Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Perhaps it was fortuitous that Merseyside band Buckle Tongue opened up their set in support of Medina Lake at the o2 Academy with the song Grow. For in the space of ten months that is exactly what they have done. Ten short months from a place in which they were already impressing those who saw them to a point now where surely they are a band to nurture, to grasp with both hands and say please keep going. Liverpool doesn’t really do the very heavy side of rock but judging by the adoration they received from perhaps even the strangest quarters in the o2, they are ready for bigger things.

The maelstrom that was in evidence has now reached the type of level that thrust Metallica/Iron Maiden into the respective nation’s attention. Great lyrics with the resounding and deep thud of a guitar straining and chomping at the bit to set free, a set of drums that makes the listener feel as if they are being bombarded by the relentless noise of a 100 underground trains circling from all points.

Whilst the band were only on stage for five songs, the growth in their stage presence is remarkable. Even if you see a lot of music, you make it your life’s work informing people on various bands, surely it shouldn’t be possible to see a band either end of a year and see them develop so much, to have the idea that in Buckle Tongue there is an excellent probability that Merseyside and The Wirral, two areas of the U.K. not naturally associated with the genre, might have at long last a group who could go a long way.

With Shaun Ridge, Jack Somers, Benny Chance and Jord Chance performing tracks such as Embers, Wayside and Hearts and Hands, the evening of heavy rock, the abundance of the welcoming loud and thunderous was given the best possible raucous starts.   

What a magnificent difference a year makes.

Ian D. Hall