The third and final day of a festival is usually a bit more chill and relaxed with people usually starting to feel the festival fatigue. Sunday at Core. is a different story though, with a line-up that’s the a lot more metal focused than the previous two days. What I like about festivals is that you usually have a handful of must-see bands, ones you know quite well and you’re really excited to see live. But it also gives a great opportunity to find out about new exciting bands you haven’t heard of before. Which is the case for the first three bands I saw on this Sunday.
Starting off at the small room in the Woodside Halls, The Rhubarb from Glasgow had the honour of starting the day’s celebration of noise, and they played a good set of psychedelic stoner doom with amazing soulful vocals from both the frontman and the female bass player. I was sad to see the bass player breaking a string towards the end of the first song, but she picked it up really well trying to add bass parts to the remainder of the set where she could. Gout played next at The Hug & Pint, and this band was a complete mystery to me, as I haven’t been able to find anything on them online. Someone told me later in the day that it was their first gig, and if that’s true then they did extremely well. Their overall sound is probably best described as doom with screamo vocals, and everything was going really well along those lines until midway through the set where they all of a sudden started this amazing folk song with multiple harmonies. The rest of the set built up in heaviness once more, with their last song even including a big rap. On paper it might not work well, but live the mix of genres worked great and they showed a lot of passion on stage. They’re supporting Inter Arma at The Hug & Pint in November, so if you are in the Glasgow area then you should definitely check them out. The third “unknown” band was next, namely Gravus Tristus, also from Glasgow. Seeing the 4 robed musicians making their way on the to stage instantly made the association with Sunn O))) or some other stoner doom band, and I wasn’t wrong. After a brief intro on the trombone they played a hefty set of Electric Wizard inspired occult doom metal, demonstrating great playing and loads of dual guitar parts, which is always a win in my books. So yeah, three bands in, great start of the day.
Gravis Tristus
The first band to open the main stage were Edinburgh were Edinburgh progressive post-metal masters Dvne, who never disappoint, playing a set that mainly focused on their latest album Voidkind. The sound quality was really noticeable too, as last time I saw them in Edinburgh the synths were lost in the mix a bit, but here they were perfectly present in the sound. It was great to speak to some people who hadn’t seen them for years who commented how much they’ve grown as a band. We’re quite proud in Edinburgh to have a band like Dvne.
Dvne
After Dvne it was a quick walk back to The Hug & Pint for a much-anticipated show, namely Hexis from Denmark. This was probably one of the more relentless shows of this year’s Core., with non-stop double kick pedal, blastbeats, fierce riffs and blackened screams. This band knows how to put on a great blackened hardcore show, with strobe lights flashing constantly in the dark adding to the intensity of their tight live set. Before you knew it, it was all over with people having that “what the fuck did I just witness?” look on their faces. Brilliant stuff.
Back to the main stage to watch The Fall of Troy, who played a great, loud mathcore influenced post-hardcore set. The singer/guitarist Thomas Erak was constantly engaging with the audience trying to make people to move and dance resulting in a decent mosh pit. I had never seen them before, and I was quite impressed with their energy on stage and the technicality of their musicianship, with Thomas hitting every note on his fretboard effortlessly. Back to the small room for some ferocious black metal delivered by Underdark, who laid down some fierce riffs and super tight blastbeat drumming. It’s always great to see a no nonsense black metal band, no gimmicks, just great music and a great vocalist in Aby Vasquez, who is also an amazing front woman, engaging greatly with the audience as well. Next up on the main stage was Author & Punisher, laying down a huge industrial set. It’s always amazing to see the set-up main man Tristan Shone uses, with self-built and designed instruments and controllers, adding an actual physical element to the industrial music. He was accompanied by a guitarist for this live occasion, which added some good riffage as well.
Underdark’s Aby Vasquez in the Core. audience.
Author & Punisher … “These Machines Kill Fascists”
Thanks to Scotrail for messing about with their timetable and having the last train back to Edinburgh leave at 10pm, the next band Omo was my last of this year’s Core., and I therefore sadly had to miss Empire State Bastard. Omo is what we call a super group, with the band members coming from well-established and somewhat legendary Glasgow bands Mogwai, Desalvo, Aerogramme, The Twilight Saw and Take A Worm For A Walk Week. They describe their sound as being heavily influenced by bands like Sleep, SUNN O))), Boris and Harvey Milk, and they couldn’t be righter as they produced some lush warm and heavy doomey sounds, with their singer manically throwing his screamy vocals at the audience. This also made me realise how much I miss bands like Desalvo and Take A Worm For A Walk Week, who were always so much fun to watch live!
So, that was my Core. 2023, and what a trip this year’s festival was! I had a lot of fun, watched some brilliant live performances and discovered a bunch of new bands. The organisers took all the feedback from last year on board really well, with a much improved main stage and even more inclusivity on the festival line-up. Next year’s Core. will take place in September and early bird tickets will be on sale soon. Keep your eyes peeled on their website to find out more.
