|
Therion + Grave Digger -
London Mean Fiddler - 21st of January 2007 - Review by Marco
Gaminara For some stupid reason I got it in my head that this gig
was happening at The Koko, which would've been awesome owing to its
layout, but after arriving there and confirming that it was actually
at the Mean Fiddler, I quickly made my way there. With that in mind
I only got to see 5 songs from the Grave
Digger set, and having never seen or heard
them before, I was immediately struck by how much they sounds like
generic 80's German Metal Band. Having now looked them up, I see
that that's exactly what they are and therefore realise that they
sound like that because that's indeed what they are. With a thick
German accent "Morgane Le Fay" was introduced and it the origins
needed
explaining to the drunk reviewer standing beside me. Can't believe
he wasn't as au fait with the Arthurian legend as I thought he was.
Then onto "Rebellion" which I see is a concept album based pretty
much on Braveheart and explains the bagpipe solo halfway through the
song. They then ended their set and owing to encouraging shouts from
the
audience, they returned for an encore. The second song of said
encore was "Heavy Metal Breakdown" which felt never-ending, but in
true anthemic German style was repetitive and easy for the crowd to
sing along to. |
| After a bit of crowd shuffling around, while the same was happening
on stage, I got myself in what I thought would be a great place to
watch the band on stage and to hear everything clearly. How bitterly
disappointed I would be because in the end, I couldn't see shit, and
every time I moved to a new position, I had some twat with a camera
or
phone put their hand in the way to ruin the view. Very irritating
indeed. And watching a band of Therion's
calibre on those tiny viewfinders rather than live deeply saddened
me, as did getting home smelling like an ashtray, but that's a rant
for another day. They started up their set with the 'Gothic Kabbalah'
opener "Der Mitternachtlöwe" and things only got better from there.
During the set they also played a couple other new ones in the form
of "The Perennial
Sophia", "Tuna 1613" and "Son of the Staves of Time". There was even
a face-off between Katarina Lilja and Lori Lewis with plenty of
gesticulating and glaring during "The Falling Stone" that went down
a treat, as did Christofer Johnsson and Kristian Niemann solos.
Johann Niemann played his bass and flung about his hair, whilst
always grinning and egging the crowd on to enjoy themselves. The
very imposing figure of Snowy Shaw strolling around the stage and |
 |
| leaping onto
the monitors could not be ignored. And while he was very familiar
with all the new songs, as he recorded them for the album, he wasn't
as at ease with the older songs and would occasionally be seen
glancing around to make certain he was singing the right things,
there were also times his vocals became inaudible, which I'm
guessing was owing to his reticence to project something
incorrectly, but since this is the early days of the tour it'll all
be sorted by the time it ends. While not necessarily breathtaking, Petter Karlsson's drum solo was definitely well worth watching, and
the way he drew the audience in to participate was pretty impressive
too. This flowed straight into "Muspelheim". They also played "Wine
of Aluqah", "Son of the Sun", "Birth of Venus Illegitima" and "The
Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah" to name but a few. Mats Levén stepped
forward to play guitar and sing "Lemuria", showing his talent as a
composer and musician, not only a vocalist. Nevertheless they ended
their set by going from "Nightside of Eden" into the very easily
discernible "To Mega Therion", which went down a storm, as it always
does. Now to actually get these guys to play in the UK in an Opera
Theatre so the acoustics and visuals can be truly appreciated. But I
think for now I'm just grateful that there wasn't a power cut and we
got to see an almost 2 hour set. |
| |
| |
| |
Deicide, Visceral Bleeding, Psycroptic
University of London Union 13/1/6
Review by James Young
If ever there was a case of false advertising in the metal world,
this was it. Some of the crowd were aware when they entered the ULU
that Glen Benton wasn’t in the country, let alone the venue – I’m
not sure of the reasons at this time but no doubt these will surface
soon enough. The point is, those who were blissfully unaware were
still being charged seventeen pounds entry to see a band featuring
only one original member of the band – ouch! The silver lining I
suppose was that the group, albeit now resembling a tribute act,
didn’t cancel the show, and we still got to see two great supports
as well as the questionable headliner.
