Hurrah no queue and no football supporters on getting to the venue today. It’s raining heavily so pleased to get in out of it with plenty of time to relax, check out merch and have a beer before the first band.
Today this falls to the rather scary sounding Satanic Dystopia from Manchester who were offering us a Double Denim Shotgun Massacre. No guns but bullets were held aloft as they charged on stage. The singer is an imposing figure but I knew what to expect having caught Al Osta live with his other band Ravens Creed in the past. True to form and despite not a huge amount of people here yet I still managed to end up with a beer over my head in the first song as I was in the photo pit. Hell they are almost £5 a pint have people got more money than sense. The sound is pummelling and harsh and the band unleash their ‘Nuclear Nightmare’ thrashing away and melting down with a crusty backbone about it. I would not agree with any real black metal tag here but certainly liked what I heard. Not much in the way of finesse and at times I was reminded a bit of the rotten sound of GG Allin but thankfully without the shitty stench and smell going with it. A few samples worked well within the music and the venue started to get busier ‘Tombstone Queen’ was a sludgy foul morass before spreading legs and romping off. All in all a good slab of demo sounding thugcore, the Bastard Squad did good!
Now this is black metal! Ghast from Wales have long and mesmerising songs which are completely ghastly! This was the sound of a ritual if you like the term rather than a gig. Thick cloying riffs and necrotic, cadaverous screams penetrated another dry-ice coated set. The sound is great with guitar tones sinuously cascading out the speakers and the bass and drum tones rattling through my ribcage. The weight behind it all has the crowd bowing in supplication to the death ritual which reeked of fetid atmosphere. The decay coated miasma penetrated the senses as the morbid sermon built with intensity into cataclysmic abyss staring depths. Hitting a bestial plateau it surged ever on looking for souls to claim. The third number all nameless as far as I was concerned had a raw primitivism coursing through it and the jagged groove thumped ever constant as screams echoed over the top. Had I drunk enough for this, time for another as something needed exorcising by the time the set ended!
Time for a Condor moment! This lot from Norway certainly had youth on their side but not too young to have their own backdrop, and an appreciation for the thrashy sound of yesteryear. They also have a recent ST album and it was from this they decanted ‘Chant Of Madness’ and ‘Prophecies Of Death And Destruction.’ The thrash attack strafed and galloped away bolstered by some nice throaty gurgles from singer Christoffer Bråthen. The place was now getting mobbed again and the band were causing neck-snapping contusions on the audience as things were flung out at a manic velocity. The drummer broke things after a few numbers but they quickly fixed his kit and burst into another warp speed number full of shredding guitars, thundering drums and elongated vocal screams. The spirit of Sodom was deeply rooted along with a good dose of early Slayer to boot and it was pretty damn invigorating bringing fresh blood into an arena where the old guard are getting to pensionable age. Sure it was all a bit samey but what you going to do, reinvent the wheel? Condor delivered a no surprises, no frills display of full on thrashing goodness, which really hit the spot.
There may well be no bie in Zom but this lot who were completely new to me from Ireland sounded ravenous. It was an exercise in horrible, virulent, rampaging foulness with a sound that was cavernous, shaking everything as it trembled out the speakers. Nasty samples, hideous vocals and a multi-layered reverb driven attack reminded me of the sort of musical necromancy played by the likes of Grave Miasma and Cruciamentum. Cheers Fenriz you picked a blinder here. It was death personified, chasing you straight out the grave and snapping at you with a speedy attack one minute and oozing with decrepit slow dread the next. It had the pit crazed with blood lust too as the music literally was flung out like raw meat dripping with blood. Guitars swirled, twin vocals contorted demonically and the battery was incessant as the band clad in blood red literally opened the gates of hell with their set. The shroud on the shrine was realising the next day that their Demo MMXI release was actually on our next review list waiting to be sent out. Yoinks!
Ranger hands down won the best band of the weekend for pictures and unlike many hiding behind darkness they were up there with lights blazing as they posed in a fashion that completely matched their up front ballsy speedy metal style. These Finns are another band just at the demo EP stage but nobody would have guessed at their professional display which was completely manic and shredded away with the best of them. With an underlying dose of NWOBHM sound coursing through it singer Dimi hit the high notes with aplomb sounding like a turkey having its guts ripped out and really hitting the rafters. All you could hear between songs were chants of “ranger, Ranger” and it was more than evident that the audience totally approved of the bands histrionics. Long flowing guitar parts had everyone rocking out and the Maidenesque licks were certainly running free here. New songs like ‘Supreme Evil were shining knights of darkness and I could easily imagine this lot going on tour supporting dinosaurs in big arenas and totally kicking their butts! Jobs a good un.
I loved the lamp! Of Thoth that is, so was very pleased to get to see Arkham Witch who they had evolved into for the first time. The Yorkshire (they’re from Keighley don’t you know) band were dressed eclectically for the occasion, just look at the pictures and try not to shudder at some of them! Their ‘Battering Ram’ mixed up metallic licks and some leaden stoner grooves which was just right to get everyone doom dancing. Along with it all there was both humour and cheese but how can you not have this in songs like Gods Of Storm And Thunder? Simon Iff’s vocals sounded spot on as the instru(mental)ists darted around beside him trying to steal the limelight, hidden behind at the back behind the drums Emily Ningauble kept time as the stomping metal fervour continued. There were more chops than a butchers shop and they were getting fists pumped in the air in appreciation. The band complained about the beer prices, Yorkshire through and through but to be fair they were shocking and enough to make the Kult Of Kutulu rise from the depths and destroy the place, speaking of which! I was both pleased and surprised when they culminated their set with the immortal Lamp song ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw and if you don’t know it find it now and the rhyming couplet and tune will have you swearing like a navvy for the next week. It were right grand!
So the main event and culmination of Live Evil was fittingly Cleveland hell’s headbangers Midnight, a band I had been banging on about for ages and was very happy to see for the first time on our shores. My reviewing partner (well he held my beer a couple of times) had seen them before and warned me to be ready to duck when they came on, which they did by smashing up a guitar on the stage. This must be rather expensive if they do it every show! If you had lived through Complete And Total Hell and fantastic album ‘Satanic Royalty’ you knew what to expect from this masked trio and they ripped into things with a set that flew by hell for leather. Playing in near darkness their death rock n’ roll was completely infectious and looking around I was surprised that what I thought of as a real underground band had so many singing along word for word and going mental in the pit for songs like the opening ‘Lord In Chains.’
The hooded menaces really dished out the violence getting us to ‘All Hail Hell’ in the process. Beer naturally coated the floor and went all over the place and things flew by in a fast blur. The band had been scheduled to play a long set but blazed through everything in around 40 minutes. Quite honestly that was just the perfect time especially after such an action packed weekend and 75 minutes would have been too much ‘Lust Filth and Sleaze’ for the strongest of us. Some of the favourites like ‘You Can’t Stop Steel’ were belting and had us all going for it yelling along to the punky spewed out vocal and thrashing away with the guitar sound. This was a through and through exercise in White Hot Fire and a great end to the weekend.
I probably enjoyed the Sunday sermon more that the day before there was no let up all day and every band delivered the goods. Hopefully Fenriz will carry on trawling through those demo tapes and provide us with more good line-ups for years to come as Live Evil spreads from strength to strength and continues the tradition and spreads the disease.
Saturday review is here
http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/10/live-evil-festival-london-garage-191013/
Review and photos © Pete Woods
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