For those who do not know me, I am Paul, a regular on Moshville Radio’s “Manic Monday” show. I’m also a one-time contributor to The Moshville Times, having written a review of one of last year’s Metal 2 The Masses heats. Perhaps the most important context to give you is that I am also the lead singer and harmonica player for the band Stone Soup, last year’s winner of Oxford Metal 2 The Masses and it’s a great pleasure to be writing this review for the very first round of the 2025 contest!
Let me start by saying that, after seeing the full line up of bands for this year’s competition, I am truly excited to watch as many of the rounds as possible (Stone Soup gigs permitting!). This year seems to have it all, new bands who I am totally unfamiliar with (Bare Knuckle Asylum, Talassum, Throned), returning bands determined to make it further than previous attempts (last year’s finalists Ocean Planet and Theorist) and a good selection of bands who have gigged with Stone Soup in the past and who we support a huge amount (Second Hour, Halfway Home, White Noise Machine, Phantom Droid) to name but a few. This year’s competition is going to be tough and it’s going to take a special run of performances for a victor to emerge.
There is a slight tweak to the heats this year in that only 3 bands will be performing in each one. This adds a certain clarity to the selection process as on the night there will be a judge’s choice of winner, the audience vote to select the crowd winner. The band who claims neither the judges nor crowd decision is eliminated. This format also allows a slightly longer gap between bands which gives the crowd the perfect amount of time to freshen their drinks, grab a vape or whatever and relocate back inside before the next band begins their set. Hats off to the organizers (Twoface Promotions) for improving on what was already a very well-run process.
So, let’s get into it then!
January 18th seems very early indeed to be kicking things off, my lasting memories of many of the heats from 2023 and 2024 are exactly that, the heat! No such fear for the opening round this year though, as I left the house, I made sure to grab my thickest winter coat, gloves, scarf et all as it was a nippy 4 degrees and falling. Still, I was incredibly excited for the evening ahead. I have, obviously, a real fondness for the Oxford competition and thanks to my involvement with Manic Mondays I already had a glimpse into what to expect from the bands on that night’s line-up as we had listened to a couple of tracks by each band on the previous week’s show. I tend to keep an open mind however, as M2TM is as much about live performance as anything else. It takes the whole package for a band to do well.
Force Of Mortality, Liquid Dogs and Redeemon were the heat 1 contenders. That’s the order they had drawn to play prior to the crowd arriving, drawing the set order can be a nervy process for the bands but one thing I realized as a punter was that it did not seem to matter which order they would play in, I was there to see each one in their entirety so who cares about the order? (Wish I could have told myself that in previous years!)
As I have mentioned already, there are several bands who I am familiar with taking part in this year, and Force of Mortality competed alongside Stone Soup last year so not long after I arrived, we spotted each other and had a good old catch up. They asked how Bloodstock had been (I still struggle to find the right words to describe how amazing it was for us!) and offered further congrats and support. What lovely blokes. It’s worth noting at this point that, although I am attending as much of this year’s contest as possible, I have zero influence on the results (other than my allotted audience vote) and I am perfectly allowed to pick my own favorites, especially ones who flatter so nicely.
Force Of Mortality are a 4-piece thrash band from Oxford, and I mean no disrespect whatsoever when I say that they are certainly old-school in their music. As they took to the stage, they welcomed the crowd, threw a shout-out to Stone Soup (more bonus points from me!) and launched into their 30 minute set. Now bear with me here… I own a motorbike. I’m not bragging or anything, I just want you to understand that the kind of music Force of Mortality play makes me want to ride that bike. It makes me want to cruise down the stereotypical American highways with the breeze on my face and petrol fumes in my lungs. They rock hard and they rock steadily, and their first song “Fear of the Dark” demonstrated this well. Putting my musician hat on for a second, I noticed that their drummer counted the track off with a very precise and restrained “click, click, click, click” on the sticks. What the hell does that have to do with anything you ask? Well let me tell you, adrenaline and excitement are the enemy of tempo when it comes to live music, it is far too easy to kick things off a bit too fast under pressure and watching the drummer lock eyes with their singer/guitarist and dial in the speed with calmness and accuracy showed me that these guys knew what they were doing and that’s the kind of professionalism that is key in this competition.
