Live Review: Superheist, Frankenbok, Dreadnaught, Abreact

You know you're at a great rock show when you go from frosty breath outside the venue on a frigid Melbourne winter evening to being able to feel and almost taste the heat and the sweat flowing out of band and audience alike on the inside. This gig plays out in the smaller band room at The Crocko, and the more intimate vibe only adds to the thumping, pumping, heaving rock experience that this show is.

At a glance, the line-up seems slightly left of centre, two proud, long-running old school pure metal acts and a nu-metal act on a highly successful comeback trail. But it works an absolute treat.

Opening proceedings are Bendigo-based act Abreact, who switch on the heat in the room with their gnarly, angst-filled take on the traditional metal/hardcore sound. What these guys lack in finesse they absolutely make up for with bollocks of steel and bucketloads of attitude, and the relatively stripped-back, single guitar line-up still fills the room with a hell of a racket. The night is off to raucous beginnings.

Dreadnaught are ageing like a fine Victorian wine. They still slam you like a sledgehammer, but do so with real class. Their setlist is slanted quite heavily towards their latest album, last year's excellent Caught The Vultures Sleeping (Set Fire To The Plan is an absolute showstopper) but they still delve occasionally back into their illustrious back catalogue and this brings a big cheesy smile to the packed-out audience's collective face. A quarter of a century into their career, this band have still got it, and are showing no signs of hanging up their picks and their sticks.

Having been around for almost as long as Dreadnaught, Frankenbok's frenetic, chaotic metal is tighter than the tightest thing you can think of. In fact, these two bands were born of a similar era and pursue a similar no-compromise, 'nothing fancy, just balls to the wall metal' attitude and philosophy. They were once label mates, and have played many a show together. All that said, their actual respective sounds are really quite different. While the 'Naught slam out dark, mostly mid-paced, angry, traditional heavy rock and metal, the 'Bok bring the thrash mayhem. Their songs rollick along at a million miles an hour, and their attitude is that of a band having shitloads of fun while smashing you square in the face. This culminates in their hilarious rendition of the Aussie bubblegum electro-pop hit of the late '90s, Madison Avenue's Don't Call Me Baby.

Superheist are so, so back. Their history extends back approximately as far as Dreadnaught's, but of course, Australia's biggest ever nu-metal act split up for more than a decade. Their comeback has been nothing short of monumental, with last year's Ghosts Of The Social Dead album a creative and commercial success and the ensuing live shows lauded across the nation as some of the best of their career.

Much of the success of the comeback has been the genius recruitment of one of the top frontmen in the nation, Ezekiel Ox, and this night he puts on a typically bombastic performance for the pumped-up Croxton crowd. He spends as much, if not more, time in the crowd than he does on the stage, and he is like a one-man circle pit mosh.

That said, the band behind him are still in blistering form. They possess nuclear-strength bounce that cannot fail to get any crowd moving, and the sound surging off the stage is nothing short of overwhelming.

The whole vibe of this show is that of stadium rock in an intimate, sweaty room. It may sound somewhat like a contradiction in terms, but the 'Heist put on a super slick, but simultaneously raw and primal show, and the crowd go home exhausted but with their appetites for pounding rock and over the top entertainment more than satiated.

This is one of the great rock'n'roll comebacks.