Blakfish, Pulled Apart By Horses & Adebisi Shank, Leeds Royal Park Cellars

We attend this gig having seen the main band and support before so know, to a certain extent, what to expect. However, we come out at the end of the night surprised by what tonight has held.

Blakfish are the headline band, surprising when you consider the hype currently surrounding Pulled Apart By Horses. They play a mixture of new and old that keeps their fans happy and is watchable enough for those here to see PABH (who it’s clear to everyone are the main draw). Their thrash / rock / metal / DCHardcore / screamo hybrid is just a few years too late for them to have any real aspirations of playing to venues much bigger than this but they play with enough vigour and have stage presence enough to make half an hour of your time worthwhile. Pulled Apart By Horses continue to live up to the expectations people are currently bandying around. They’re now clearly familiar with their songs, knowing what works and what doesn’t. Familiarity usually breeds contempt but in this case it leads to a show not as wild as reports would have you believe, instead more professional sounding – perhaps a change in attitude by the band, who, with the attention surrounding them and support slots with Blood Red Shoes, Rolo Tomassi and the mighty Future Of The Left upcoming in the next three months alone are seeing that the band now represents an opportunity to make a career from doing what they love. They’re tighter musically, focused and while not as raucous as on previous occasions DIY has seen them, still mental enough to have the crowd going apeshit.

The REAL revelation of tonight though, comes in the form of Adebisi Shank. Unheard of outside elitist message boards and forums, their location (the band are from Wexford in Ireland and hold down full time jobs whilst releasing material on their own imprint) and infrequent touring have kept them out of the limelight. With performances like the one they put on tonight, this should not last for long. The three piece’s math rock hybrid is ferocious in a live setting, post-rock without the five minutes of violin wailing beforehand. It’s reminiscent of 65daysofstatic’s harder beat laden songs, such as ‘Await Rescue’ or ‘Default This’, Battles without the knowing wink. They’re one of the best bands we’ve seen in bloody ages. Whilst their recorded output focuses more on the technical aspects of their music, live they’re monstrous sounding, almost frightening (though this is also achieved by the unsettling double sided hood the bassist wears throughout the gig). Our new favourite live band has just been discovered.

Blakfish = 6/10
Pulled Apart By Horses = 7/10
Adebisi Shank = 8/10