Haverhill Arts Centre - Saturday, February 7

By Derek Bish

SATURDAY'S opening heat of the 2009 Haverhill Rock Competition started and ended with the only two Haverhill rock regulars in the competition, but it was the new blood in between that won through.

Heavy metal act Chaos Dynasty returned for the umpteenth time, led by father-and-son act Iain and John Watt.

Drummer John's skill around his rather complicated kit was the outstanding highlight of Chaos' set.

Although bassist Dave Stannard doesn't have the long-haired heavy metal image of the rest of the band, he certainly wins his place with an excellent bass sound (eliminating the need for a second guitarist) that laid the foundations for guitarist Iain Watt to show off his technically-brilliant skills with his hypnotic-looking instrument.

Young frontman Alfie Wyatt's innocent looks hide the incredible grunge sound produced from his throat and with a little more confidence with his stage presence, he clearly has the talent to become a mainstay of the band for years to come.

After a slow start Chaos injected energy into their remaining songs and the sparse audience responded with some headbanging and, rather bizzarely, the Macarena!

Cambridge act Scream In Unison were the deserved winners on the night and booked their place in the final on February 28.

The five-piece guitar band were fronted by female singer Snav, the strongest vocalist of the night.

Her eagerness to belt out each and every note with 110 per cent effort left her breathless, but she did not falter once while singing.

Drumming has always been the competition's strong point and Unison drummer Mike kept up that tradition while guitarists Mark and Stuart, and bassist Stu showed off their talents as they rocked out to their Skunk Anansie sound.

The only thing they lacked was one killer song that would have stuck in my head through to Monday.

That song in my head instead belonged to punk/pop rockers Selective Walk and their tune You Haven't Heard The Worst Of It.

Having said that, I was slightly disappointed with the Haverhill four-piece's set (the one I was most looking forward to after a good debut last year) as they seemed content to spend too much time messing around between songs, having a laugh with their friends in the audience and acting as if everyone knew all their songs already.

More than one member of the audience seemed unhappy and felt alienated by this.

Musically, their punk/pop rock sound was well put together with excellent lyrics about the real world

Drumming again was good by Walk's man with the sticks Ben, as was guitaring from Tony and Michael and bass-guitar playing by Dave.

Singing was the only music issue, with Tony seeming to struggle at times with both responsibilities while there was also a bizzare moment of Slipknot-esque singing from backing vocalist Michael in the opening track which was not in keeping with the rest of the set.