Review: Butcher Babies, Marble Factory

Fronted by former chart-bothering teen popster Skye Sweetnam, who used to open for Britney Spears and now goes by the name of Sever, Ontario’s perky Sumo Cyco trade in not-entirely-disagreeable upbeat bounce-up-and-down punk-metal with plenty of appeal to fans of No Doubt.

They falter with a woeful cover of the Chili Peppers’ Give It Away that extracts all the funk and inserts an entirely superfluous guitar solo. An unlikely collaboration with Benji Webbe yields Move Mountains which, unsurprisingly, sounds rather like a Skindred cast-off. Alas, Benji can’t be here tonight to sing his part, so the guitarist does so in a fake Jamaican accent. Oh dear.

What’s the worst that can happen if your contribution to a metal band is emitting bowel-loosening bellows? Losing your voice, right? Well that’s what’s happened to unfortunate graphic novelist and licensed embalmer (I’m not making this up) Carla Harvey. Like just about everyone in metal who affects a ferocious image, from Slayer’s Tom Araya downwards, Carla is a sweet-natured soul who apologises politely, in a rather hoarse voice, for depriving Butcher Babies of 50% of their vocal firepower tonight.

Nonetheless, Carla and her partner-in-shoutiness Heidi Shepherd hit the stage in a hair-whipping frenzy and don’t stop moving for the next hour or so. It’s as though they’re enjoying a cathartic heavy metal workout that’s crying out for its own fitness DVD. Their relentless enthusiasm and love of what they do is infectious, and the unfortunate blokes (including former Amen guitarist Henry Flury) whose task it is to play the music unnoticed by everyone are supremely well drilled.

So how come the Marble Factory is only half full? Well, while Carla and Heidi are impressively outspoken about empowerment and inclusivity in metal, facing down sneery purists and idiot sexist trolls alike, one suspects their struggle to win over punters has little to do with race or gender. The bottom line is that much of their material simply isn’t good enough. The furious Igniter is a stand-out that the rest of their songs struggle to match. Rob Zombie-esque Monster’s Ball straddles the catchy/annoying divide a little uncertainly, and their metal cover of Napoleon XIV’s 1966 novelty hit They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-haa! is just, well, bizarre. Jarringly, they even turn into the Wilson sisters for Heart-style power ballad duet Thrown Away, which certainly proves that they can sing conventionally. Well, Heidi can. Carla just croaks a bit.

During the encore, Heidi leaps into the audience, headbanging furiously as she’s engulfed by a violent circle pit, while the Marble Factory security team look on nervously. If only they were able to bottle some of that energy and redirect it into songwriting, Butcher Babies could be unstoppable.

All photos by Mike Evans