Arcane Roots Deliver Excellence In Abundance At The Forum Hertfordshire
Published
The videos I watched of Arcane Roots in anticipation of experiencing them for the first time betray the band: front man and vocalist Andrew Groves, a clean cut groomed gent with a beautifully pitch-perfect falsetto, would lead one to assume this band were a carefully tailored three-piece, cut precisely to fit the frame of a musically-naïve, teenage-shaped Muse or Biffy Clyro fan. But on Thursday 30th October, the packed house in The Attic – the Forum Hertfordshire’s intimate live band stage – all minimal staging (strip LEDs and smoke) and a crowd simmering with anticipation, start to imply otherwise.
A mixture of leather-clad rock fans, scruffy skate punks, hipsters with uniform beards, pierced-up students and perhaps the odd normcore misfit (me), fill the room and confirm to me that this band are far from a precise or manufactured rock conduit, but the real deal with an army of dedicated fans to boot. This is a view that is reaffirmed as the band, a three piece from Surrey led by a now long-haired and heavily bearded Groves, roar into blistering action with "Slow"; clearly one of the band’s anthems if the passionate contribution from the crowd is anything to go by.
With the band quickly establishing their material has serious traction amongst their audience, the real proof of authenticity reveals itself as angular guitar riffs, menacing bass-lines and death growl vocals courtesy of Adam Burton, pound down and transforms the front of house into a sweaty mess of thrashing bodies.
The Forum’s Attic bar PA lives up to its reputation as ‘state of the art’ and does the band proud. The sound is magnificent and strong: a dense wall of feedback, distortion and thundering snares cut through by a stadium-sized sounding vocal from Groves give Arcane Roots’ cacophony of hardcore clarity and poise, with that falsetto hitting every note without fail.
The energy continues throughout their set and across the entire hour Groves, Burton and drummer Daryl Atkins are on nothing but full power. The set pace is persistent as the band tear through their repertoire, smashing out song after song and, if the crowd is anything to go by, hit after hit. A lone song from 2011’s "Left Fire" plus two new unreleased tracks fill a set mostly centered around 2013’s album Blood & Chemistry.
Well-rehearsed and oiled, Arcane Roots’ performance set is unbelievably tight. Even the tuning is a carefully controlled process designed to let performance and preparation bleed into one: the single tone of a G note being struck slowly dissolves into a sustained feedback full of promise.
A heartfelt acknowledgement and thanks from a worn out and sweaty Groves in response to the audience’s rapturous appreciation for the encore, echo my feelings about tonight’s performance: it is nothing short of convincing.
Words by Nate Taylor
Pictures by Jonathan Yip of SHOT BY YKT.
