Friday 10/12/04 Breed 77 @ Bier Keller, Bristol

“This song is dedicated to anyone who doesn’t follow trends or care what Kerrang thinks is cool.” Odd thing for the singer of a band who trade largely on the support of Kerrang to say to an audience of identically dressed teenagers. Never mind. Like anyone pays any attention to lead singers anyway. Loud, crashy, thrashy but never trashy, Breed 77 may have tried to look and act all hard and scary, but their sound is much softer than they might want you to notice.

They’ve got melodies and a singer whose voice can carry a high note for a long, long, time. Every now and then he remembers they are meant to be that little bit mean and drops into a guttural growl, but it’s a bit late and we’ve already noticed. It kind of undermines the antics of a scowling, bald, tattooed bassist and the dreadlock swinging guitarist. Never mind. Their energetic stage presence is very much in synch with the bouncing riffs and relentless rhythm section of their sound. On the ball and “on it” from the very first, they fire out salvoes of Slash-sized solos and there’s plenty of crowd working (“Let’s do this!!”) from a bunch of guys convinced of the undeniable importance of their own performance. Which is exactly how it should be. Gigwise has said it before, and will say it again; bands will never convince us of their importance if they can’t convince themselves.

As it is Gigwise were pretty much convinced by Breed7 7, perhaps not of their undeniable importance, but certainly of their undeniable right to an audience. They give a ****ing great show, if you like that kind of thing. Meaning: house sized hooks, gattling gun drums, and battleship sized bass (all a little let down by the pond sized PA). Of course they aren’t a straight down the line pigeonhole-able thrash-rock band; no, no, they are Flamenco-fusion! Several numbers see one or other of the guitarists ditch their electrics for a flurry of flamenco riffs on an acoustic, while there is a distinct tribal feel to some of the drum fills and Arabic flavour to the lead lines. They do it very well and while Gigwise may prefer Juan Martin, we couldn’t help but murmur the odd “Ole!” Top head banging ethnotainment. Especially as they were done and dusted by 9.30, which meant I could piss off and do something arty (being the kind of guy that doesn’t follow trends or care who the NME thinks is cool, let alone Kerrang.)