Live Review: Fit For a King, Emmure & Thrown at The Electric Ballroom (12/12/23)
Metalcore heroes Fit For A King descend upon the Electric Ballroom tonight, boasting a ferocious lineup with the extremely heavy Emmure and the violence inducing Thrown.
I can say now, I was a very quickly converted Thrown fan. 4th song in and it was all blending together in some contorted, monstrous wall of sound that made me want to get my feet up in the air, naughty I know, but that’s how brilliant they were. Combined with a fantastic stage presence from every member and a wonderful mix, Thrown are not a band to miss. Check these spinny boys out and ‘Throw-n’ down for em’ if you get the chance. (I’m not sure if that joke works but you get the idea.) It’s genuinely just a wall of mind melting riffs, aggressive insanity,. It’ll slow down for just a second just to come back and crisp up your entire face. They’re over far too soon and it’s a genuine shame they don’t have longer tonight!
Emmure are up next with an explosion of gritty, downtuned noise. No messing about here as they shout in unison ‘get the f*** up!’ You can watch the pit implode into a sea of flying arms and legs, second song in they start teasing a huge breakdown and you see the entire crowd move as one, splitting into two smaller sections before they all run into each other and collide into a literal pit of violence. Extremely harsh chugs from that EIGHT STRING combined with that disgusting china cymbal make for stompy music which I am very pleased about. As their set goes on it’s much more of the same, and it can get a bit tiring sometimes. In any case I want more stompy bands on big stages please!
Fit For A King have their work cut out for them following 2 insanely heavy bands, and I think the difference in sound is actually going to be a little bit jarring. Going from 2 extremely heavy hardcore-esque bands to a tried and true metal-core sound is difficult. I’m not sure if the lineup was particularly well thought out in that case.
It very quickly becomes clear Fit For A King were meant for this stage, the crowd is so involved, singing along to every single word. You can hear it wherever you are in the venue, their massive choruses echo throughout the entirety of Camden. The mix is good, perhaps slightly bass heavy, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re a fan of big sub drops. Which I am! Their vocalist belts out every single word in a what can only be described as a beautiful sound. The drums sound fantastic and if you came for fat riffs, you’ve got plenty of that here. Massive crowd choruses are split up between heavy breakdowns and plenty of their bassist spinning and the crowd seems to be responding well to their sound BUT, and this is a bit but. Truth be told I’m not the biggest fan, there’s a little too much of the ‘clean’ stuff for my taste. There’s plenty of the heavy stuff but it’s constantly split up by the band trying to impress fickle metalcore fans. Every now and then they play a ‘heavier’ – ‘older’ song. The venue explodes with every ‘old’ track they play, yet the newer stuff doesn’t seem nearly as well received. This is becoming a problem with every big ‘metalcore’ band I see. Where they pepper in older songs in their setlist in some weird attempt to appease all fans. It’s frustrating as you get these huge songs that are heavy as fuck, but it’s so split up with a songs that are clearly built around breaking into the mainstream. Which I also understand, metalcore fans ARE fickle, you can release one song and they’ll forget about it next week for the next Spiritbox release. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s got a vaguely predictable breakdown at the very end of it.
I don’t mean to be mean about Fit For A King at all, I think I’ve just seen far too much of exactly this. Bands being stuck between their older heavier sound and their much more modern, refined melodic metalcore sound. It’s fine, I’ve got nothing against it but in the big year of 2023 I think it’s stale. They’ve got to grow out of it if they want to be playing venues bigger than Electric Ballroom. I only bring this up because the venue is nowhere near sold out. There’s maybe two thirds of capacity here, and for such a ‘stacked’ lineup I feel like this should be sold out in London of all places. I don’t think this is to do with the supports, the place or the people. I think this is to do with your headliner and how they can’t place themselves between the ‘modern’ and the ‘old.’ The mosh pit which should be full of aggressive youngsters ‘throwing shapes’ is not full. It’s half full of people half assedly pushing each-other around. It’s all centred around middle of the road breakdowns which don’t impress me. I’ve seen enough palm muted 1010 riffs for one lifetime and truly, I expect more from a band like Fit For a King.
This entire thing becomes a vicious cycle of me being frustrated with just how ‘tried and true’ metalcore becomes. The rest of the guys make fun at me being a ‘hardcore kid’ but good god, at this point I’m glad I found other music to obsess over, it all sounds the same, and it’s disappointing with how many fantastic metalcore artists there are out there.
Fit For a King, Emmure & Thrown at The Electric Ballroom
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Fit For a King - 7/10
7/10
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Emmure - 7.5/10
7.5/10
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Thrown - 8.5/10
8.5/10