Toledo Steel/Griever

Chaplin’s Cellar Bar, Boscombe

Tonight in Chaplin’s Cellar Bar in Boscombe there is a radical change of direction from the usual indie and folk artists that you might usually expect to see here on a typical Thursday night, two very different sub genres of metal are about to go head to head.

The first of these is “Griever” a local band who have only been together for only a short time but have made a real impact on the local scene following on in a similar vein to other Bournemouth bands like “Saint {The}Sinner” and “Death Of An Artist”. The 5 piece band hit the stage with masses of passion and energy, with their twin melodic guitars testing the Cellar’s sound system to the maximum. Lead singer David Seymour’s brutal screamo style vocals coupled with Luke Davis’s more conventional style really get the small crowd of fans whipped up and some of the band join the audience on the dance floor with a small circle pit around an archway. To be honest this is not really the ideal setting for a band like Griever as the need a much larger stage to perform, they are all like coiled springs full of large amounts of pent up youthful energy just waiting to leap into action. The songs such as the epic “Ascension” and final number “Died Before You Live” show just what this exciting band are really capable of, with plenty more larger gigs lined up in the future, I expect to see them gracing the pages of Kerrang in the not to distant future.

Griever 1–2

“Toledo Steel” are a band who are stuck in something of a time warp, the arrive on stage looking like they have stumbled out of a tradis from the 1980’s with masses of long hair, black jeans (with bullet belts), white training boots and metal band T-shirts with cut off sleeves. These guys are paying homage to the classical British heavy metal band’s like Judas Priest, Saxon, and of course Iron Maiden. Lead singer Rich Rutter is even wearing the leather fingerless gloves as usually worn by the likes of Rob Halford and has vocals are in the style of Bruce Dickinson in 1983, arguably best ever live metal album “Live After Death”? “Scream For me Long Beach”!!

Toledo Steel 1–2

The band are tight and good at what they do with song titles like “Speedkiller” and “Flames Arise” getting a few heads in the audience nodding along. The band’s only guitarist Kyle House could really do another axeman to bolster the band’s sound and give much more depth as is common place with most metal bands such as this. Despite the songs being good and well played this was not really enough, as the band were not particularly over exciting, with no real attempt in getting the audience involved. The ended with possibly their best song of the night a cover of Grim Reaper’s “See You In Hell” where finally the band seemed to find their stride and upped the pace to end on somewhat of a high. I am not sure that metal has really found a new home here tonight but it is great to see the Cellar Bar toying with a variety different genres to keep the punters entertained.

Set Lists
Toledo Steel
Escape From Alcatraz
Metal Thrash & Mad
Speedkiller
Flames Arise
Starbreaker
Fallen Empire
See You In Hell(Grim Reaper Cover)

Griever
Ghostface (Intro)
Your Existence Means Nothing
Ascension
Erase The Past
Through Struggle (As I Lay Dying cover)
Died Before You Lived

Videos
Toledo Steel