The band continued into their next song, “Rise above it all” and linked it straight into their third song “Driver”, again, this kind of stage craft (linking songs together) shows that the guys had put real though into their set-list. Continuity and flow are very important, especially with just half an hour to showcase your best material. The songs were great, hard rocking thrash metal at its finest with wailing intricate guitar solos expertly placed throughout. Bass player and lead guitarist shared one side of the stage together and, lined up with long hair bobbing around in unison, they made a great silhouette. Lead vocals/guitar on the other side, with some good audience interaction and a solid vocal performance throughout made for a band who, although they may not run around the stage like nutters for their set, are still very fun to watch.
They slowed things down briefly with their fourth song “Divided Nation”, a slow-marching number that broke up the faster songs very nicely, before finishing up with a couple more high energy tracks. I have to say, perhaps I was a little too focused on my own band last year to have appreciated this band fully. By the end of their set, they were locked in beautifully and I have a new-found appreciation for their music. Thrash may not be my go-to genre, and some might say it’s not the most versatile style to play but Force of Mortality delivers the absolute best that thrash has to offer, and the audience loved it and showed their appreciation with huge applause, whoops and yells. What a fantastic start to the night and to the whole of the contest.
In previous years, Moshville’s Jay has been writing reviews for Oxford M2TM and would quite often tally his trips to the gents during the night. I, personally, was going to avoid this approach but I will briefly mention that the gents’ toilets were out of action that night and between bands I found myself waiting in a line to use the one disabled toilet on the premises. I can only say that this gave a lot of men a view into the standard conditions that women confront at many establishments, so the first winner of the evening was gender equality. Humbling. Thanks to the new format of the evening, I was still able to make it upstairs ahead of the second act.
Liquid Dogs are a Reading-based 4-piece outfit who describe themselves as playing metal, funk, progressive and hard rock. Honestly, assigning genres to bands can be a difficult thing especially when uniqueness is often what a band is looking for with their sound, so let’s happily ignore those labels and talk about their performance instead. From the moment they took the stage the whole band was happy and energetic. My understanding is that they have not been around for many years, but any apparent lack of experience wasn’t to be seen on their beaming faces as they launched into their set with vigor. Two things were immediate to me, these guys love riffs, and their bass player implements a lot of slap technique while playing. I don’t necessarily mean to highlight one musician above the rest, it’s just that slap bass and metal are seldom paired. In fact, the whole band displayed some fantastic technical skills on their instruments and their blending of song styles showcased their abilities very well. After a punchy opening number, their second song, “Dolls”, really highlighted the funky style of bass that they have blended into their sound.
The following tracks “All f***ed over” and ” Bust A Nut” (great titles lads) all sounded nicely different to each other as well, something that will not have been overlooked by the judges. In particular, “Bust A Nut” saw the lead vocals switch to the bass player, giving a real sense of versatility to their set. I have to say, the couple of tracks that I had already heard were good but hearing them live definitely raised them up in my opinion. I really enjoyed the compositions of the songs, especially wherever they had nice clear melodic chorus to sing along to. Their closing number “Rage” was a crescendo to the performance, a sign that the order of songs had been considered carefully.
Bands like Liquid Dogs are the reason why I like Metal 2 The Masses so much, I never know exactly what to expect and I get to discover bands who may not have popped up on my radar otherwise. Again, the crowd were very supportive, and I saw the band members receiving many fist-bumps and congratulations from other people in the room when they finished playing. Having spoken to them myself after their set I am also happy to confirm that they are nice guys who clearly enjoy what they do, which will absolutely favor them in the search for the best candidates to go all the way through the competition. As I type this, I am also preparing to speak to them live on tonight’s Manic Monday show, do be sure to go back and listen through mix-cloud via the Moshville radio website if you didn’t catch it on the 20th of January.
