The Manning Bar’s usual trick of opening the doors just as the first band starts, means that the Plague are already playing as we climb the stairs. What sounds like the dying screams of a 200lb Flying Fox fill the air as we enter the room! Singer Mike Ryan veers between a guttural bellow and a high-pitched caterwaul, while the band thunder along on a lumbering groove. The front man does his damndest to rile up the crowd, trying to coax those on the floor into starting a circle pit. The band crank up the pace, rattling through ‘Mass Genocide’ which is probably the highlight of the set.
We don’t get a pit for the Plague, but it’s not for their lack of effort. They warm things up agreeably on a balmy Wednesday night.
Ringing feedback heralds the arrival of Bay-Area Pioneers Vio-lence. Vocalist Sean Killian hollers “What’s Up Sydney Australia?!” before cranking into ‘Eternal Nightmare’. I cant help but think that they sound somewhat like the Beastie Boys if they came out of the Bay Area thrash scene instead of New York. Don’t get me wrong, Vio-lence deal in nothing but glorious old school Thrash. (And they DID have one of the coolest album covers of that whole era).
Next up, The full on 100mph thrash out of Serial Killer, gets the biggest response of the night so far. The Singer Proclaims “We bring Thrash metal from the Bay Area, right to your F#ing ears!” ‘Office Nice’ covers all of Vio-lence’s strengths… Fast, stop/start, Groovy… the singer had the Manning crowd in the palm of his hand!
‘Kill on command’ features a race to the end among the band… “last one to finish is buying the drinks”. The newer songs like ‘Flesh from Bone’ again seem to highlight that Thrashy Beastie Boys thing again, while finale ‘World in a world’ sees the pit come to life! Hopefully the line-up ructions, settle down & they can continue to deliver the goods for some time to come.
“No Truth, No Justice, The American Way!!!” What a song to start Sacred Reich’s first Sydney show since 1994?! (Tack on a 3 year wait for THIS tour…) the crowd were up for this like a dog is up for a chop! Singer Bassist Phil Rind asks how many of the crowd were even BORN when they last played here? Next, Machine gun riffage signals Manifest Reality. Sacred Reich sound fantastic tonight, a big fat sound & the 2 guitars lightning fast riffing, working in total cohesion.
To me, Sacred Reich always came across as massively under-rated… the thinking person’s Thrash band! Phil Rind’s into to ‘Divide & Conquer’ being a case in point. The Singer doesn’t rehash the same old rabble rousing shtick, he just converses with the crowd. The into for ‘Awakening’ about Self-Awareness, compassion & kindness may have seemed out of place to some, but it made for a refreshing change from just roaring at the crowd. The set has a number of tunes from the newest album Awakening, but songs like Killing Machine sit comfortably alongside the old classics.
These guys are the closest thing to being the missing link between Punk & Thrash Metal. This is best highlighted by the killer closing double of Death Squad & especially Surf Nicaragua.
It was an uplifting, thought provoking, thrashing good time. A Wednesday night well spent, Hopefully they don’t leave it as long to come back next time.
Photos by Adam Sivewright | Review by Biggs
