Live: ILENKUS EP ‘Launch’ @The Poor Relation, Cork (07/04/17)… Posted: 28/04/2017 by John O'Brien
Friday the 7th of April it was time to get out and get ready for an evening full of heavy metal, hardcore and a lot of head-banging. ILENKUS were playing in The Poor Relation, Cork as part of their run of release shows for their latest “Hunger” EP. And also featured a couple of bands including BAILER, HORSE, PARTHOLÓN and DESTRIERS.
It got busy quite fast as things kicked off with DESTRIERS the first band of the evening with their heavy & experimental tunes. The mood was set for the evening and you could feel how people got more and more excited for the rest of the evening. After DESTRIERS’s short but sweet performance, it was PARTHOLÓN who were up next with their slow-ish and almost melodic heavy tunes. It felt like the guys tried to soothe the audience on purpose. Just in a dense and heavy kind of way. Definitely a very good performance and could have been considered as the “the calm before the storm” this evening.
Next up was HORSE. Another band from Cork that definitely knows how to get the crowd going and delivered a solid and energetic performance. With their hardcore influenced songs, they provided the perfect build up and hype for Cork’s Metal/Hardcore favourites BAILER. There was no denying, the excitement was clearly in the air! And The Poor Relation venue was also pretty full at this stage (around 10.55PM) when BAILER hit the stage. I couldn’t shake the feeling that many of the metal-heads present were actually here for BAILER. This Cork-based band also did not disappoint and delivered a very good show. They shot out one song after the other but also didn’t fail to let us know, what the guys have been up to lately. In fact, it was quite nice to see a bit of audience-interaction here. Considering that the first mosh-pit of the evening opened up whilst BAILER were playing, shows again how much anticipation was present for the lads.
Before they got to wrap up their show, BAILER told their fans that they are going to shoot more material for their new video. This lead to another round of moshing, headbanging and happy faces. After their performance it got less busy in The Poor Relation. However, the excitement was still in the air and everybody was looking forward to see ILENKUS finally on stage! They did not disappoint and hit it off immediately which gave us the feeling that it was not only us who were looking forward to this evening. The guys were more than ready to unleash material from their release on us.
It is hard to describe how good ILENKUS‘ performance was. It was nothing short of amazing and simply has to be experienced to be believed. Their heavy and dark-ish tunes, influenced by a lot of hardcore, pulled us into their band and even though they played for a good while, it felt like only 5 minutes. Time flies when you’re having fun! This was definitely a killer-show that should have not been missed. In case you did, though… make sure to catch them (and the other bands) at one of their upcoming shows.
Reviewed by Cornelia Krausz.
PLAYLIST FEATURING ALL FIVE BANDS…