Another break between bands, another queue for the toilets. I hope Jericho has got a decent plumber booked before the next heat!
Time for the last band! Another new face for the Oxford heats – Redeemon. Manchester/London based 6-piece Skacore band. Yes, that’s right, Skacore. Oh, you don’t know what that is? It is okay, neither did I! But boy, did I enjoy finding out. Over the last couple of years Oxford Metal 2 The Masses has seen the occasional oddity in terms of instruments. There have been accordions, bowed electric cello and, of course, I personally introduced a lot of metal heads to the world of Harmonica in heavy music, not that I claim to be the first person to do it (I refer you to Black Sabbath – The Wizard). Redeemon would be a first though, accompanying the standard guitar bass and drums were three brass instruments, Sax, Trumpet and Trombone, the latter being played by the vocalist when needed. At this early point I would like shout-out to Mikey, the renowned sound guy at the Jericho, who managed to get the whole band mic’ed up beautifully so well-done mate!
Redeemon introduced themselves, having learnt in their 6-year existence that it is probably worth addressing the crowd when you take to the stage with a horn-section! This little gesture is very endearing and brought us all onto their side very quickly, acknowledging that we were in for something a little different. With pleasantries out of the way the band threw themselves straight into their performance and the audience threw themselves into the mood with them. Fast paced, heavy riffing and uniquely embellished with bright blasting brass arrangements, their songs manage to encompass the key elements of contemporary metal (the screaming and guttural vocals delivered with a patter that wouldn’t be out of place with a lot of modern metalcore), with outbursts of ska-like jolty from the consistent involvement of sax and trumpet and the additional trombone.
Let me tell you, with the ever-increasing rise of “sub drops” and the like creeping into metal these days, a trombone-drop was a welcome change and the anticipation in the crowd whenever the singer would reach over to pick up the trombone was palpable. Seriously though, that’s one of the purposes the trombone served, plunging into the slower and heavy parts of their songs blurred the line between guitar and brass very nicely, whereas at other times the brass would sing a melody right above the rest of the frequency of the other instruments. At these times, in particular, several people in the crowd began skanking along, a clear indicator of their enjoyment. In a tournament where moshing, walls of death and circle pits are the norm, skanking about and kicking shins in all directions was a nice change. The songs themselves do not tend to hang on the offbeat as ska usually does so head banging was still essential. My apologies for not being able to name their songs as meticulously as the other bands, I tried my best to catch a sneaky glimpse of the set list but to no avail, in lieu of this I recommend you all listen to their track “Anaphylactic” and go from there.
After their final number Redeemon’s singer once again expressed his gratitude to the crowd, with a genuine sense of surprise that they had been so well received. But, as I know firsthand, the Oxford audience are incredibly open-minded about the various directions in which metal music can be taken and therefore, I was not so surprised to see the incredible reaction they got, including from myself.
So that was it, the first heat was done and the usual frantic dash for a pen ensued. Voting slips came in and the judges had a good long chat about what they had seen from each band that night. Not long later the winner was ready to be announced and judging by the small number of people in the room initially, it seemed that many had overestimated the time it would take for the results to be ready. Consequently, when the first winner (the audience vote) was announced as Redeemon, the band themselves were nowhere to be seen! Nevertheless, the room went wild, and I do not think it took long for words to reach the band. That left the judges’ choice which went to Liquid Dogs, another big cheer from the crowd and that was it, the night was done.
Without being too cliche about it, I want to say that on this night, and based on their performances, all 3 bands would have been equally deserving of going through to the next round. Force Of Mortality were the unlucky ones on this occasion but that should not be taken away from the great set they played, and I will certainly be looking forward to attending one of their gigs away from the context of competition.
Congratulations then to Redeemon and Liquid Dogs, both worthy winners and further proof that this year’s competition is going to be very hotly contended. Well done to everyone involved in this event for getting it off to a smooth start and here’s looking forward to more close heats with amazing bands as the year goes on!
