Live Music Review: Pitchshifter at Rock City

Words: Matthew Williams
Tuesday 27 November 2018
reading time: min, words

Celebrating twenty years since the release of their seminal album www.pitchshifter.com, the almighty Pitchshifter reunited to play their first shows in over a decade. The six-date tour saw the band supported by an all-Notts lineup, with post-hardcore band The Blueprint and alt-metallers Earthtone9 warming the crowd up nicely, all culminating with an intimate show in the Mecca that is Rock City...

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With all the nostalgia, hometown pride and catharsis of Pitchshifter finally reuniting, the crowd went absolutely mental. It was a serious throwback to the nineties. While the band reminisced of their early days in the Rock City basement, they said they’d settle for the main stage “if they had to.”

After the support bands ploughed through their sets, the industrial legends Pitchshifter took to the stage and were met by a huge response from their Nottingham hometown. After some electronic soundscapes built the tension, the band burst into Microwaved, unleashing a moshpit that didn’t let up for the rest of the show.

The band showed no signs of rust as they smashed through their hits from the Desensitized, Infotainment, Deviant and PSI albums. Between songs, singer JS Clayden recognised people in the front row from back in the day (although much older), starting deafening Pitchshifter chants.

If you’ve never heard Pitchshifter’s music before, JS summed it up perfectly in saying that they’re about “heavy metal guitar, drum ‘n’ bass breaks, and Dead Kennedys lyrics.”

The band closed on the triple threat of W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G., Please Sir, and of course, Genius from the www.pitchshifter.com album, sending the crowd into overload one final time, before finally giving up their six-show sobriety and partying in Notts all night.

Bloody brilliant.

Pitchshifter played Rock City on Saturday 24 November 2018

Rock City website

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