I've obviously not been doing a good job keeping up with the local heavy metal scene news as Collisions, who were to open the show tonight had split up at the end of January. Which was a shame because I enjoyed their set at Breakdown last year. It was not until I arrived at the venue that I realised River Becomes Ocean had replaced them on the bill so I missed their set.
 
However it's not hard to see why The Algorithm were invited over from France to support the Qemists tour. They have an interesting mix of sounds from Jean Michel Jarre style keyboard licks, dirty bass, mental drumming and the occasional dance loop thrown in. They performed an entertaining set with Rémi Gallego moving between playing the guitar, keyboard and sampler throughout the show while Jean Ferry kicked out the beat on the drums, often with plenty of double kick drum action. The set had a good balance of gentler moments as well as some funky or bluesy interludes along with the heavy 'thrash out' parts.
 
Most of the time The Algorithm seem like well known loops played at full volume with metal guitar licks or keyboard loops laid over a solid heavy live drum sound, which is very easy to get into and be swept up in their musical journey. They soon had the crowd on their side and were a perfect warm up act.
 
As soon as The Qemists hit the stage the energy levels in the venue went up several gears. Both on the stage and amongst the audience. The first track sounded like it was from their upcoming album 'Warrior Sound' and got the place nicely warmed up. At the end singer Bruno Balanta introduced their newest member… Olly Simmons. For those of you who know Brighton's metal scene… Yes, that is the same Olly who used to be in Collisions. Having not picked up on this before the gig I was pleasantly surprised by this announcement.
 
The two of them launched into the track Lost Weekend, which seems quite appropriate as the original track was recorded with Mike Patton and Olly already seems an excellent replacement. In fact Olly joining the band could well be that missing ingredient they did not realise they needed to take them on to the next level. Similar to when Mike Patton joined Faith No More.
 
The Qemists continued to crank up the pace with another new track called Humanity also off their upcoming album. The light show then went into overdrive for Dirty Words with the strobes kicking in and the frontmen jeering up the audience.
 
There was however a short respite in the middle of the set where the singers left the stage and the rest of the band let rip, giving Bruno a chance to change the batteries on his GoPro… as throughout the set he had the camera pointed in front of him, filming what he saw.
 
For the remainder of the set they featured many of their classic songs, saving a couple of stunts for the encores. Bruno announced he had a bet before the gig with the sound engineer that he could crowd surf to the mixing desk and during the penultimate song which easily made it there and back. Then in the final song they got the crowd to crouch down and do a 'Maasai Warrior' jump.
 
Throughout the performance they kept saying 'You give us energy and we will give it back' and I think the energy was flowing well in both directions all night long.
Jonski Mason
 
Website: theqemists.com