Collateral, Zac And The New Men & Jayler, KK’s Steel Mill 22.02.24
Six months is a long time in this rock business and it was just over six months ago when we first came across Jayler (8) at the Dementia Aware Fest in Birmingham. A quartet of very talented youngsters who on that day relied on a set peppered with rock covers and a youthful exuberance on stage to try and win the crowd over.
Six months on and the difference is noticeable straight away. The exuberance is still there, but it’s more controlled and everything seems tighter. They have been gigging a lot on the local scene and that shows as their stage craft is more honed and thankfully they’ve been hard at work on their own material, with new ep Piece In Our Time making up most of their set this evening.
Frontman James Bartholomew is not ashamed to show his influences up front and centre, like some weird love child of Plant and Bon Scott, he has a natural swagger and plays off his wingman on guitar Tyler (where the name comes from Jay-Ler) who shreds with a natural ability that belies his young age. Whilst your attention is mainly focused on these two, the other half of the band (Ricky Hodgkiss - bass, Ed Evans - drums) keep the pace on track and solid in that unobtrusive but confident way of all good rhythm sections.
Keep an eye out for this young Midlands combo, they’ve got lots of gigs coming up, including Wolverhampton's big showcase The Lord Mayors Show, and a support slot for the amazing Kira Mac.
Next up was a new band to us and a bit of an enigma in Zac And The New Men (7). An enigma, because it was hard to work out what sort of band they were? A rock band? An indie band? Frontman Zac even say’s they more than just another pop band! But whatever you want to label them as they are undoubtedly very talented and there’s enough heaviness and hard riffs in there to justify sticking them on a tour like this.
I guess there will always be bands who defy any sort of genre labelling, the likes of Muse, Biffy Clyro and Radiohead are obvious examples but it’s a tricky balance and fair play to them they mix it up with hard and heavy tracks like Atomic Bomb and World’s Gone Mad to more groovy indie pop tracks like He’s Fallen and Embers.
It will be interesting to see how they develop and which path they find themselves going down, a talented bunch with a unique look and sound deserve to be listened to at least once, then make your own mind up.
Main attraction tonight though are the quartet from Kent, Collateral (9). After a phenomenal year breaking onto the scene in 2019, they, like many others found the next couple of years challenging. Their debut album was released in Feb of 2020 and hit the top five in the UK rock chart but were unable to capitalise on that due to the ensuing maelstrom that struck the world shortly after!
Nevertheless they kept the faith and focus and were in a great position to pick up where they left off when things began to return to normality by getting themselves noticed as support to various touring artists including Skid Row.
They’re now back out on their own headline tour promoting their upcoming album Should’ve Known Better and to emphasise that they explode onto stage with the new single Glass Sky a much harder, edgier sound to this then their previous stuff and it suits them. The band seem re-energised, Angelo Tristan barely stops smiling or bouncing, guitarist Malagoldi is having the time of his life, this is a new Collateral.
But this new version is also happy to mix it up with the old as the set is a comprehensive look at the band's discography. The heavy and thunderous Final Stand represents the new, but older tracks like Mr Big still show their softer more melodic side but with a new vigour.
We are treated to a poignant rendition of On The Long Road and their country song About This Boy, again, emphasising the depth of this band. It’s great to see this band come through the dark years, stronger and hungry and expect to see them continue to take the rock world by storm.
Watch out for that album to drop in late May, you can preorder it now at the bands website and social media pages and I highly recommend you do.