Credit: Stampin Ground

Underworld

Sunday 10^th December

A Brief Lesson In Moshing

It is a common misconception that the most vicious and fierce examples of the mosh pit are found within the genre of Heavy Metal. However, to compare the level of violence in an average heavy metal pit to that of an average Hardcore show – a particularly intense form of aggressive punk/metal music - is akin to comparing a Saturday night punch up in a pub car park to the sacking of Rome at the hands of the barbarian hordes.

Stampin’ Ground were a leading light of UK Hardcore, almost like a beacon casting deep shadows over their contemporaries – other bands couldn’t help but look almost amateurish in comparison. But the pressures of being a band on the poverty level have finally got through to them, and on a drizzly Sunday night in Camden, the five-piece are putting on one final live show before they call it a day.

The band have packed the bill with friends and familiar faces – opening act Suicide Watch containing two ex-members of Stampin’ Ground – but it’s all essentially scene-setting for the main event. Stampin’ Ground took the genre-clichés of Hardcore, coated it in a thick skin of thrash riffs as hazardous to health as red hot barbed wire, and galvanised the whole lot in the heat of incandescent righteous fury.

The Circle Pit is a mosh-pit phenomenon that is often started following verbal encouragement from the band on stage. It starts off by the crowd moving in a large circular movement around the area directly in front of the stage. As the music builds in intensity, so does the motion of crowd. When the song reaches its explosive crescendo, so does the crowd, and a furious mosh pit is then enjoyed by all.

Only a few songs in, and Adam Frakes-sime is so drenched in sweat that looks like someone has thrown a bucket of water over his face. “Dead From The Neck Up”, a song so unapologetically hefty it could carry Jeff Capes on one shoulder and Rik Waller on the other, sounds like the kind of song the CIA would kill to use as part of their interrogations in Guantanamo.