Show review by listener James Branstetter

Sup ITC!

I went to The New Reign tour last night with high expectations. Let me tell you this, I think it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Period. Maybe not THE BEST. But holy fuck. Lemme run through this bitch chronologically. 

We showed up about a half hour before show time, and some local band was on the stage. They weren’t bad.

1. Royals
Never heard of these guys before last night, and they honestly were not too bad. The vocalist was really struggling though, and his cleans weren’t the greatest. But they were very intense. Also, the bass player was left-handed, and was playing a right handed bass UPSIDE DOWN. Like he was playing with the low string on the bottom of the guitar.

2. Fire From the Gods
I looked these guys up before the show and didn’t really like what I heard. But they sounded good last night and had some nice mochas going on. They had one song that sounded super hardcore, almost like a Beartooth type of sound, but good.

3. Within the Ruins
I don’t know how you guys in ITC feel about this band, but this might be the band I was most excited to see. I fuckin love these guys. They’re super heavy, super technical, and just super in your face. Phenomena was the first album that I heard by these guys, and I remember being totally blown away by their style of music. They totally lived up to my expectations live too. The vocalist sounded killer, the guitarist nailed every technical part, the drummer didn’t rely on the china symbol, and the bassist was playing just as technical of shit as the guitarist. The energy they brought was intense as hell.

4. Oceans Ate Alaska
I try to give bands a fair chance but…
I mean just say their name out loud lol

5. Volumes
Again, I don’t know how you guys feel about this band, but I like these guys. Not a huge fan, but I enjoy quite a bit of their stuff. These guys brought it too. The crowd went INSANE for them. They sounded good, they sounded heavy, and the crowd was down for it. My only complaint is, every. single. breakdown. was *china china snare china china china snare*

That poor china symbol, man.

6. Born of Osiris
Holy shit. The legends themselves playing their legendary album front to back. I never gave any of their albums as much attention as I gave The New Reign. To hear that album live was fucking sweet. It also made me realize how hard it is to define what genre that album is. I’ve always called BoO a djent band, but that album has so much deathcore and prog infused into it, I don’t really know what to call it. The drummer and vocalists and bassist all sounded great, but Lee Mckinney had my attention the whole time. His machine gun picking is insane to see live, and we all know his leads are insane too. The best part is, he makes that guitar his bitch on stage. I don’t mean to fan-girl too hard, but it really was fuckin awesome. The weird part is, there wasn’t much moshing or shoving going on, but you could totally feel how into it the crowd was. Another thing I liked was that they hardly talked at all, just djenty djentiness for an hour and ten minutes straight. Beside The New Reign, they also played Machine, Tomorrow We Die Alive, and a couple of songs off Soul Sphere that I knew, but I can’t think of their names off the top of my head.

Seriously my dudes, if you get a chance to go see this show, drop what you’re doing and go see it. You will not be disappointed.

Stay good, my djentlemen.

Date: 2/17/2017
Venue: Cabooze in Minneapolis Minnesota

Written by listener James Branstetter