Live Review: Useless Children, Undead Apes, Last Chaos, Golden Bats

The proposition of Golden Bats is pretty straightforward – one man's guitar and vocal abilities making a whole lot of heaviness... with the help of three rigs and a drum machine. Geordie Stafford holds the cosy Waiting Room down with ease, moving through a selection of crushing songs that see his head alternate from a steady nodding to huge yells that seem to get larger as the end of the set draws near. Some real drums would be nice, yet it remains a steadfast and crushing performance.

After a few soundchecks nearly break out into full songs themselves, Last Chaos quickly polarise the vibe brought by the previous act with a relentless fury that rides on the back of their crust-influenced hardcore punk. Almost instantly, bodies are shoved from side to side and the center of the room is suddenly dominated by a mass of humans that seems to be drawn from many corners of Brisbane's metal, punk and hardcore spectrum. Sweat is shared, chaos is brought, and the band definitely doesn't overstay their welcome.

Undead Apes are up next with an upbeat, melodic and almost-but-not-quite-breezy take on punk rock. It'd be near-impossible to hold a candle to the previous band's momentum, but the group stands their ground through a nonetheless fun and catchy display of energy. Lisa from fellow locals Pastel Blaze gets up to offer her vocals to Funeral Home to provide some extra punctuation towards the end of their set.

The Waiting Room is undeniably packed, quite possibly even beyond capacity, by the time Melbourne's Useless Children set up and destroy. The band is in town in support of their new LP Post-Ending//Pre-Completion and as such they focus largely on tracks from the release, which has seen them move far away from their more basic punk roots into dirty, psychedelic realms of sludge, noise, and oscillated decay. Mostly alternating dual vocals punctuate the mix as rows of heads bob in unison, and the audience is pulled further into the band's stark portrayal of what could be quite easily interpreted as a kind of musical psychosis.