The air was thick with excitement outside Bar Eden as everyone knew that tonight three brilliantly picked bands were due to output their musical artform under the category of heavy metal, and heavy it was indeed. Tonight we are graced with instrumental specialists Love Of Chaos who are new to the spotlight, but rest assured are made up of a great selection of experienced, talented musicians from the lands of Auckland.. Next would then be the new band on the block Primacy who are popping their gig cherry tonight as a band but certainly not as individuals, just like Love Of Chaos; Primacy are somewhat an Auckland super group in metal, made up of musicians known for being in other bands. At the end of the night it would be awe-proggy Dead Teach The Living who finish off the night as they export a juicy blend of progressive and extreme metal with a bit of punk sprinkled on top.
I have to be perfectly honest, I did turn up a tad late… but not too late that I missed the majority of Love Of Chaos’ songs. I think i need to reconsider my choice of word to describe their set list, I should probably just say song. Love Of Chaos took me the moment I realized that they were simply playing one long song for the duration of their set which was just over 30 minutes. What I like about these kinds of sets/albums is that when it’s done the right way it ends up sounding epic! For the moments that I was listening to LOC It was very well done and obviously very well rehearsed. If you let yourself be taken by the golden instrumentation outputted by these men, you’d be silly not to realise they are leading you through a roller coaster of emotions, feelings, timbres and essentially is one long story, in musical artform. When you hear Corey Frylander play the drums setting the beat that your heart will be syncing to as you instantly get drawn in, same thing goes when you hear Tim Gainsford transition from his atmospheric melodies to heavy ass riffs.
Next up was the highly anticipated Primacy on stage for the first time ever. For their first time they pulled one hell of a crowd as it was packed to the grills at the bar with a line of at least 2 or 3 people waiting on their beersies. Frontman and personal friend Jason McIver takes to the stage for his set with Primacy and without time to waste they begin playing. The first thing that I actually noticed was that Jason was having a bit of technical issues with his mic as he noticed it was quite sensitive to that darn feedback, after correcting himself quickly he begins singing cleanly which instantly drew everyone in, along with the lights those elements instantly encouraged me to move closer to the stage. It wasn’t just McIver who was pulling me toward the stage, but also Will Bloodfarm’’s beasty, hard-hitting rhythms and of course Adrian Von Brausch monster guitar playing and what could very well be one of the fattest, heaviest, chunkiest guitar tones I’ve heard come out of Auckland, I’m not even exaggerating It’s actually so refreshing to hear. Primacy were doing exceptionally well for their first gig together but I did have a few points that I feel were consistent thoughts of mine as I watched their set. I feel as if they sound great but lacked connection between each other as musicians and also a connection to the crowd. Watching the musicians I noticed they were each more focused in what they were doing in their own little world as opposed to all playing together as a group. Also I noticed that they went a bit out of time at some points.
The Last band to terrorise the neighbors were the mighty Dead Teach The Living hailing from the darker parts of West Auckland and are a band i’d always be happy to see live, saying so I think this would be about my fifth time. It was a shame that not everyone shared my thoughts about them because as soon as Primacy packed down and DTTL set up it’s seemed that 60% of the crowd had left to go home which to me it shows the way the Auckland metal scene is actually. People need to start sticking around for all the bands as opposed to supporting just one band. Anyway, DTTL took the stage for themselves and started to play their first song. There may of not been as many people, but they were sure as hell the only band to have a mosh pit and real crowd movement and I made sure of that myself. Dead Teach graced us with some new material that they been brewing up. To be honest I found that their newer songs actually sound maybe too similar to their songs on their first album. I would definitely be interested to hear what they would sound like if they took a slightly different approach to their music but still keeping their iconic sound they differentiates them from all the other bands from NZ. In totally I had the most fun whilst listening to these crazy musicians.
Overall it was a splendid night with great vibes, sweet music and awesome people at the perfect venue for the occasion, They had some nice beers too.
Primacy are 5-piece alternative metal band from West Auckland. They incorporate a groove metal base with other elements of hard rock, progressive metal and a twist of blues flavour.
Primacy were formed in 2014 after the split of well know local bands The Blacklight Configuration, Overhaile and Heathen Eyes – the timing was right, the songs were right and the team was right, Primacy came together as a collective around guitarist Adrian Brausch's new and unused material from his former band Overhaile.
Their first EP Failure and Sacrifice was released in 2016, and followed by a mini-EP in 2017 III.