Live

Nottingham Old Angel

As Esoteric make their entrance, several of the more seasoned punters actually sit down, and as the evening progresses, and what feels like days spent spinning in the centre of chaos pass by, more and more join them, cross-legged or supine altogether, as if knocked down one by one by the consuming, monolithically relentless force pressing out from the Angel's tiny stage. Opening with the thunderous 'Dissident', Esoteric begin what will turn into a time-stretching, mind-bending and deeply unsettling set that feels about three weeks long. On stage, the band are almost completely still, eyes half-closed, leaving vocalist Greg to provide such visual draw as he can, gently pacing back and forth, emitting his ungodly howls. But this is a band for whom the music speaks, indeed roars, for itself; its the astonishing physical presence of the swirling void music and its sheer unrelenting sensory assault which, rattling the door-handles of the sanity for so long, truly begins to have a mind-altering effect which many bands have striven for, achieving at best crude approximations of Esoteric's neutron-star bad trip. Tonight is a genuinely haunting, sobering experience, delivered with strident conviction and cruelly shattering the minds of another hapless roomful of fanatics.

Reviewed by: -James "Harry" Hinchliffe, Terrorizer Issue 125 November 2004