Review by Brad Williams:
Riverfront Live in Cincinnati, OH hosted a triple bill featuring Jinjer, The Browning, and Sumo Cyco on October 12. It was my first time seeing all 3 bands and also my first visit to the venue. Riverfront Live is an intimate setting for live performances, with great lighting, sound and all around visibility. The bands were from diverse locations geographically, but all shared intensity and plenty of enthusiastic movement, traits that were definitely appreciated and shared by the sizable audience. Sumo Cyco hails from Canada and (like Jinjer) have a female lead singer with tons of charisma and a fearless attitude. Skye “Sever” Sweetnam entered the pit area in front of the stage several times and made a lot of friends in the process. She instructed everyone to get down on the floor and then proceeded to instigate a furious mosh pit as she made her way back to the stage. Her band was equally as energetic and basically never stopped moving.
Kansas City, Missouri natives The Browning followed with some hybrid styles of metal and EDM mixed into their own frantic blend. They were well received, also, keeping the mosh happy crowd revved up throughout their set. As good as the openers were, there was no doubt who the audience was there to see, and Jinjer brought their “A” game to finish the night with an electrifying, outstanding display of talent, confidence, and inspired song craft. Jinjer hails from Donetsk, Ukraine, and features a blend of many different styles, making their music both progressive and unpredictable.
Front woman Tatiana Shmailyuk possesses a set of seemingly indestructible vocal chords, and uses them to alternately sing beautiful melodies and switch to demonic gutturals in nearly the same breath. Jinjer’s musicians (guitarist, bassist, and drummer) all provide enormous amounts of dexterity on their respective instruments, weaving emotional landscapes that change in subtle and sometimes jarring combinations to suit Tatiana’s flights of vocal fancy. From the opening blast of Teacher, Teacher to the final chords of Cloud Factory, Jinjer had the place bouncing. They played a song called On The Top for the first time live and from the sounds of the response, it will become a regular fixture on their play list. Several other songs that really impressed me were Judgement (And Punishment), I Speak Astronomy, Retrospection, and Outlander. Jinjer returned for an encore, playing Pisces and Captain Clock, leaving the stage to a huge and well deserved ovation. Like the time I recently saw Avatar for the first time, I left this show feeling like I had just witnessed a band on the verge of blowing wide open. Jinjer is poised on the brink of some huge success…mark my words!