filing in, putting coats away, getting drinks and finding good spots to stand.

Unoriginal as the songs may sound, as laughably appalling as the band name may be and as apathetic a response the gathered crowd may offer, they do, to their credit, thrash about the stage with the kind of passion and gusto accredited to the greats, as if performing to a stadium full of air-punching supporters.

Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Candiria are an agit-rock incarnation of the House Of Pain, executed with the raw aggression of a post-Max Cavalera Sepultura. Lead singer Carley Coma is a heavy metal Ice-T and their fist clenching, moshpit friendly songs do a fine job of warming up the ever-growing crowd.

Effortlessly flicking from riff-heavy sonic batterings to high jump inducing rock-hop, via sideways lounge-jazz breakdowns, stirs up a fresh sense of innovation that’s so often missing from most heavy metal acts. The crowd seem to accept their unique approach willingly, cheering wildly after every song. Dedicating their final song to ‘all the beautiful women out there’, in a room populated with pasty Goths, shows they’ve also got a sense of humour, which helps.

Yet the loudest cheers of the night are reserved for cult-metallers, Bullet For My Valentine. Not as loud or over-exposed as their Welsh counterparts, Funeral For A Friend & Lostprophets, the adoration they inspire in the eardrum-burstingly loud, cheering crowd is admirable. As they bash out the opening notes of ‘Four Words To Choke Upon’, the gathered audience sing every syllable back at them, at a volume that almost drowns out that of the speaker stacks.

Whilst their initial raw energy is enough to shake even the most deeply reposed out of slumber, the songs soon slip into the lame carcass of familiarity. What was at first visceral and exciting soon becomes a background irritant, like a loud rattling boiler.

‘Spit You Out’, ‘The Poison’ and the gorily titled ‘Hand Of Blood’ insight the loudest cheers and largest circle pits, but there is an underlying sense of pastiche and déjà vu. There is nothing original or noteworthy taking place in Rock City tonight, it’s as by-numbers as every other metal gig taking place across the country at the same time, it plays right into the palms of stereotype.

Between song banter from frontman Matt Tuck is mind-numbingly banal (Sample phrase: “Everyone say FUCK! I fucking love swearing!”) and when it becomes apparent that the vast majority of the crowd appear to be under sixteen, their show’s credibility is further undercut.

Upon leaving the venue a drunken teenager stumbles on to my arm, asking for help going to the toilet, the third casualty we’ve attended to since the show began. She claims she’s with the band and finally admits to being a ‘groupie’ - a concept, which, when considering her age, is pretty dismal. Her desperation seems to encapsulate the self-inflated ideas on show tonight. Bullet For My Valentine would love to be seen as genre defining rock legends that command devotion from the masses. In reality they’re turning venues into alcohol-fuelled children’s crèches, playing tired metal staples to impressionable youths and it’s really not very good.

FUTURE GIGS