Live Review

The Radiation Line – Chorlton, Manchester

• 26th May 2010

In the murky depths of a dark street in a dark town there was a gig that promised a new world of universal transcending ambience and metal. None failed but the orgy of smoke, noise and feedback was more electric, violent and chaotic than any science festival of static. These people are the leviathans that Thomas Hobbes warned about, not because they are nasty, brutish and short more because their music a thump that all ear drums do not want to hear.

To the nth degree, first ensemble down in the dungeons of grime and dirt were C.S.B. A twosome made from two of Manchester’s finest. This is not the sweet sound of an innocent virgin, but the sound of a vicious vampire climaxing and arching with deathly howls of guitar effects. Hardly the serving you might expect, but the orgasmic frothing on the cake was in the grinding, pulsating heart of the drum sticks the teasing, biting and snapping of the guitar. The Shropshire lad quite clearly came for one reason, the excitement, the music and lifestyle, a wise choice.

After some fairies dancing around some painful trumpeting the reverential James T. McKay led from the font. The Radiation Line smashed and tore its way through the heart and soul of monolithic Stirling based noise. Sounding more like the monsters of fantasy the delicate balance restored to fairy tale with Page like bass playing. Yes, a bow came out for the bass but this only added strains for melancholic contemplation, the sort when a child is lost and buried at sea. They could not sustain it forever and the set was brought to an abrupt end, nothing wrong with the music, but more to do with the disgruntled audience taking taste law into their own hands. Flying bits of plywood and string always make for an emotional end.