Live review: One Room down CD Launch gig, The Imperial, Milford Haven, April 23rd

One Room Down celebrated the launch of their new CD, Better Than Me, with a five-band gig.

Last Chance Heroes kicked proceedings off, squeezing their way into hormonally deranged teen hearts, with a crisp and punchy pop-punk-pounce.

More than anyone else, apprentice riff-makers Twisted Faith had the time of their lives, with an anvil-heavy set of favourite late 80s thrash metal retreads (Megadeath, Anthrax, Metallica).

Scream-driven vocal wrath, coupled with the perfectly timed headbanging of their collectively copious amounts of hair, made for a great let's have-a-party-with-our-mates mentalism. Tinnitus inducing? Certainly, and sometimes impenetrable, but it made for pure primal bliss.

In keeping with the general mood of the night, Madding Crowd had chosen a rockier sense of direction than normal and sounded really rather good - plenty of beefy riffs and catchy sing-along choruses, together with an air-punching optimism.

Referred to by One Room Down vocalist Al as "the coolest band in Pembrokeshire" and, as always, pinning their stage attire to their musical tastes, Dogzuki, sounding narkier than of late, seemed to get caught up in the general metal melee of the night's proceedings as they veered in the direction of psycho-punk, with shards of squally guitars and heart attack beats.

The crowd demonstrated their frenzied admiration by slamming in the mosh pit.

One Room Down have been around for years in various guises and are heroes on the local music scene.

Rocking out of Milford, they put their Mettalica, Iron Maiden and Faith No More influences together at full impact, creating a fall-out that also took in, surprisingly, pop-punk, as on one of their new songs In My Head.

They immediately raised metabolic rates as they flexed their amplified muscle and gave their songs, new and old, a thumping good workout.

ORD are an eruption of massive chords, hard hit drums and gritty growling vocals. But there is more involved here than a mere full frontal assault; their metal has melody too, as when they weld their heaviosity to a decent pop hook on Better Than Me.

Charged as ORD are, they can also do charming: witness the lyrics "take these dreams from my head / keep them safe inside your heart." See? They're soft centred really.

This raucous night was another sell-out success. And there was not so much as a glimpse of the post-punk landscape in sight.