The Zico Chain

You’d be hard pressed to find a band that looks as downright 'rawk' as The Zico Chain. Frontman Chris Glithero sports long, straggly blonde hair, heavily tattooed arms, and a rather fetching t-shirt that displays the logo of daytime favourite “This Morning”. Their drummer Ollie has the most impressive hair in rock, and a “Knovas Carpets” t-shirt (a reference to his mum's carpet cleaning business – and as promised Ollie, here’s your advert: if your carpet hasn’t been cleaned by Knovas carpets, it’s not a clean carpet), whilst guitarist Paul towers over the crowd, throwing his long black hair around wildly.

One thing is for sure – if opening act State of Affairs are not playing better slots in the future, something is wrong with the music industry. They play an incredibly infectious mix of indie tinged punk, and were tight, with a genuine vibrance that shined throughout the performance.

Songs such as “You’re Not Listening”, “Disengage” and “Confront Your Fear” may only give a brief glimpse of what they are capable of, but have a quality that rewards repeat listens.

The band even manage to pull off a fantastic little cover of the Buzzcocks classic “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have)”, and make it their own, putting even more energy into it. State of Affairs – see them now, you’ll be paying a lot more to see them later.

It’s unfortunate that this is a three band gig – stand up Phoenix for the Flames and take a bow – they manage to produce music so awful that even their mums would dismiss them as terrible. Totally devoid of charisma, they play the same tedious shouty metal mixed with a little bit of emo and indie that many, many pub bands have been peddling for many years without success or acclaim.

After a half hour wait, Manchester threesome The Zico Chain bound onto the stage, blasting straight into new mini-album opener “Rohypnol”. The band have more vigour than could be described by words – they have an amazing amount of stamina throughout their set – and their simple yet addictive grunge/metal could fill the largest of arenas, never mind smaller venues such as the Viewfield.

The moshpit-friendly set continued into “Na Na Na Na Na” (which sounds nothing like the Kaiser Chiefs song of the same name), and “Roll Over”, a song so angry and pounding that it manages to make all the endless Nirvana and Motorhead comparisons seem really half-hearted – Nirvana never managed to come up with songs as energetic or bitter as this.

It’s clear that the band have managed to write songs with no flab whatsoever; everything is there for a reason. It’s this sort of song writing ability that the likes of Pixies managed to conjure up, and somehow frontman Chris manages to scream with much more of an intensity that Black Francis ever mustered.

The set was rounded up after 45 minutes with mini-album closer “The Lonely Ones” (which admittedly sounds like a pseudo-metal version of “No Wow” by the Kills at points), and drummer Ollie dives into the crowd, jumping around in the moshpit that has been going strong throughout the entire set.

The only real problem that can be drawn from the set is a big question mark over whether the energy omitted tonight could be contained over a longer set, when all was finished, everyone was completely out of breath, with sweat dripping off from faces (and Knovas will have a tough job getting that out of the carpet).

The Zico Chain are a band that now have the ability to take the big step up into the bigger leagues of rock. Heavy yet accessible, angry yet approachable, simple yet intriguing. Catch them at Download – they’ll be playing the bigger stages sooner rather than later.

SETLIST:

Rohypnol
Na Na Na Na Na
Roll Over
Where Would You Rather Be?
1-2-3-4
Social Suicide
Fucked
Your Favourite Client
The Ballad of Tears And Angels
The Lonely Ones

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.