Aussie technical death metal squad
Psycroptic opened up the night’s festivities, and
although I had never heard any of their albums, many recommendations
of their material had come my way in the previous months. Many of
the people I had chatted to before the doors opened had come to see
this group above all the others, so it would be very interesting to
see if they could live up to the hype. Luckily, the band surpassed
all expectations, and cleared up any gloom that the absence of a
certain Satanist had brought about. ‘Carnival of Vulgarity’ kicked
off a masterclass in precision and sheer destruction, vocalist Jason
Peppiatt forgivable for his lack of t-shirt in his unique blend of
screams and grunts. The sound was absolutely fantastic, especially
considering the opening status of the group, perhaps helped by the
presence of only one guitarist, removing the need for any sound
juggling acts. You wouldn’t have guessed that there was just the one
axeman though, with enough twiddling to boggle the mind of even the
most seasoned death metal fan. ‘Skin Coffin’ showcased some
ludicrously fast double bass drumming from Dave Haely, comparable to
the likes of The Berzerker (yes, the programmed ones), whilst ‘The
Isle Of Disenchantment’ brought early Cannibal Corpse to mind with
its groove-laden riffs, save for the insane speed bursts which
spiralled their way into the song. ‘Merchants Of Deceit’ and ‘The
Sword Of Uncreation’ contained many moments at which the songs could
have finished, before flying off at (usually faster) tangents.
Although I didn’t catch the title of the closing track, I was
suitable bowled over by the ridiculously fast blast opening, and
this intensity did not let up for one moment until the band had
finished their criminally short stage time. Something tells me this
country hasn’t seen the last of these guys, and if you missed them
this time, make sure next time you didgeri-don’t.
I can’t put into words how long I had been waiting to see Sweden’s
Visceral Bleeding – I was hooked
from the second my ears locked onto the re-released Remnants Revived
album, and somehow I’ve managed to miss them every time they have
visited the UK since. Well, things were about to change, and
although more of the members had hair the last time I checked, the
Swedish five-piece were intent on bringing their own brand of
brutality to London. Unfortunately, an abominable vocal mix severely
hampered the first few tracks played, and although Tobbe Persson’s
biscuit-tin snare blasts and Martin Bermheden’s solos were
majestically delivered in tracks such as ‘Explosive Surgery’ and
‘Rip The Flesh’, the overall sound lacked the clarity and general
tightness so central in their studio recordings. By the time
‘Disgust The Vile’ kicked in, the sound had only barely improved,
but regardless, the first pit of the night opened up. The whole
downstairs area became an array of flying bodies and fists in a
display of violence that as much as I object to, fitted Visceral
Bleeding’s material perfectly. After a few technical issues, the
title track from the forthcoming album ‘Absorbing The Disarray’
kicked in, resembling Suffocation and Insision at their most
violent, and ‘When Pain Came To Town’ rightfully brought the carnage
back to optimum levels. Finishing off proceedings with ‘Fury
Unleashed’, meeting the requests of their fans, the set had passed
extremely quickly, and even with a muddy sound, the crowd had been
suitably impressed. |
| Drummer Steve Asheim, came
out before Deicide’s set to
apologise for the lack of Glen Benton, and said it would be a great
show anyway. In place of the frontman would be Polish band
Dissenter’s vocalist Garbaty, who had learnt the songs in a very
short length of time. Well, Deicide had done a top job finding a
look-alike for Glen, but the slightly more slurred guttural tone
served as a reminder that this really wasn’t Deicide at their best
at all. Partway through one of the opening songs, Jack Owen
delivered a falsetto wail which to me was perfect proof that things
weren’t being taken seriously, which to me as a first time seeing
the band was highly irritating. The setlist was fairly long,
including classics such as ‘They Are The Children Of The
Underworld’, ‘When Heaven Burns’ and ‘Kill The Christian’, with each
member looking like they were enjoying the show, but one couldn’t
help but feel something was lacking. My highlight of the night was
unfortunately nothing to do with music, but when a persistent
crowdsurfer got a good beating from Ralph Santolla for landing on
his pedals – nice one! After ‘Homage For Satan’, things went from
bad to worse as a host of guest vocalists turned up on stage, each
carrying lyrics for their particular song – not very professional or
entertaining to be honest. First up was Psycroptic’s Jason Peppiatt
who announced it was now time for ‘karaoke’, which |
 |
wasn’t far off
as he read his way through ‘Bastard Of Christ’. Visceral Bleeding
vocalist Martin Persson couldn’t even save my personal favourite
‘Serpents Of The Light’, which lacked the evilness of the real song.
