Calicade – Done With City Point (review)

Calicade – Done With City Point

Self Released


Thanks to its grey skies and violent nightlife, Manchester has mainly spent the noughties developing a habit of producing raucous metal bands…just as one might expect from a city with a reputation for drug fuelled indie rock, I suppose.
Calicade, with their debut full length Done With City Point continue the trend to an extent, but there’s a bit more to their sound than the usual shout n’ thrash fare.
They sound accomplished musically, to the extent one could fairly compare their riffs to the complex chopping of Parkway Drive. But while the beast has a metal hide, its heart is hardcore, with Comeback Kid’s gutsy gang vibe seeping through.
Frontman Daniel Tetlow’s voice is somewhat unconventional for this family of music in that he produces more of a yell than a roar, giving him a distinctive, if slightly unstable quality. Sometimes it works well and offers a raw, unleashed feel to the band, although on occasional it seems like he’s straining to make himself heard in the mix.
Atmospheric breakdowns and interludes are nothing new in metalcore but Calicade perform them well, with ex-Pendleton drummer Jason Gough’s accomplished skin-thumping carrying the songs majestically along.
Another nice touch are the poppier overtones of the music. Again the odd earnest clean vocal amid the metal is something we’ve come to expect, but Calicade throw interesting, well though out slices of melody over their sound, a step up from the usual bleating Americanised smush.
The occasionally stereotypical and slightly repetitive nature of some of the tracks betrays the fact that there is still work to be done on this band, but for a first (and self-produced) album this very much suggests there is more to come from these boys.
Leave out the vocoder bit in the next album though, please!


Done With City Point will be released on Spotify and iTunes this month.



By Alex Phelan