HEADLINING a set at Bristol’s O2 Academy, with support from a band featuring Frank Iero (guitarist with My Chemical Romance) is no small achievement for any band, but Mallory Knox have spent five years working hard and this UK tour is just reward.

The Cambridge five-piece deserve success on a massive scale, and their anthemic rock would be far better placed in a stadium or arena than the Academy, but I’m pretty sure that will come.

Unfortunately for the Bristol crowds, lead singer Mikey Chapman was distinctly under the weather. Not that it made much difference to the fans who made the most of the chance to mosh away to their hearts’ content or sing along to a good mix of songs from the band’s EP and two albums, including their latest release ‘Asymmetry’ Opener QOD II got the crowd moving, and the band didn’t hang about between songs, in a setlist which continued new and old songs, including Shout at the Moon, Hello, Getaway, Wake Up, When Are We Waking Up?, crowd-pleaser Beggars, 1949, Dying to Survive, Ghost in the Mirror, Death Rattle and She Took Him to the Lake, before rounding off a three-song encore with their best known song ‘Lighthouse’.

Watch out world, if this gig was anything to go by I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Mallory Knox!