Live Review: Twitching Tongues, I Exist, Legions, Oppressor

Unleashing more bloody beatdowns than an Ultimate Fighting Championship card, NSW South Coast metallic hardcore mob Oppressor incited a few pit ninjas among a respectable early turnout, despite frequently being rooted in a rather stock-standard chug. The attendance grew somewhat by the time Sydney hardcore hit squad Legions took to the stage, their scathing riffs and caustic vocals eliciting a more widely appreciated response.

Those with a penchant for karate kicks nursed their injuries, or perhaps just stretched for the main event as the headbangers came to the fore for I Exist. The nation's capital mob, spurred on by a post-Budget rage and boasting their full three-guitar complement tore into opener, Heal Me In Smoke's towering sludge. Blistering Lightning Curse and Wyverns Keep were suitably first rate exhibitions of doom-laden hardcore ferocity. Frontman Jake Willoughby stalked the stage, Josh Nixon dug deep into his arsenal of deliberately cheesy rock moves (including the robot) while fellow axeman/band linchpin Aaron Osborne admirably held down the fort. The power of the riff certainly compels thee.

Another act whose cross-pollination of hardcore and metal immediately appeared impervious to the factionalism that often undermines heavy music was Los Angeles crew Twitching Tongues. Juxtaposing off-kilter, vocal melody-driven rock and the brooding menace of cuts a la Preacher Man, with the mosh-friendly 'core elements and barrage of stoner/doom riffage that borrowed liberally from latter day Celtic Frost and Candlemass, they relished in stretching stylistic boundaries without feeling the need to underline the point. Perhaps not as much as punters revelled in their all-too-brief display though, frontman Colin Young leading his charges through their paces with aplomb during the likes of Good Luck. It was done and dusted in little more than half-an-hour, but for the already initiated, albeit modest crowd who showed up, despondency rarely seems quite so enjoyable.