Live Review: Syndicate 5

Another stellar lineup presented itself as Syndicate continued to kill the bass game in Perth in 2015, bringing another gift-wrapped present of international bass headliners. Villa being decked out in speakers with teeth is becoming a more and more familiarly welcome sight, never failing to deliver huge sets to an energetically dedicated massive. This time around Syndicate featured Americans Antiserum and Mayhem delivering a B2B set, Spaniard dubstep lord Spag Heddy for a long awaited Perth appearance and, to cap it off, Phaseone made his way over from Sydney to round off the top headlining lineup. They were joined by another unique and superbly cultivated group of local selectors that included Culver, Dobz and Tomorrow. 

After the locals had left the crowd bouncing and ready, Phaseone was first up in the procession of headliners, fresh off releasing a metal remix of Northlane’s Rot, known for multigenre, high energy sets, of which this would be no exception. Choosing to focus mostly on a procession of monstrous Dubstep bangers, getting through tracks at a rate of knots and raising the roof with tunes like Zomboy & Must Die!’s collaboration, Survivors, the Snails and Brillz remix of Lil Boosie’s Crazy and, of course, Phaseone’s own track with Protohype, Recon, which has taken the scene by storm and become a quick favourite of Skrillex’s. 

Next up were Antiserum and Mayhem, going back to back for an extended set as they’re often known to do, and as they did the last time they rolled through Perth for a Harlem Wednesday night back in May of last year. The duo have been crushing the trap and bass game since Brick Squad Anthem blew up as one of the original trap staples. The set would follow the trend of the evening and lend itself more towards dubstep than trap, but there was still plenty there for trap enthusiasts, the highlights including Diskord’s Tell Me Why, Boombox Cartel’s B2U, Carnage & Breaux’s remix of Eptic’s The End and another Antiserum & Mayhem trap staple, Trippy. To top it all off, they closed out their set with local badmen Casuel & Naysu’s upcoming Hybrid tune, FVCK EM.

Closing out the headliner roster was Spag Heddy, taking up the slot now historically filled in previous Syndicates by lords of the dubstep genre including Getter, Must Die! and Megalodon. To say the Spaniard lived up to this hype would be an understatement, immediately drawing the crowd back into moshing and stomping like they hadn’t been preoccupied with as much for the previous few hours. It was a set dominated by the long list of originals at his disposal, but a small patch dominated by Must Die!’s remix of Brainbug transitioning into Datsik & Bar9’s Droid stook out as the peak of a dominant set. Syndicate once again well and truly stepped up to the plate and knocked the bass ball out of the park. The next one features a Disciple records takeover including Barely Alive, Dodge & Fuski and Astronaut. As always, not to be missed. 

Originally published in X-Press Magazine