I wasn’t sure what to expect from Berries as I walked into the murky entrance way at Gorilla Manchester. This stark bruiser of a venue with its arched corrugated steel roof proved the perfect venue for the band.
This was a heavy blast of crunching and spiky guitar lines layered with melodic soaring vocals and harmonies. You might imagine this to be a dark or angry experience but far from it as amongst the angular guitar was a thoughtful but uplifting stance more aimed at how we might overcome adversity or our own personal mental health struggles. So there’s a positive energy radiating from the stage as Berries scintillate the crowd.
They were here to promote their debut album ‘How We Function’, out today via Xtra Mile Recordings. It took them 4 years to make it and a lot of thought has gone into the record.
“The album is about strength and growth and recognising the dark times and how you get over that. We’ve got over a lot of mental health struggles, but we wanted [the album] to have an empowering vibe to it as well. This is our journey to growth. Mental health is not a shadow over what you’re doing — this is really healthy and we can talk more about this stuff.”
The band were here as support for Jim Bob ex Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine and, as is the way, they had to somehow promote themselves to a very partisan and older audience mainly assembled in readiness for the main act. Berries though, somehow through a mixture of bigging up Jim Bob and their own mastery of heavy guitar lines managed to get the crowd onside. By the end, the audience had really warmed to the band and rightly so.
BERRIES – UK DATES
23 – Oxford, O2 Academy 2 *
24 – Birmingham, O2 Academy 2 *
25 – Bournemouth, Old Fire Station *
26 – London, Islington Assembly Hall *
* w/ Jim Bobo
Berries debut album ‘How we Function’ is out now on all services HERE
