Live review: Resist of Agony, And the Sky is Grey, Last Word Said, Pitwater Youth Hostel @ Jugendclub West, Ratingen 22/02/2014

When we arrived at the – at least for us - unknown location, a really welcoming venue awaited us and a nice-smelling hotpot scent flew through the room in our nose. Everything was super tidy, the price for a drink was good, a nice backstage area with a football table was around as well and even the toilets were clean. The room for the show itself had professional equipment and the stage wasn’t as small as expected. About 200 people fit in it here and the venue was close to reaching its full capacity at the end of the evening.

The show started with Pitwater Youth Hostel from Wülfrath, who play music similar to Parkway Drive, Breakdown of Sanity and co. They showed us live that this was pretty accurate, so we got fast guitar riffs and brutal vocals to hear - sometimes accompanied by clean vocals which still have a lot of room to improve.  The Breakdowns didn’t really sound too generic and the boys had fun playing their music, which transferred to the crowd.

Further on, Last Word Said went on stage. You quickly could tell that this was all about a concept. Deathcore inspired music, paired with the outfits you would expect. The sound was well mixed and they definitely weren’t beginners, which was proven by their performance. More people went into the pit from song to song. But unfortunately it sounded like I’ve already heard their songs a thousand times before from other bands. Don’t get me wrong, they sounded pretty okay, but I wish more young bands would experiment and try out new things!

And The Sky Is Grey was up next and offered a fresh, experimental sound from the beginning until the end. ATSIG had a wide variety of songs which always had something catchy. While covering genres like screamo, hardcore and punk, it just didn’t become boring. Their mix of surprisingly well sung clean vocals and screams was harmonious. Stage performance was the keyword here – the band almost went more nuts than the crowd did. Great show!

Last but not least the headliner and organizers of the evening had to play, Resist of Agony. The crowd, and obviously the band as well, were super stoked. Music genre: mosh it! Deep growls and brutal riffs set a heavy line for every song. This lead through the whole show, more and more people couldn’t resist shaking a leg or swinging an arm. Between the heavy songs with a lot of messages, slow passages brought off a bridge to the next song, and gave us some time to breathe. It was clearly necessary because the music really had everyone caught on fire.

At this point I want to thank all of the bands and Jugendhaus West for a fantastic evening!



RESIST OF AGONY
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Resist-Of-Agony/368961379796929?fref=ts)

AND THE SKY IS GREY
(https://www.facebook.com/Andtheskyisgrey?fref=ts)

PITWATER YOUTH HOSTEL
(https://www.facebook.com/PitWYH?fref=ts)

LAST WORD SAID
(https://www.facebook.com/lastwordsaid?fref=ts)

By Marvin Krampe