It's been two years since Cancer Bats hit up the UK for a tour but this year is slightly different. They’re now playing considerably bigger venues supporting their Sheffield pals While She Sleeps, with one noticeably smaller headline show in-between. A pub in Huddersfield.
Sold-out in 40 minutes after a surprise Facebook announcement in January, Huddersfield's Parish quickly became the go-to night of the tour for many fans and the lucky few who managed to get those gold dust tickets will tell you it was potentially the biggest.
On their last visit, I saw them in The Cockpit Leeds (RIP) for their Dead Set On Living tour with Brutality Will Prevail. It was a great mash up of anthemic metal and punishing hardcore that worked for me but saw some friction in the crowd between the HC crowd-killers and the Bats fans who just wanted to be left to headbang without a foot lodged in their chin.
There’s not a drop of bad blood in this place tonight. Frankly, there’s no room for it. Opening with ‘Satellites’, the recent single from 2015’s Searching For Zero, they are welcomed like an old pal who brought you a fantastic gift after an overdue visit. Thanks! I love gifts! Allow me to throw my limbs at you while I scream a song you wrote.
‘Pneumonia Hawk’ obliterates early on (This place is hell on earth/ this place is the worst) as the whole place stands in on the guest spot left open by Alexisonfire’s George Pettit. Usually, getting elbowed in the eye would aggravate a man but the furore is so high early on that I was pretty much welcoming it. I tried not to grumble too much about the hits to the temple and jaw too.
'Lucifer's Rocking Chair' and 'Deathsmarch' sound proud of their longevity as setlist regulars, like two prize-winning Great Danes that don't realise how rough they're playing with the kids.
As always, I’m over the moon they played ‘Sorceress’; arguably their fastest, most vitriolic cut ever. For a band who have songs titled ‘P.M.A ‘til I’m D.O.A’, this is just crammed with a seething hatred, I assume for a girl who didn’t treat him perhaps as good as he expected she might. Off my chest/ little girl you’re at the top of my shit list/ I swear to god you're the worst piece of trash I've met in a long while barks Liam in the opening lines, and that might be the rosiest few words in there. I can’t even tell you how the rest of the crowd reacted because at this point I was losing any remaining cool down the front.
Songs from their recent 2015 album do not come in lukewarm and meek. They're anvils on ropes being swung by Liam and co at the crowd, the walls, the poor bar staff. 'Arsenic In The Year Of The Snake' is pissed off as fuck. Superstition making sense to me/ too many friends died this year crows Liam during a second of silence before the band aggressively throws him back into the fight and puts us on our arses in the fallout.
'Cursed With a Conscience' rumbles under Liam's internal monologue before it overwhelms and brings the world down around us all (swallowed me alive/swallowed by the beast of my design).
I guess the P.M.A is getting harder to maintain behind the scenes and it shows in certain lyrics, but the show tonight is that of the four most fun-lovin', positive lads to ever slog it through years of touring. Liam's banter is nothing less than glowing with recognition and admiration for the fans and the show-runners; generally people he openly calls his friends. Life is tough and judging by his lyrics it's dealt Liam a generous shit sandwich from time to time, but we can all learn from the hair-whipping frontrunner for metal's Sunniest Disposition Award.
On that note, closers 'Sabotage' and 'Hail Destroyer' just endlessly rip, rip, rip. I'd love to have seen these songs play out in the more sprawling venues of the tour but I can't help but feel like this show was the realest deal on offer.
I wanted to write about every song and stage dive and hair-whip but I feared I might never have stopped. Playing in a shed behind a pub in Huddersfield, it’s never been more convincing that they’re deserving of the larger venues they’re playing on the rest of the tour.
PHOTOS: Darren Evans
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