Sunna
plus support: Biffy Clyro - Hell is for Heroes
Manchester Hop & Grape
13 May 2001

review by Ruth

Hell is for heroes have the weight of expectation hanging on their shoulders - they comprise of two ex-members of Symposium among others, and after the mixed reaction to the direction taken by Hagop perhaps the lead singer's quiet and docile stage between-song banter is justified. Until they rip into the set and start playing... At the time the vocals ressemble At The Drive-In's skewed take on rock, or Crackout without the punk sensibilities, but they're not disinclined to throw in a beaten up drum machine, or kick the technical tricks for straightforward riffage either. Even without the cult following of previous fans, it isn't difficult to see the capability for same charm that Symposium worked wrapping itself around hearts again.

Biffy Clyro don't so much start with a bang, but the wimper of an abandoned field mouse after it's just been attacked by a rather bored cat. It's not until about four minutes into the first song that most of the audience notices they've started, when the guitarist starts screaming into the mike like his throat is on fire. Which was nice. It takes the audience a while to get used to the striking contrasts between parts of Biffy Clyro's set; they're as adept at heartrending melancholy as at their Kurt Cobain thrash hybrid - but by the end of recent single 27 they're hooked. Like the little girl with the little curl, when they were soft they were very very soft. When they were loud, they were fucking dynamite.

Last time we caught up with Sunna, it was at a psychadelic stoned late evening at the Roadhouse, most of which I spent standing at the side taking photographs of the bassists extraordinarily long legs, trying to avoid the fear. Quite an impressive feat for a band considering I was clean and sober at the time. Tonight though, what was intangibly beyond the band's grasp last time, that quality which explains why Sunna crossed the atlantic several times before their first album was out, lies firmly clenched in their fists.

Maybe it's not so unexplainable why they're on Massive Attacks Melankolic label. Sunna deal with a dark side of psychadelia, that paranoid neverworld where faces change under invsible lights and you're never quite sure if your hands are your own. 'Grape' reaches into your heart and pulls your fragile side through your defenses. And in that moment they lay into your body with abusive, head-pounding riffs, like the crunching seduction of 'I'm Not Trading'. Place them between the paranoia of the Warp label, gothic industrial and the catchy angst-friendly guitar talent of "nu-metal". They come to fuck with your mind and your body. And liberate both in the same breath.