SikTh - Wigan Club Nirvana

Last weekend I travelled from the North West to Cardiff on the train. This meant that I had plenty of time to peruse the metal monthlies and it came to my attention that there was quite a lot of coverage of SikTh as they prepare for there imminent appearance at Download and the release of their second album (do young people still call them albums?)

All the magazines are united in saying two things about SikTh.

1) They need (and deserve) to gain a wider audience soon. 2) They kick ass live.

We’ll come to the answer to question two shortly, but I’d say that they have their work cut out gaining that much needed commercial breakthrough because however great they are they’re not exactly likely to get played by Dr Fox in the near future. In fact, SikTh find themselves up against a mainstream media where the main musical focus is currently which talentless “celebrity” is marginally less bad than the others. Clearly SikTh face an uphill struggle to forge a long term career.

So it’s against that background that a Wednesday night trip to Wigan’s Club Nirvana is made to see if SikTh do indeed kick ass.

Inside the venue can be found a respectable crowd made up of emo types, metalheads and quite a few trendies assembled to see Watford’s finest land on stage at ten o’clock for an hour long set that was as ferocious a gig as I’ve seen for some time. Opening song Scent of the Obscene suffered from the vocals being too low in the mix but when that problem was sorted SikTh steamrolled the crowd into submission.

I think that it’s fair to say that live some of the light and shade that SikTh have in the studio goes missing but that’s only to be expected I suppose. One fun thing to do whilst watching this band is to spot similarities with other bands. I caught myself thinking of System of a Down, Dream Theater (probably because they can play their instruments) and at one point even Thin Lizzy when a dual lead break appeared.

A few songs were aired from the new album Death of a Dead Day and they went down well seeming to be more melodic, certainly in the live environment than the older material. Both guitarists Pin and Dan Weller acquitted themselves well with Pin being the member of the band who seemed to have the most fun on the somewhat cramped stage.

Pussyfoot and Skies of the Millennium Night rounded off an enjoyable set with a particularly violent pit ensuing. Pitting – what’s all that about? It looks painful to me and it must be difficult to listen to the music as you slam into other people/walls/the stage!

So, can SikTh build a larger audience? Well, whilst they certainly worked hard and were well received by the crowd they face the big problem of an anti-metal media so I’d suggest that whilst I don’t think that they’ll be challenging Coldplay et al at the top of the charts SikTh will prosper in their own field.