Bands: The Ocean, Cave In, LLNN
Venue: 170 Russell, Melbourne, Australia
(Naarm, Woiwurrung Country)
Date: 14th June, 2024
Review by Ziggy Thunders
Photos by Dave Collopy
The walls of 170 Russell will never be the same after The Ocean, Cave In and LLNN tore the place apart with their monumental heavy sets.
For the first time ever LLNN have escaped Europe for an international tour, accompanying labelmates The Ocean on their Australian tour and my god did they make an impact tonight at 170 Russell.
Red lights flooded the stage, vocalist/guitarist appeared as a dark, brooding silhouette, two intimidating stomps timed with introduction The Horror – and the sound cuts. An unfortunate technical problem arose as a result of being too heavy (confirmed the sub rattled a few cables loose), to which the vocalist said ‘Well, that fucking sucks…’
I fell in love with this band at this moment and I think everyone else in the crowd did too. LLNN handled the incident with humour and resolved it quickly like absolute champions, before they discarded the intended opening track and ripped into their set.
LLNN delivered a set worthy of being a soundtrack for a brutal, scifi horror movie while playing songs from their latest record Unmaker. The guitar and bass were tuned to the depths of hell and churned out slow, crushing riffs like those featured in Imperial. Vocals cut through in gut wrenching shouts like the vicious chant of ‘it’s never you, it’s me’ in Scion, along with drums that pummeled along underneath in a mesmerizing sway of impending doom. The synth provided the most sinister soundscapes that lingered underneath throughout the set, building to create a cinematic atmosphere reminiscent of the Bladerunner soundtrack to me. You could feel the band’s energy as they worked together to create this immense, foreboding sense of dread littered with moments of some kind of twisted euphoria.
The crowd broke out into a mosh as they closed with Obsidian, the heaviness kicked in and a wall of sound and dread crashed through the venue as the set came to a brutal, intense rumbling end.
Check out LLNN’s latest record Unmaker and if you get a chance go see them – do it.
CAVE IN
This is shaping up to be a night of firsts. It’s hard to believe that this was Cave In’s first time in Australia after an impressive thirty year career. You could feel the excitement in the room as they took to the stage, many fans eager to see them for the first time and many eager to see them again after a recent headline show in Melbourne. Lead guitarist/vocalist Stephen Brodsky took to the mic, shouting out ‘Melbourne’ a few times to get the crowd riled up before the band ripped into New Reality, the opening track from their latest record Heavy Pendulum.
A driving force of a riff kicked in and introduced us to their unique sound. With the start of their set showcasing newer songs from Heavy Pendulum. Featuring gritty, overdriven guitar tones that formed some of the most solid, catchy riffs from Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath like those in Blood Spiller and lead guitar moments that echoed like some sort of call from the void in Nightmare Eyes. High energy drums from John-Robert Conners that floated from more upbeat rock beats to slower, stripped back grooves in Blinded By A Blaze accompanied by some heavy, plodding bass lines by bassist Nate Newton. Stephen Brodsky’s clean vocals suited the sound perfectly, giving the music a haunting edge, and paired perfectly with the more harsher screams of bassist Nate Newton.
To round out the set Cave In took us back to their beginnings by revisiting some classics any longtime fan would’ve been happy to hear. Starting with a track off 1998’s Until Your Heart Stops, Halo of Flies, then Big Riff from 2000’s Jupiter, and closing the set with Sing My Loves from 2011’s White Silence. This took us back to their roots and the beginnings of their career where you can hear the foundation of their unique sound being formed, and the influence each decade has had on them as they’ve grown.
You could tell Cave In were incredibly happy to have finally made it to Australia, with Stephen Brodsky addressing the crowd at one point saying ‘It’s fucking good to be here with you.’ And I think I can speak for everyone in saying it was fucking good to be there with Cave In, too.
THE OCEAN
The Ocean are in a world of their own. Their songs tell tales from somewhere lost in the past long ago to the chaotic present day, taking inspiration from geological periods (brace yourself for the scientific name song titles later on) and the events that shaped our world as we know it. From the Triassic period to the current day Holocene, The Ocean uses these historic periods as inspiration and turns them into some of the most intense, hauntingly beautiful songs with lyrics that will make you sit down and reflect on everything you’ve ever known.
All went quiet as pink lights flooded the room, the stage was clouded with smoke, the excitement in the air could not be ignored. A repetitive, unsettling synth line echoed through the room as The Ocean appeared onstage. Lurking in a wall of fog they unleashed some sort of mythical beast as they played opening track Preboreal. The energy they delivered came from another place as the entire audience launched into movement – and it didn’t stop for the entirety of their 90 minute set.
The first half of their set consisted of tracks off their latest record Holocene, an incredibly dark synth driven record, with their unique signature riffs and thought provoking lyrics. Drifting between quieter reflective moments and heavier crushing walls of sound, they played through these songs and breathed a new devastating life into them with their live performance. Using lights, projections and smoke machines to create unique atmospheres for each song’s particular theme and the use of backlighting turned the band into eerie colossal silhouettes onstage as they performed.
The set took us on a journey through the most recent half of their discography, taking us from the depths of the ocean in Pelagial’s Bathyalpelagic III: Disequilibrated that is a masterclass in song structure and riff writing, with guitarists Robin Staps and David Ramis Ahfeldt going from slower menacing doom to hard and fast black metal inspired riffs with ease.
The Ocean revisited colossal records Phanerozoic I and II, covering the eras Palaeozoic and Mesozoic/Cenozoic, (basically what happened before, during and after the asteroid wiped out dinosaurs and changed the entire course of life on this planet). If anyone could capture the absolute heaviness of that time, the world collapsing, smoke that drowned out all light, the atmosphere literally burning – it’s The Ocean, and it’s these two records.
Oligocene provided an instrumental break midway through the set as Paul Seidel led the song with his lyrical drumming style. A minimal song with tremendous impact, lingering synths pulse in the background, a synth bass lifting rhythms, a guitar lead whirrs somewhere far in the distance as this melancholic hope wavers through you.
The Ocean decided to unleash all hell with their encore performance of Triassic and Jurassic/Cretaceous. A slow build of simple delayed guitars and synth leads to one of the most memorable bass lines you’ll ever hear, Mattias Hagerstrand delivers this ancient sounding groove. Before dropping into a thought provoking, repetitive spoken word like chant from vocalist Loic Rossetti, this same structure is called back in across the later half of their discography which creates this incredible bridge between the eras. Loic’s vocals fit the sound perfectly, as he delivers intense harsh screams and hypnotic clean vocal melodies, sometimes backed by Robin. The chemistry of the members works together so perfectly to bring these monumental songs and themes to life, and it’s such a special experience to see them live and immerse yourself in their world.
The name ‘The Ocean’ is really the most fitting summary of this band’s sound – vast, relentless and overwhelmingly powerful. The Ocean will be playing four unique anniversary performances of one of their most acclaimed records, Pelagial over the course of this year. One will be tonight in Melbourne (15th June, 2024) at The Corner Hotel, the other three will be scattered around the globe. This will be one for the ages.
Gig Gallery
THANK YOU SO MUCH to The Ocean, Cave In and LLNN for travelling all this way and putting on an incredible show! Thanks to 170 Russell, Dallas Does PR, everyone working behind the scenes to make this happen and of course, a massive thank you to Destroy All Lines for having us. We won’t be forgetting this one for a long time!