Fear Factory + Breed77 + Misery Index - Pyramids, Portsmouth.16.04.06.

Another gig I would have probably missed if I had not been working it, having seen Fear Factory once before and finding them slightly on the boring side, as was today with around four hours of sitting around waiting for small jobs to do while the bands sound checked. You get to that point where you just want to bang your head against the wall, thank god I don't have to do it every day...no wonder they turn to girls, drink and drugs!

Americans Misery Index are up first and a half hour set of crushing grind core that brings to mind Napalm Death but with slightly longer songs delivered with a vicious vocal attack. No time here for nice melodies, delicately woven guitar lines, oh no, just pure adrenalin driven angry and angular metal that induces headbanging on and off stage. Perhaps a little extreme for half the people in tonight but probably my favourite for their sheer bloody mindedness in not letting up the pace; the kind of band I would love to see in a small venue, The Frog downstairs would have been ideal, as the band whipped up a whirlwind of noise and chaos and fans would have been hanging from the ceiling pipes and wrecking the joint rather than standing nicely beyond the sterile security barrier.

Breed77 have been lurking around the metal scene for a number of years since they released an EP on ORG Records back in 1999 (and very fine it was too) and have recently refined their sound and headed towards the lower reaches of the charts, this is reflected in their well crafted set tonight. They play well but are probably the least exciting band tonight and come across as professional rather than passionate and put me in mind of those bands that have crossed into the mainstream such as Lost Prophets; that's not to say that there are not decent tunes in there, it's just you get the feeling that these sort of big support slots are just a job and a stepping stone and come across as slighlty sterile. Having sat in on the soundcheck it is obvious these guys can really play but all those nice little interesting touches are lost in the big scheme of things tonight; they've always combined a hint of melody with their metal but at the moment the tunes sound like they have one eye on the charts which is a real shame.

Fear Factory are here to plug their 2005 album Transgression and have a run through some of their extensive back catalogue. From opener 540,000'f it's a full on cyber metal attack of the highest order and tonight I'm finding it much more to my taste; whereas last time they looked like they were going through the motions, tonight they looked hungry and sounded impressive as they worked through a set list including Demanufacture, Edgecrusher, Descent, Pisschrist, Linchpin, Cyberwaste and Replica as fan after fan surfed over the barrier. In all they work through a 19 song set complete with an ill drummer while the packed crowd love every note and demonstate that Fear Factory in 2006 are still a force to be reckoned with and if the gaggle of girls hand picked from the audience that are lurking side stage are anything to go by they are still very much living the rock n roll dream!