Reviews

Raw energy are the only words I can think to describe all four of the bands who played at the first ever Havoc Promotions Christmas Party at the L'Ancresse Bay Hotel.

Despite the large number of other musical events taking place tonight the L'Ancresse Bay was surprisingly busy and many seemed to have a great level of anticipation for the first band, who were making their debut.

Tom Domaille of Brutus Stonefist.

Brutus Stonefist didn't disappoint, combining the sounds of bands like Pantera and Hatebreed with moments of MyLastVictory, especially in the vocal style and delivery, to great effect and causing the pit to kick off in truly raucous style early in the night.

While the music was excellent the real star of their set was vocalist Tom Domaille who combined something of the style of MLV's Jack Fletcher with his own unique presence and if this band were this fierce on their debut outing then they could become a force to reckoned with in local metal.

Second to take to the stage were old school death metallers Ferox. While tonight’s performance seemed to have less of the ferocity the band usually exhibit, they made up for this with a slightly slower tempo'd (but by no means slow) crushingly heavy style with moments that brought to mind a more doomy sound such as that pioneered by Black Sabbath.

Matt of Ferox.

Ferox produced a much more together sound tonight than the last few of their shows where something seemed to be missing from the energy they produced this time last year, and hopefully this shows Guernsey's premier death metal act will once again be firing on all cylinders from now on.

Having changed their name as many times as I have seen them play, Astral Casket (formerly The Archetype Formation, and before that Seven Days At Knifepoint) hit the stage with a real sense of energy.

In the past, while the rest of the band have been full of charisma vocalist/guitarist Kobrakai has often come across as a somewhat distant, albeit talented, front man.

Tonight however his performance was much more open and this allowed the whole band to connect brilliantly with the still large crowd and get people singing along to their mix of originals and covers.

Kobrakai of Astral Casket.

While many bands have played a similar metalcore style to Astral Casket in the past, many have failed to really reach any great heights with it, Casket however overcome this by simply filling the stage with their presence while reaching out to the crowd at the same time.

Ending on a storming version of Killswitch Engage's 'My Last Serenade', with Jamie Ellington of FireFly and MyLastVictory guitarist Josh Fletcher doing vocals, Astral Casket really showed a new level of presence that could lead to great things for them in the future.

Finally tonight it was time for emo-metallers FireFly, sadly 'The Lodge' seemed to have emptied drastically for the bands set, but that didn't stop those who were still there heading to the front and the band giving it their all.

Jamie and 'Chunky' of FireFly.

While the band were clearly there to have a good time tonight with several members in festive fancy dress, they still played a great show which kicked off with a surprise cover of AFI's 'Girls Not Grey'. This got people dancing and the energy didn't drop for the rest of the set.

Looking something like a more stylish version of Cure front man Robert Smith (especially in the hair department) tonight, Jamie Ellington once again proved himself to be a fine front man with a strong voice for this sort of music.

The rest of the band as well did a great job of backing this up and even when clearly up there simply to have fun like tonight, they sound great with Nick Schofield's guitar work really standing out as a highlight.

FireFly are a band who have the style and presence to go far, and with an increasing number of quality original songs they continue to get stronger. Given the opportunity they are a band who have the ability to be something very special indeed, both in Guernsey and further a field.