ERRA
Special Guests: Silent Planet, Invent, Animate & Sentinels.
Venue: Club Academy, Manchester
Date: 13th March 2023.
Review By: Mark Young
Filling up nicely for a rainy Monday night, with a mixture of tees for each band. The Club academy is quite a compact space, but you expect people being able to move, let’s see if they do. There are three acts on before ERRA, and each have 30 minutes to leave an indent on your mind.
Sentinels
Sentinels Start with a discordant intro, and bang. There are plenty of heads nodding as they move through their set, giving impressive death growls and a monstrous sound, everything combined for low-end movement with technical edge. Given that they are trying to jump start the crowd, these boys are flying, but the Academy are not quite up with them. It’s obscene they sound this good and this early in the evening. As they move towards the end, the crowd are getting more switched on and engaged. Albatross comes in and batters whilst they just churn up the stage and give us a faultless set, delivered like their lives depended on it. Look out for these.
(4 / 5)
Invent, Animate
People are still coming in which is a great sign given the standard Manchester weather and second act, Invent, Animate take the stage.
Invent, Animate will have a bit to do following Sentinels, hopefully the crowd are warmed up now. There is an almost instant reaction, the crowd are straight on it as they switch from clean to dirt and back again, eliciting a sing back from those who are here for them. They are Tight, with the drummer anchoring the sound as guitar and bass come forward, underpinning everything. Second track in, they have got the academy lined as the crowd are now on it. And it just goes on, they just have total control of the audience with circle pit engaged but also knowing when to slow, speed and all points in between. They played here like it was an arena, and have got the songs to back it up. 
(5 / 5)
Silent Planet
Silent Planet will definitely have to go some to get the same level of response. And it is immediate, as the place just moves. Possibly less over than the bands before. Plenty of low-end, but it seems muted almost compared to the two before. And then ‘it’ clicks as something just triggers everyone to move with even less space than before with, and it is a beautiful thing. There seems to be more melody as well as brutality here, and it’s just crushing. Amazingly, they kick it up a gear and go harder, especially with their last three songs they go heavier, and the place responds in kind. There is daylight between them and the others, no disrespect, but they just have something as they slow to an almost dead stop but keep us going just to unleash their last song and the place goes nuts. (5 / 5)
ERRA
Is there anything left after Silent Planet? It’s a resounding yes. ERRA have that magical ability to just get the crowd up and launch into a 12song salvo that mixes clean and dirt vocals with light and dark music. Each one is met with the loudest screams of the night and there is a constant circle pit until they ask to make it bigger, which we duly oblige. Club Academy is not the largest of floor spaces, the place is rammed, and yet when they ask to make that area bigger, somehow it happens. Phones are up, and everyone is singing, which just fed back to make ERRA work harder. They had the Academy in the palm of their hands, which comes from the amount of hard work they have put in since their formation. Having quality songs which everyone could grab onto as if it meant something personal to each and every one of them made the difference tonight.
They are a different league again, and just absolutely own the academy, and surely are destined for bigger stages in the UK. (5 / 5)
