In Hearts Wake, Stray From The Path, The Gloom In The Corner, Diamond Construct @ UniBar, Adelaide 5/5/2023
In Hearts Wake ‘Decade Of Divination’ Adelaide stop on their tour sold out almost as quick as it took the ink to dry on the paperwork announcing it.
Celebrating, as the title suggests, the ten year birthday of the bands debut album Divination, the trajectory the band has gone on since then has dictated a sell out Australian tour and bringing peers with quality such as Stray From The Path, Gloom In The Corner and Diamond Construct.
Sydney band Diamond Construct have always impressed this reviewer and tonight is no different. They launch out the gate like a Melbourne Cup winner with heavy riffs, pit inducing breakdowns and anthemic lyrics.Enigma, Generic and Submerged absolute kill as the already rapidly filling audience push their way to the front to get involved in all manor of hardcore two step shenanigans.
From over the Victorian border come The Gloom In The Corner who don’t mess about either, which is exactly what the audience want. Breakdowns are the order of the day backed by a drum sound that sounds like a starters pistol to incite the chaos down front during the set. New Order has a cool old school sound under laying the track while Behemoth is a riff smorgasbord as one lays over into another. The whole set from the band is like an attack on your senses.
Stray From The Path are the outliers on the tour as the non-Australian band. The legendary New Yorkers show exactly what being a hardcore band is about. You set up, you play, you tear the venue apart, everyone has a good time. Opening with Needful Things, it’s a fist pumping frenzy that doesn’t let down the whole set. Vocalist Andrew Dijorio knows how to work the crowd and his delivery with his spitting lyrics is pointed, clear and leaves no room for interpretation. SFTP have a message and that is they stand with you.Goodnight Alt-Right and Neighborhood Watch have crowd surfers tumbling across the crowd as the drummer hits the skins like his is trying to destroy them. Circle pits are a common place, chants such as ‘you stupid fuck!’ from the crowd are normal and the sweat worked as the place becomes a bouncy castle during the finale of the set.
That leaves the headliners themselves, the conquering heroes In Hearts Wake. While the band have progressed in many ways in the ten years, the debut album stands the test of time. Playing the album as is, the band tear through it with a few stops to give us the back story of certain tracks such as Inertia (The Hermit) and B.I.A. (The Hanged Man). If you’re a fan of the band you know what they sound like and how intense their shows are. You’ll also know they always throw a little something different into the mix too.
This show includes a fan working his way through – and over – the crowd with a giant flag to finish on stage, dancing deer and Halo costumed backing dancers. As the band come back for a first encore and play newer tracks, the multiple wall of deaths literally push everyone back to the wall as space becomes a place only for the strong hearted. Worldwide Suicide is best described as chaotically schizophrenic and it’s slays the crowd before them as hats, shirts and dignity are all thrown into the air in metal joy.
Shortly after midnight the four hour event – and it is an event – finishes to glorious cheering and the band depart. You did good boys, you did good.
Live Review By Iain McCallum