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Cavern Club, Exeter - 24/8/04

Bands. Battling.

Junto sound like a band in their infancy. I could be wrong, maybe their just messing around, but they sound like they need to find a direction. As it stands they veer wildly between comedy rock, ska punk and, though for one song only, a kind of poppy metal quite reminiscent of Lostprophets. It has potential, but needs refining. First of all, drop the comedy. Playing The Final Countdown has been done before and done better. And that song about their friend who likes drinking was bad. Next, drop the ska, it was badly done. The punk parts of the songs were fine but the ska is a no no. The keys and the vocals also need quite a lot of refinement if they are going to add to the music at all. As far as I see it Junto have the potential to become either a quite good punk band or a quite good metallic rock band, but right now they are neither and are worse off for it too.
6 out of 10



If I’m feeling pissed off and you drop an Obituary album in my hand I’ll be as happy as a really grumpy pig in shit, but death metal when you’re feeling fine doesn’t work for me. Disaster In Ruin probably object to being tagged as death metal but when you’re playing breakneck speed metal with a vocalist snarling about dieing that’s what you are as far as I’m concerned. It was the vocals that didn’t fit as far as I’m concerned, extreme music like this needs a deep growl or grunt not a raspy snarl, it might work for some people and it was impressively evil but it didn’t do anything for me. That said they are clearly a talented group and are very good at what they do so if you’re feeling angry at everything in the world and want something to head bang to you could do much worse.
6 out of 10



This was far from the best I’ve seen Mad Library. Still utterly fantastic of course but not as good as they can be. MC Dom Coyote joined them for this gig and did a wonderful job of rapping over the insane funk of Mad Library as well as being incredible fun to watch. Dom Coyote is a definite boon for Mad Library if only because he makes them as fun to watch as they are to listen and dance to. That said dancing was actually harder than it usually is, some of the songs sounded like they were backing music to the rapping rather than tracks in their own right and as such weren’t as fun as the older songs which just had vocals on top. Oh, and they should be punished for not playing Sounds Like Time. The sad thing is though that despite all my complaining I still loved them and had a blissful time just letting the music run over me and have its merry way with my extremities on the dance floor. Please go see them if you haven’t already. Please go see them if you have. Go on. Please. They’re really good.
9 out of 10

You know those soulless covers bands that are at one and the same time both irritatingly talented and professional but also incredibly bad? Now imagine one of those bands playing songs you’d never heard before. Now imagine the songs were lowest common denominator pop rock crap. Bingo! You’ve just imagined Those Who Walk Away. From the annoying Offspring style “Wooaa-ow” of the backing vocals to the wankish guitar solos everything about this band seems to scream “Love me! Please!”, probably with a few extra exclamation marks too. And because of this it gets right under my skin. It’s this kind of mindset that spawns groups like Maroon 5 and The Calling, no artistic merit but your kid sister will love it. And that says it all.

Richman’s Plaything are an interesting prospect. A DJ, a rapper, a violinist, a keyboard player, a guitarist and a singer coming together in a kind of hip-hopera. The nearest thing I can think of to compare them to is the wonderful funky, big band hip-hop of Captive State. But while Captive State are fantastic Richman’s Plaything are not. It doesn’t gel at all. Since the DJ plays practically complete backing tracks (including bad scratching) the keyboard and guitar are rendered completely redundant, the rapping is mediocre and singing underwhelming and the violin was inaudible. It is a fantastic concept and if they can get it together I might be interested, but as nice as it may sound on paper if the execution is this bad it’s worth nothing. Sorry.