JuneFest @ Breakers Bar, Wanganui 30/06/12

The very first thing I noticed about The Heathen Collective when they stared playing was how low they had downtuned, I was actually waiting for them to hit a “brown note” (drop A in case you were wondering).

The vocal technique was impressive, making me wonder if he had training or if like many of us he was a “Zen Of Screaming” convert but I never got the chance to ask him myself. The implementation of pre-recorded spoken verse  before every song gave them something different to come to the table with, but it had nothing on their drummer playing a reggae beat (dropping on the 3rd) during one of their songs.

They had great crowd interaction, talking to the crowd between every song and the performance was just as good with all 5 members moshing out throughout the set.

And for those of you have heard their single “Victimize” being played on the Axe Attack they even played that too! The standout by far was actually a little surprise I got while talking to one of the members after the show- the lead guitarist was just a fill in who had learnt all of their songs within a week of the gig, and he was so good I didn’t even notice!