The Akalites, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 71/2/10

The Zanzibar Club has had so many bands and musicians pass through its large metallic doors that if there was to be a roll of honour made up, carved out of the same wood that adorns the walls at Lords Cricket ground when a player takes five or ten wickets in an innings then amongst the names of Alan O’ Hare, the legendary Pete Wylie and the sensational Mersey Wylie and a thousand fold others, the one that might catch the eye is the exciting The Akalites.

There are bands and groups that have managed to fuse the crossover between two distinctive genres, the blurring of lines that occasionally, not always, not constantly and certainly by surprise, catch you unawares. Rock and the urban, the thrash of a guitar with the rhythmic rhymes of high evolutionary Rap; Aerosmith and Run D.M.C. managed it quite famously but theirs could be seen as a very special case, so could the very cool early tracks of Grand Master Flash, Melle Mel and the Furious Five, especially the honest approach of The Message or the American band Linkin Park. For the most part the genres are about as used to collaboration as comedy legends Laurel and Hardy teaming up with Sigourney Weaver in an Alien franchise.

With The Akalites, the main component is the heady brutality, both in the lyrics delivered by Kaos Kstah and the smash and grab, the underlying beauty of viciousness of guitar of which a young Dave Mustaine would have taken great pride in. Brutality in a music sense, brutality of treatment towards a genre, even if you cannot stand one, it is there to be respected…to a limit in some cases. In the case of any Rock fan, the thought of entertaining Rap is likely to cause the thought of hives breaking out, the same could be said of the Rap fan trying to fake a smile when one of their friends enthuses over the merits of Prog over Metal.

Horses for courses at the end of the day and yet The Akalites do seem to be able to understand what they are offering, not just the mixture between two genres, but in humanity, the lesson to us all, that no matter if you dislike something so vehemently, as long as nobody is getting hurt, broken or beaten then what does it matter?

The Akalites, this Chester fusion act, entertained the audience with songs such as Rock Star, My Heart, Now Now Now and the astonishingly good Philosophy placed within their musical arsenal have in one fell swoop opened up a door in which some might travel, a few might explore with some decency and the tiniest of percentages will find something in which to take delight in….but they will have at least experianced it.

This is not to say that it advocates any old band attempting the type of mix that only a quality blender could usually achieve, but for The Akalites, well they at least know that those taking them to their heart will get an awful lot out of it.

Ian D. Hall