The encore, which contained ‘Sacrificial Suicide’ was sung by a
completely unknown guest, but to be honest, by this point I didn’t
really care anymore.
If Benton had been present, we would no doubt have had a shorter
setlist, but tonight proved that quality is far greater than quality
– Deicide made the best of a bad situation, but their best was
nowhere near good enough. |
| |
| |
| |
UFO Nottingham Rock City
28th November 2006 – Review by Sam Thomas : Photos by Steve Green
Having seen UFO blow the
competition away at this years Rock and Blues Custom show, it was a
treat to be able to see them again so soon. But when they took to
the stage to a very strange, unidentifiable (traditional Negro?)
intro, it almost caused me to drop my beer in case I had suddenly
materialised in completely the wrong place. But I needn’t have
worried, they then launched into “Mother Mary”, and I knew exactly
where I was. At least that’s one thing you always get with UFO: a
strong sense of who they are and what they’re likely to be doing.
Tonight ran true to form: a lot of “Strangers in the Night” era
tracks plus a couple of others, including a few of my favourites
from the latest (and best for a long time) album, “The Monkey
Puzzle”.
Pete Way was sporting a very strange fashion choice of red leather
trousers as he lurched around the stage, convincing me that it was
surely only a matter of time before he fell off it altogether.
However, I soon realised that his fashion choice was not as bizarre
as it appeared, having been presumably made so that he could show
off the impressive size of his equipment to anyone who might be
interested. |
By the time we’d hit the third track, “Let it Roll”, Phil Mogg had
advised the sound engineer to cut Pete off every time he got near a
mic (possibly a wise move), and I’d just begun to realise how superb
an addition Vinnie Neill is to this band. I never had the pleasure
of seeing them in the Schenker days, but we are talking that level
of brilliance for sure. “I’m a Loser” saw the audience throwing
themselves into the performance, before they got a bit confused with
the newer stuff. A shame, because “Hard being Me” and “Drink too
Much” were beautifully performed.
Then it was back to known and loved territory with “Only you can
Rock Me”. I was getting a bit concerned for Phil by this stage,
because he was going through a series of contortions on stage which
made him look like the wooden man from the Cuprinol ads doing an
aerobics class, and he did appear to get stuck a couple of times,
but he always seemed to recover eventually. “Too Hot to Handle”
could well have been Pete’s personal theme tune, we saw lots of
classic poses with Vinnie, including a useful demonstration of how
to play your guitar in unorthodox positions (behind your head, with
your teeth). As we came to the end of the set with “Rock Bottom”, it
all appeared to have been too much for Pete, so he finished off
playing lying on the stage.
Fortunately, he revived again for the encore, which (no surprise)
was “Doctor, Doctor” and “Shoot, Shoot”. I was a bit disappointed
with the first of these, but probably more because it’s |
 |
|
one of my all-time favourites than for any innate failure (or to put
it another way, Steve’s comment was “I don’t know what you’re
talking about, woman”) but “Shoot, Shoot” was the perfect end to a
damn-near perfect gig. |
|
