Miscellaneous - Barfly, London, 19/9/2004

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 24 / 9 / 2004

intro

The latest recruits to the Digital Hardcore label, Panik DHH are enough to send Slipknot running for their mothers. Daniel Cressey watches them transform the London Garage into "a soundscape of white noise, black noise and just plain noise"

People who award themselves adjectives are normally to be treated with suspicion. Any magician calling himself The Great Anything is bound to be awful. Equally the sort of people who say "I’m mad me" are normally always very, very sad and boring. One exception to this rule, however, is anybody on the Digital Hardcore label. These people scare Marilyn Manson and send Slipknot running for their mothers. Panic DHH fit right into the Digital Hardore mould as well they should: front man Robbie Furze used to play with label boss Alec Empire, king of aggro noise. They certainly all look the part. Dark hair, pale skin, tattoos, muscles and anger. And for just under an hour they transform the Garage into a soundscape of white noise, black noise and just plain noise. Especially impressive is the drummer, who churns out beats at such a rate that the man using drum machine in the opposite corner is obviously having trouble keeping up. Man – one, machines – zero. It’s a shame that Furze doesn’t strap on his guitar more often during the set. Not that he actually plays it that much when he does, but the very fact that he has picked up his axe seems to make the main guitarist raise her game to an even higher level of staccato riff production. Although the set is short, with the level of venom being spewed out, if it was any longer people would probably start to become afraid for their lives, as well they might. These are the people who will murder your parents and then try to sell you a video of them committing the act. If this performance is anything to go by you’re going to want to buy it.