Kerrang! – July 12, 2019

KERRANG! 77

When was the last time

you riffed and putted at

the same time?

Photo:

CHRIS CASEY

POLARIS

• POLAR
  THE DOME, LONDON 30/06/2019

KKKKK
Aussie metalcore mob make

themselves at home on UK tour

■ “I feel like we’re back in Australia,”
beams Polaris’ gentle frontgiant Jamie
Hails. The singer is not just referring to
the subtropical conditions inside Tufnell
Park’s Dome, a sweaty haze blurring the
vision and intensifying an already steamy
heatwave. Instead, Jamie’s attention is
fixated on a crowd so rapturously erupting
to his band’s set that the Sydney crew could
easily mistake this for a hometown gig.
Not bad when it’s your first headlining tour
on these shores, although as anyone who
caught their brilliant supporting stint with
Architects back in January already knows,
this lot are something very special. Tonight,
supporting Polaris we have, um, Polar, who
initially struggle to animate pit warriors who
are evidently conserving energy for the main
event. Yet the London bruisers labour on
undaunted, and through sheer force of will
eventually command a booming pit. For
the hour Polaris shake The Dome, though,
the world becomes a pressure cooker of
hammering grooves and sliding bodies. The
stage is a free-for-all as fans are spewed
onstage before diving back into the fray.
Remarkably, the band soak up every ounce
of anticipation and energy, then blast it
back tenfold. It’s no secret that Australia has
become a hotbed for world-class metal acts.
Tonight, it seems this band could well be its
next premium export.JAMES MACKINNON

WILL HAVEN

• CONJURER
  229, LONDON 26/06/2019

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Sacramento’s loudest sons lay waste

to London

■ Few bands have charted the farthest
reaches of extremity and dissonance quite
like Will Haven. Naturally, this poses a
problem for anyone opening for them:
everyone else sounds virtually unplugged
in comparison. Still, Conjurer acquit
themselves brilliantly, be it via the ice-cold
strains of opener The Mire, or bassist Conor
Marshall windmilling beyond the point of
absurdity. Tonight, however, is all about
the blunt force trauma induced by Will
Haven. During the likes of Carpe Diem and
I’ve Seen My Fate, anyone who isn’t being
pulverised in the pit is simply grimacing

• in a good way, obviously –at just how
  grotesquely loud and intense it is. Though
  some classics are omitted (Soul Leach, When
  The Walls Close In), tracks from last year’s
  stellar Muerte album, especially Winds Of
  Change, compensate superbly. Special
  credit must go to guitarist Jeff Irwin – who
  dispatches the riffs of Saga while standing
  atop the merch desk –and frontman Grady
  Avenell, whose incredible vocals are often
  summoned in a manner more befitting of
  an exorcism. Will Haven have always been
  a band who deserved more recognition.
  Tonight, it’s wonderful to see them exalted
  by a crowd who recognise precisely how
  important they are.GEORGE GARNER

WEEZER

+ INDOOR PETS

O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON, LONDON 29/06/2019

KKKK

Rivers Cuomo and crew wow London

with a blaze of throwback glory

■ Technically, a third of the songs played by

tonight’s headliners first appeared on their

debut album 25 years ago. Technically, that is,

because they play one of them, Buddy Holly,

twice, albeit in a kitschy, barbershop quartet-

style. Weezer also neglect to play anything off

their most recently released studio album. All

of which bears the hallmarks of a band whose

best days are behind them.

But with Weezer, you can

never really be sure.

There’s always a nagging

suspicion that they might

yet surprise and find new

ways to stir the old flames

that first made fans fall for

their none-more-idiosyncratic

charms. Tonight, they do so by

having the time of their lives.

Traditionally awkward frontman

Rivers Cuomo has literally

never looked like he’s had this much fun

onstage before, at least not on UK soil. Similar

could be said of homegrown openers, Indoor

Pets, whose sonic debt to the headliners is

obvious, but their victories will be fought and

won on friendlier fronts another day.

That it all kicks off where Weezer’s success

began feels fitting, with the Happy Days intro

into a blazing Buddy Holly setting the tone. It’s

a nostalgia party, complete with sweat-soaked

sing-alongs, in freewheeling celebration of

a band oft-maligned – mainly due to the

frustration that the heights they’re capable of

are often sidelined for throwaway pop frittery.

But not tonight. Instead, it’s 21 hits and

happiness; choruses and self-deprecation.

Rivers – dressed in full ‘Golf Dad’ garms – even

flips off his peak cap to reveal his own thinning

crown right at the moment the Rogaine lyric

rolls around on Pork And Beans. That he’s

also grinning and shredding and expertly

commanding the crowd throughout is as much

a surprise as it is heartening.

Out of the blue (no pun intended), this most

oddball of bands seem to have found some

comfort in their own skin, relaxed about who

they are and the legacy they’ve created. On

the hottest day of the year, Weezer finally

found some cool. DAVID MCLAUGHLIN