For the second time this week ROCKFLESH is dipping a toe into Eurovision territory. Those gritty Finns are determined to give a serious rock boost to the greatest lip-synching competition in the world, and having done so once with the classic power metal and mad costumes that are Lordi they had another go for a younger audience with Blind Channel who provide nu-metal and pretty boys instead. Sadly they only managed to reach 6th place in 2021, but that did give them an avenue to reach bigger crowds in other countries so here we are in a sold-out Club Academy with twice the capacity of their last sojourn to Manchester. This is obviously important to them as it gets mentioned a couple of times during the course of the evening. Stick with it boys, next stop the Ritz eh?

Anyhow, the first band to grace the (stupidly low) stage tonight are fellow Finns Rock Band From Hell. Who, despite nobody having a clue who they were, wanted to charge £80.00 for a hoody. Pft. The first thing to note is that Rock Band from Hell are not particularly devilish. The second is that they’re not particularly rock either. Well OK they sort of are. Think American pop-punk, think Green Day, think Blink 182 but with cute haircuts and accents. There’s one with spiky hair and a skinny tie, one with a floppy fringe and a bare chest and a drummer who was more or less invisible from the back of the room.

Despite this, they make a decent amount of noise and it’s pretty decent noise too. With titles like ‘Fed Up’, ‘Love You Til I Die’ and ‘Sex On Fire’ (no, not that one) you realise that this is yet another band that are mad at their dads. But in Finnish. It’s upbeat, there’s a lot of bouncing, and the crowd are smiling and cheerful. They may not have set the world on fire but if you like this genre of music (and I do) they were a decent enough opener.

Long-term readers of these pages may well be familiar with the German electrocore smashers that are Electric Callboy (formerly Eskimo Callboy) and it turns out that Ghøstkid is the new project of their former vocalist Sebastian “Sushi” Biesler. The diminutive warbler has donned a hood and corpse paint and surrounded himself with similar-outfitted musicians to continue his musical career in a slightly harder direction. The sound in the venue is a little muddy at first, and the vocals get a bit lost in the mix for the first couple of songs. This is a shame, as the range is great and goes from melody to angry shouty and back with barely a pause for breath.

The music is a bit dancy, a bit rap, a bit hardcore rock. Much crossover, many genres. Again there’s a lot of movement and the crowd are getting into it, particularly when the sound guy wakes up and twiddles a few knobs so we can actually hear it. They have very recently released an album “Hollywood Suicide” and the set draws quite heavily from it, but this is a good thing. It’s immersive, it gets you going and draws you in, and before you know it the crowd have become part of the show. The song titles are aggressive, ‘Murder’, ‘Start a Fight’ and suchlike, but the music is surprisingly accessible with enough of a commercial side to dull the hard edges. There’s even a whiff of ballad, totally at odds with the white faces and tattered clothing but moving nonetheless. This band should definitely be on the Ones To Watch list, they showed a great deal of promise tonight and it will be interesting to see where they go in the future.

The first thing I notice when Blind Channel hit the stage tonight is that their sound seems to have matured a lot since last time I saw them. They have lost a lot of their poppy edge, and gained a little heaviness that wasn’t there before. After 11 years, has this boy-band finally become a man-band? The lyrics are darker too, there are more songs about death (I counted at least 4!) and overall they seem to be a little more serious. They still bounce a lot though.

Can you imagine putting Linkin Park on springs like Zebedee (ask your mum, or maybe your gran!), adding lots of black guyliner and matching red and black uniforms? That was Blind Channel tonight. More metalcore, harsher vocals, a smidgeon of rap, and a whole heap of fun and you’d be in the right ballpark. They are touring at the moment off the back of their fifth album “Exit Emotions” which was released in early March, and it seems that with this album they have not just gone back to their nu-metal roots they have re-planted them and nurtured them until they are back in full bloom.

Several of the death songs are from the new album, and ‘Deadzone’ and ‘Die Another Day’ (no not that one!) make welcome appearances. The musicianship on display is superb, with master of everything Aleksi providing keyboards, samples, effects, extra drums and percussion and also backing vocals to fill out the sound and keep things moving. Their softer side is still there, with ‘Phobia’ bringing out all the phones in the crowd and creating an emotional stir in the crowd. They soon swerve back to the rock though – it’s like ordering a frothy coffee then getting a throat-punch of espresso when you get to the bottom of the cup.

The crowd bounce along with them, calling back the words and mimicking the actions perfectly so once again band and crowd become one. There’s even a circle pit towards the end of the main set. They still throw in some cliches – the guitar necks assume the vertical often (this seems to be trait in Scandi/Nordic bands) and the guitarist still races back and onto the stage with his head back for all the world like a muppet albeit a good-looking one with a floppy fringe.

The music is often a vibration deep inside you, especially during ‘One Last Time.. Again’ In the course of this song we are all exhorted to continue to fight demons. As they throw a nice woah-oh chorus into this one we strap on our imaginary Buffy costumes and get to it. A crowd member dedication ‘Violent Bob’ which is just one of the singers over a heartbeat backing track is followed by a cover of System Of A Down’s “BYOB” that brings the mood right back up and takes us firmly back to party territory. The main set finishes with “Bad Idea” which sees them rock right out again, but of course it’s not over yet. Two further songs and then finally their Eurovision entry ‘Dark Side’ which again seems less commercial and more dark than it did back in 2021 when they came to the notice of the wider world. A 20-song set drawing heavily on the new album but also spanning their entire career certainly gives value for money, and we have no problem with getting our hands up during that last song even though some of our bounce has now become a bit of a stagger due to an overdose of their sheer exuberance.

In summary, if you thought Blind Channel would capitalise on their Eurovision success to become more commercial, more mainstream, you would be very wrong. Their core remains hard, and if you like your metal on the nu side they are well worth checking out.