I Prevail sells out Cardiff’s DEPOT
Words: Matthew Moore
Photos: Chloe Michelle Photo
★★★★☆
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Wednesday night gigs shouldn’t hit this hard. But Cardiff’s Depot was rammed to the rafters; sold out weeks in advance.
Three bands, one brutal bill, and a headliner walking into a massive UK tour with something to prove. I Prevail have just lost a co-vocalist and gained a new sound to defend live. Polaris are riding one of the most emotionally charged records of their career, and GORE are the newcomers that everyone in the room already seems to know. Three bands, each with a genuine claim to the night. Here’s how it went down, band by band, scream by scream.
Photo: Chloe Michelle Photo / I Prevail
GORE.
Getting a crowd moving in a massive warehouse space on a weekday is usually an uphill battle, but GORE made it look effortless. Landing on Depot’s stage under harsh beams, the relative newcomers skipped the awkwardness and went straight for the throat with a wall of downtuned riffs. GORE have great energy, a massive sound, and sections that let the music breathe and let you get lost in it, which I find reasonably rare in the genre.
Their sound is heavily rooted in modern djenty, oppressive metalcore riffs, which resonated well in Depot's industrially cavernous layout. The aggressive low end from this band, and all the bands on this lineup, would usually be a nightmare in a relatively untreated concrete building, but, despite this, everything from the band punched through clearly from where I was standing. Front and centre, the vocal performances from frontwoman Haley Roughton were a blend of pure throat-shredding aggression paired with delicate, emotive clean vocals.
Photo: Chloe Michelle Photo / I Prevail
Locking into heavy grooves and techy sections, the band threw out anything gimmicky and just sat with a tight set that really solidified their slot on the bill with the two heavy hitters that would play after them. For a band still making their name in this competitive scene, playing a room like this could be daunting, but GORE delivered a clinical, heavy-hitting set that proved they belong on the bill. The twenty-five to thirty-minute set wasn’t enough. GORE are clearly a band on the way up, and I’m sure they’ll be playing much larger rooms than this very soon.
Polaris
Cardiff’s Depot had been properly filled out by the time Polaris came on stage. It seems like this crowd came for them just as much as the headliner. This is my second time seeing this band, and it was just as good as the first. The house music faded out at exactly 8pm, and as soon as their intro track faded into the opening riff, Depot erupted. The Aussie heavyweights have built a solid reputation over the years as one of the most reliable live acts in modern metalcore, and their set in Cardiff showed why.
Photo: Chloe Michelle Photo / I Prevail
From the get-go, the energy on stage was immense. The Sydney-based band has always had a knack for making a room feel much bigger than it really is. Frontman Jamie Hails prowled the stage, as if he owned it. Pits opened up almost immediately, swallowing a huge chunk of the audience with it as the band launched through percussive technicality with huge hook-laden choruses. The guitars switched between frantic leads and heavy, driving rhythmic work, all backed by a drum performance so tight you’d think they were being held hostage by a vicious metronome. Musically, they’re just tight in a way a lot of bands their size aren’t. The guitar work is so intricate without being overly showy.
By the time they closed out, genuine sing-alongs were happening, and not just the dedicated front few rows. The set felt short in the best way possible; the time flew by. This is a band that could headline a room this size, and much larger, and judging by tonight, probably will before too long.
I Prevail
A lot is riding on this era of I Prevail; this is the first tour since the departure of Brian Burkheiser, which means Eric Vanlerberghe is carrying the vocal leads alone now. If anyone in the room was worried about how that would translate live, it took about thirty seconds to put those doubts to bed. Eric sounds vicious. I feel like he had something to prove, not that anyone from the sold-out show was in any doubt afterwards.
They didn’t save ‘Violent Nature’ for later either. It came in around the fourth or fifth song, which ripped open the room proper. What stood out was how smoothly he transitions between the two vocal styles. There are no visible gear changes, screaming one line and straight into the cleans the next.
The surprise of the night was Haley from GORE joining in for ‘Paradise’; it landed exactly the way a surprise should have, the room properly lit up for it. Then, straight after, of all things, their cover of ‘Blank Space’ found its way into the set, which got a laugh and a sing-along from the Venn diagram of Taylor Swift and I Prevail fans. Later, they pulled out some ‘Sad But True’, which also fit with the theme of the set.
Additionally, older stuff got plenty of room; ‘Bow Down’, ‘Come and Get It’, and ‘Hurricane’ landed just as well as anything newer. Nothing about the set at this point felt like an attempt to justify the lineup change. They just played, and it worked. They even threw in a spicy drum solo. I didn’t see Gabe Helguera with his POV cam on, so we probably won’t see this on one of his fan-favourite behind-the-scenes videos.
Depot’s low ceiling didn’t stop them from cramming a full lighting, video and pyro rig in there: strobes timed right into the breakdowns, pyros blasting behind the drums, visual candy from the screens on either side of the stage. By the time the set had finished, Vanlerberghe looked wrecked and drenched, and the room was still wanting more. Whatever nerves anyone had about this new era of the band, Cardiff put those to bed. I’m waiting eagerly for what’s next.
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