How good is going out and finding new music? Nothing convinces me more to listen to a new band than seeing them live. Tonight, I found 3 new bands that I will chuck on rotation, Make Them Suffer, Fit For An Autopsy and Ocean Sleeper. This sold-out show at 170 Russell had a packed line before the doors opened and a diverse crowd from the look of the band shirts, it’s great to see people come out to support Aussie bands on their tours and this is a celebration of Make Them Suffer’s 10-year anniversary of Neverbloom.

Opening tonight is Ocean Sleeper who came out hard, straight into a packed venue and had the crowd moving from the opening riff. Utilising the full stage set up, the energetic front man had crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. These guys have a great Metalcore sound with heavy verses and melodic clean choruses that had the everyone singing along. The whole band were appreciating the night, playing to a packed venue, and celebrating with friends on their album, you could just see it in how they were playing, the drummer didn’t stop smiling the whole time. If you are after Melodic and catchy, get out and see these guys, they wont disappoint.

Fit For An Autopsy hit the stage with a force so great that the entire crowd has to start moving to keep up with the riffs being thrown around. The music just got a hell of a lot heavier; we went from heavy Metalcore to straight up Deathcore heaviness. The venue is basically fully packed by this stage, and you can instantly see that the crowd are here to have a good time, circle pits break out, everyone is headbanging and bodies are flying everywhere! These guys had a solid mix, everything was crisp, the dissonant chords used were coming through clear and the drums sounded amazing, such a hard hitter! The track that won me over was Black Mammoth, go and have a listen to this one and you will see why, then go and catch these guys live if you want more convincing. If you are into Thy Art Is Murder, you will want to hear Fit For An Autopsy.

The reason we are all here tonight, Make Them Suffer’s Neverbloom albums 10^th anniversary, it’s being played in full. I had only checked out a couple of songs by these guys before tonight’s show, so I didn’t fully know what to expect. Firstly, these guys have an incredible light and sound to their experience, it’s evident that they have thought of most of, if not all aspects of their live performance for tonight. They had light bars and screens on the stage to accompany the music, it was an incredible show. We had the melody of Ocean Sleeper early on, followed by the brutality of Fit For An Autopsy and what better way to have Make Them Suffer come on who combine the two perfectly. As they progress through Neverbloom the crowd are unrelenting, they haven’t stopped all night, if anything they are going harder again for Make Them Suffer and it’s clear the band are feeding off that energy and pushing themselves harder. When Maelstrom and Weeping Wastelands start up the crowd go hard with the moshing and circle pits, the security have had minimal to watch all night, but the bodies start going hard over that front bar at this point. The singer stops at the end of the album to say thank you and that tonight is their biggest selling show in their careers, which is incredible to be apart of and witnessing, they are humbled at the fact they have come this far. They then end the set on their two latest singles, Ghost of Me and Doomswitch, which we hear their female vocals come in strong, a great way to end the night.

It always pays to get out of your routine and comfort zones to check out something fresh, you never know what you might enjoy, get out and go find some new local bands and support the scene, so that more Aussie Bands can get to this incredible Milestone.