183. Stone Sour
O2 Academy Brixton
4 December 2017
Tonight’s sermon at Brixton Academy comes courtesy of Stone Sour, fronted by Corey Taylor, the man who somehow juggles Slipknot’s masked mayhem with his “grown-up” side project, which is a bit like watching Frankenstein start a motivational-speaking career.
This is a band that one of my best pals has been busting to go see and, fair’s fair, I have dragged him along to more than his fair quota of my own musical odysseys, so this was an easy concession to make. It was not much of a stretch for me; I did quite like their latest album. It was thoughtful, dare I say it had some Prog bones to it; the sound of a band wondering what would happen if they tidied up the garage and read a book.
The support act is The Pretty Reckless who arrive like a half-hearted rebellion in fishnets. Taylor Momsen is still up there doing her rock’n’roll power-poses and pouts, whilst dry humping the stage monitors. I said it last time I saw the act, and I haven’t changed my opinion, she may be easy on the eye, but not the ear and there is a collective impatience visibly stirring in the audience for her to get a move on.
When finally, the lights dim for the main act, the crowd roars, and Taylor bounds onstage like a man who’s just been shot out of a T-shirt cannon. He’s all charisma and combat boots, barking orders at the crowd before the first riffs have even landed. “Are you ready, London?” he screams, and before anyone can answer, “Taipei Person/Allah Tea” detonates across the Academy.
Stone Sour are, it must be said, tight. The riffs are massive, the choruses surgically engineered for radio, and the lighting rig looks like it was built by NASA. The band hammer through the first few songs with military precision, and for a while, it’s intoxicating pure, big-budget catharsis.
That said, they do seem to suffer from the same flaws that plagues many a metal band, that of sameness. Each song arrives in the same formation: riff, snarl, chorus, hair flick, pyro, repeat. There’s not a note out of place, not a bead of sweat wasted and that’s sort of the problem. For a group with so much firepower, there’s something weirdly clinical about it all.
Taylor, to his credit, gives everything. He stalks, jokes, roars, and even attempts banter, at one point dedicating “Tired” to “everyone who’s had a rough year,” which in 2017 meant the entire room. He’s a consummate frontman, and the crowd obeys every barked command. Arms wave, horns rise, and a small circle pit opens up.
The new material from Hydrograd sounds enormous, whilst the older tracks: “Through Glass” and “Bother” reveal the band’s inner power-ballad enthusiast. Then, as if worried things were getting too emotional, Taylor yells “Let’s wreck this place!” and the band launches into “Absolute Zero.” Cue fire cannons, fretboard heroics, and a mosh pit that briefly threatens to collapse the floor.
It’s big, loud, ridiculous, everything rock should be, and a little of what it shouldn’t. The encore, a thunderous “Fabuless” complete with confetti cannons launches us back into the cold Brixton air, with the cleaning crew, once again, muttering under their breaths.
Stone Sour are a band you can’t help but admire, even if you sometimes roll your eyes. They’re bombastic, sincere to a fault, and so determined to make rock mean something again.