Live: Rise To Remain @ Academy 3

Rise To Remain w/ Heaven Shall Burn
Academy 3
14th March
3 stars

You could be excused for thinking Rise To Remain were punching above their weight. A cheeky rendezvous with Facebook tells me that they are only third on the ‘like’ scale out of the five bands playing, yet top of the bill. Some may immediately point the finger towards vocalist Austin Dickinson’s links to showbiz via father Bruce (Iron Maiden), but I’m going to give them a bit of credit here. They may have been all over the underground metal scene like a student on Kony ‘12, but on this evidence I expect they have pulled their finger out at each show and are having a fucking good time with their army of followers in the process. Ultimately though, there was always going to be that anti-climatic feel to their set since Heaven Shall Burn proverbially blew the roof off.

Main support came from the politically driven Germans, famous for their aggressive sound and thumping riffs. Ironically, next door on the third floor was some form of religious meet-up – I’m pretty sure they’re still there now, praying for their headaches. Anyway, what I respected most about them was that they were enjoying the moment, along with the packed-to-the-brim room, and had the accompanying epic tunes. Vocalist Marcus Bischoff incited frenzy for each song and the masses obliged, opening the venue up in either a giant circle pit or a ‘wall of death’, leaving the remnants for RTR.

By the time the London-based metalcore act took to the stage, half of the crowd had left – presumably because they only came to see the support and not because Chelsea were playing Napoli in extra-time downstairs. Further issues the band had were the unexplained replacements of two members – the bassist and the drummer – and a few vocal issues that seemed to be resolved with occasional shots of squeezy honey (who knew?) Nonetheless RTR thrashed out some great songs to the remaining zealous adolescents.

There was a buoyant reception as they played songs spanning over their short career, predominantly taken from their debut, solitary LP, City Of Vultures. The scene was set with 2007’s ‘Illusive Existence’ with more frantic scenes resulting from top tracks such as ‘The Serpent’. As we have come to expect from him, lead guitarist and virtuoso, Ben Tovey, led the front line, boasting fine solos and licks. Further highlights came from the jump around to ‘Power Through Fear’, Austin’s stage climbing and the group hug and head-bang in the encore. All-in-all, an effort to be proud of.

Rise to Remain – Illusive Existence