It’s Sunday, 1st March, and it is bloody freezing outside. However, inside the Liquid Rooms in the centre of Edinburgh, it feels like standing inside a high-end humidifier shop. Swathes of metalheads have gathered early to catch Scottish metalcore heroes Bleed From Within on the first of their two-night stint in the capital. Doors were at 6pm, and the place is already pretty packed by the time the first band of the evening kicks off at 6:45pm.
Danish death metal act Baest were incredible. I’ve been wanting to see these lads for a while now, and they really didn’t disappoint. They brought bags of energy from minute one and their enthusiasm was palpable. I must say, the vocals were a tad too quiet at times while the drums were a bit overbearing, which was a little distracting. But they more than made up for it with powerful riffs and excellent stage presence. At one point, the vocalist dove into the crowd and belted out a full song from the middle of the pit, asking the punters to run circles around him. Cracking stuff.
Next up were Disembodied Tyrant, a deathcore band all the way from Missouri. Jeezo, they absolutely blew me away. The vocal range that frontman Blake Mullens has is fucking insane – we’re talking Will Ramos levels of talent here. They were one of the most effortlessly tight bands I’ve seen in a long time. Their creativity and unique approach to a genre that is getting quite saturated left me wondering how the hell they aren’t much bigger already.
Throughout the brutal assault of song after song, there were moments of levity, too. The quartet had some silly banter between themselves, and Mullens was giving the other three compliments and reassurance throughout the set. It was actually dead sweet to see. I love seeing bands genuinely having fun on stage, and I was grinning right along with them.
By the time the headliners were due to take the stage, there had already been so many walls of death that I wondered how the crowd would cope! While duty called elsewhere before the main event, the opening duo certainly set the bar sky-high for the rest of the night.
We’re working on getting a review of BfW from the night, but in the meantime if you want to see what we thought of the headliners last time they rolled through, check out our previous reviews of Bleed From Within in Glasgow – Barrowlands night 1 and night 2.
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Photos by JRM Photography (a huge thank you to John for stepping in when our scheduled photographer was forced to drop out at the 11th hour!)
