Hearts & Hand Grenades, Molly Karloff, SoulSwitch, Adam and The Hellcats
Hearts & Hand Grenades, Molly Karloff, SoulSwitch, Adam and The Hellcats
Fuel, Cardiff
01/09/2023
Live Review by Simon Black
Swansea-based promoters Midnight Tornado have been putting these events on for a while, and you have to admire their balls at going for pulling four out of town touring acts together on the same bill in a venue the size of Fuel, when it would have been financially understandable to use a couple of local acts and their home crowds. But I am glad that they did, because without this sort of bravado, the music scene would be a much duller place. The only downside of this is that four bands means shorter sets all round, but it does keep things punchy.
Bristol’s Adam and The Hellcats haven’t been seen in these parts for a while, and the last time it was opening up for The Wildhearts in a venue way, way larger, but they don’t let the fact that they’ve pulled the graveyard shift on a four-act bill slow them down. Ripping straight in with their slightly manic brand of Rock ‘n’ Roll, frontman Adam Feasy expects a loud and noisy Cardiff audience and cajoles and delivers until he gets one.
Getting six players onto the stage at Fuel (and one of them is Feasy’s dad) is no mean feat, which explains why SoulSwitch are walking around out front with their instruments around their necks already, but the Hellcats go for it, give 110% and get it back from the crowd. Their set is short and sweet and has left people wanting more, which let’s face it is a goal in the back of the net on a night like this.
https://www.facebook.com/AdamandtheHellcats
Florida’s SoulSwitch probably had a harder job than the openers, given that they’re a long way from home playing a tiny venue that wasn’t familiar with them, but it did not slow them in the slightest. The stage may be the size of a postage stamp, but the band used it well, opening with a well-rehearsed stagey intro that utilised their bristling and tight delivery well.
Their band of crisply technical yet fluid Melodic yet Alternative-tinged Metal wasn’t what I had expected given the more loose set of the openers, but their timing and skill was superbly efficient. The musicianship is tight, but the songs are well-crafted and hook-laden enough that the crowd very quickly came alongside, aided by a powerful vocal delivery from frontman Paul Mahoney. This is a band used to playing larger crowds on their home turf, and their twenty years of experience shows through. Within two numbers they’ve won this room over in no time and I for one am glad they’ve made the effort to cross the pond. Next time, it deserves to be somewhere larger, as this band knows how to work a room, and then some.
https://www.facebook.com/SoulSwitch
Oxford’s alternative hard rock/metal outfit Molly Karloff are in their early days, with only an EP and a couple of singles under their belts to date and a full album in the pipeline. Having two belting acts preceding them they have a challenge on their hands. Quite a lot of the crowd has moved into the bar and is chatting with the other bands, so they have to bring things back round the hard way, and their stripped back style (think Helmet but less aggressive) and the fact there’s only the three of them gives them a chance to make use of what little there is in terms of stage space. To be fair, given this is a band that’s had Covid as a backdrop to their existence means that live their material doesn’t fare so well as it does in the studio, but experience will polish that, and winning over hearts and minds in tiny venues by giving it your all is the way you do it.
https://www.facebook.com/MollyKarloff
New York’s Hearts & Hand Grenades first came across my bows when I reviewed their second album “Between The Lines” in 2021, which impressed me not least by the fact that it was their second album in one year, but that they managed this with all the disruption of Covid and only having recently been persuaded to switch from playing covers to writing and recording. That record was an absolute belter, and one I’ve come back to a few times in the years since, so I was keen to see how they worked live.
It’s safe to say I wasn’t disappointed. From the moment they hit the stage, Hearts and Hand Grenades owned it.
Singer / bassist Stephanie Wlosinski works as well live as she does in the studio, with a confidence, range and power to her delivery that is formidable, but with subtlety and harmony when needed. There’s an attitude born out of East Coast Punk, but a groove and looseness that good old-fashioned Rock ‘n’ Roll should live and breathe, but despite both these musical forms having a reputation for improvisation and looseness, H&H are also blisteringly technical and tight in their delivery, and with a rhythm section that my kidneys can still feel the aftershocks from.
The set may have been short, but it absolutely delivered the goods. More delightful than the delivery was the reception of the crowd who absolutely loved them, and when the band invited members of the support acts to join them onstage for the finale, they made sure the audience were involved, with Wlosinski and axeman Mike Bress taking the show into the crowd. This was a riotously fun and energetic performance, but as tight as a mosquito’s exit hole from a band who totally owned this place, and who hopefully will be back really, really soon.
https://www.facebook.com/heartsandhandgrenades
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