Saturday Part 2 

With an earlier start to Saturday’s proceedings and the prospect of nine excellent bands to watch I headed off promptly for the same lovely walk down to the Spa where some industrious artist was creating artwork in the low tide beach sands. With no delay in opening the doors I headed in to grab one of those coveted tables again, I got the same one actually.

Grabbing a beer (I did buy it I might add) I settled in to await post-black act Lunar Mercia whose atmospheric arrangements set the day up perfectly for me.

The way they wove variations in tempo and dynamics was glacial at times as the harsh vocals felt like howling wind knifing through the night.

Their songs were long as ‘On The Veiled Road’ was played with some very cool clean vocals that came across like a whispering in storm ridden air but balanced by aggression through blasting sorties and harsher vocals.

‘Sombre Corruption’ followed offering a more straight forward atmospheric black metal stance but like their other tunes was counterpointed by post-black trickery and concluded the opening act’s fine set.

Nemorous were up next and I was looking forward to seeing the band again after seeing them stun Reaper Fest last year. Starting five minutes late their glacial blasting assault was in stark contrast to the openers as the band unleashed banshee like vocal shrieks but it was clear there were some problems on stage, judging by people buzzing around on it.

As a pause ensued due to technical issues it really dulled the momentum of their show, but the audience were patient as they eventually restarted and delivered their set without any further problems.

However, that drop in momentum affected some people and despite the issues the band pulled off their atmospheric assault with aplomb though inevitably they over ran their allocated set time finish, but was still enough for people to check out their very cheap merch and I was given an opportunity to have breather as Giz reviewed Wyrdstæf who were up next. (MH)

It’s been more than three years since UK’s most curious of black metal bands, Wyrdstæf, have played live so it was always going to be a set of questions. Are they still the primal, shamanic tribe they used to be? Are they still an eerie and perplexing band?

As they entered emblazoned with ash and blood body paint and rough cloth, fleeces and hides its clear these Palaeolithic time travellers are still challenging the norm. The ragged masked Shaman and the tribe (including three quarters of Trivax now) raise the spiritual chants, complex overlapping voices and strange spirit noises from the electronica stage left; Heilung gone black metal as I have previously observed.

It is intense and compelling and builds layer upon layer or worship and atmosphere. When they hit the aggression of ‘Great Migrations’ it is a sudden violent and hypnotic stomp of rhythmic black metal. The stage movement and expressions are fierce, utterly alien and grab you by the neck and everything is poured into the performance.

They close with the momentum challenging ‘Primordial Bloodlines’, an eerie, dark and melodic guitar workout, a calm after the summoning of storms which works for me but perhaps puzzled some. Strange, unique and I am so glad that they are. (Giz)

With my welcomed break over it was back to it for Danish black metal act Glemsel who started whilst I was at the bar having my wallet stripped for a glass of red wine that cost £8.50 for a mate who had travelled with me for the weekend, at least he sipped it slowly.

Glemsel were exceptional, their ear shredding bleakness could strip paint as their relentlessness had similarities to Wiegedood, intense and insanely caustic but with some fine contrasts in mood whether through the riffs or the swingeing tempo dynamics.

They had little interaction with the crowd which I really liked, that dispassionate approach always does for me, as their eruptions in noise crafted a battering wall of nihilism and enough for me to buy their stuff as it was fast becoming a very expensive weekend for me. (MH)

As Arð themselves put it in self-deprecating manner, going from bands playing at two hundred bpm to the sedate doom of Arð could have gone one of two ways.

But as I discovered Arð are too classy and gorgeous sounding a band to allow it to be anything other than a success. Genuinely not knowing them at all prior to this (other than the fact main man Mark Deeks has a couple of his Winterfylleth comrades live) they were a revelation in class.

Graceful and sedate in place, their doom was a calming but deeply emotional and affecting presence. The vocals were nothing short of mesmerising; the interplay between Mark Deeks and Chris Naughton was just perfect.

The swathes of keyboards, courtesy of Kostas Panagiotou of Pantheist fame, were perfectly balanced, allowing the guitars to rise and creating a rich atmosphere and I simply found myself lost in the songs. Certainly one of the most classy performances of the weekend, and from the reaction they made an awful lot of friends. (Giz)

I have seen Ante-Inferno a few times now and they have impressed me each time I’ve seen them play, their acerbic atmospheric tracks are breath-taking as notably the festival organiser plays in this band.

They managed to claw the delay back by setting up quickly and as the intro piece played they launched into ‘No Light At Life’s End’ and immediately returned the day to outright ferocity after the relatively progressive charm of Arð. Like all their previous shows they added masses of atmosphere to the songs, all the while inflicting grievous malevolence on the by now sizeable crowd on a day that was sold out of day tickets alongside the weekenders.

‘Celestial Mirage’ followed and if anything they increased the intensity showering the crowd with controlled causticity amidst the inhuman pulverising finesse the band exhibited. I found the sound very cool for the band enabling all the nuances to be deciphered and if I hadn’t already bought quite a lot of their stuff at previous gigs I’d have bought something else because Ante-Inferno are one of those bands that never disappoint and get better each time you see them.

Clearly a lot of people at this gig weren’t that familiar with Danish act Afsky which is headed up by Ole Pedersen Luk as a solo project. He was ably assisted by guest live musicians to give his songs a live airing and the results were wholly spellbinding.

The cheering the band got between songs was possibly the loudest of the weekend as the band unleashed unceremonious hostility from start to finish, with barely a moment to breathe. All the superlatives I’ve used to describe bands so far are completely apt and relevant to Afsky only they increased the power and intensity tenfold.

Equally they blended the calmer elements sublimely using isolated guitar breaks from both six and four strings as their immense tsunami of black metal wrath was like tornadic terror. Despite the violence they moderated their onslaught with powerful atmospherics creating huge variation in moods but always with an aura of scathing malice present.

As the band finished their set people descended on the merch table like vultures to get a hold of something creating an enormous queue that never relented for much of the rest of the evening.

After Ante-Inferno clawed the delay back earlier Winterfylleth started 15 minutes late due to technical problems on ever growing audience impatience as I could hear people muttering about them getting on with it.

I’m sure day tickets will have been clock watching if they were on public transport but once the band started they were excellent as always as they kicked off with ‘Absolved In Fire’ after an intro piece. I normally wear ear plugs at gigs but by now my ears seemed to have taken to protesting about the high end guitar sound of the day so I ditched them so I could hear the bands subtleties, of which there were plenty of course.

The way Winterfylleth weave such eloquent power into their songs is unmatched as they aired ‘The Reckoning Dawn’ after a brief bit of chat. The audience wholly submerged themselves into the set which had some similarities to Afsky as their dense sweeping tracks were swathed with a soundscaping styling.

They ended their set with ‘Green Cathedral’ I believe, a song the band said they don’t play live usually but was massively appreciated by the crowd as their set ended with a fade out that worked perfectly.

Today’s day tickets had clearly sold out because of the final act making their UK debut playing live and was of course the unmatched brilliance of Panopticon. Their merch was late arriving which could have been a tactical decision to sell stuff they already had then put more out to squeeze people’s wallets or bank accounts further, cynically speaking of course.

This did not dull the constant people queuing up for shirts, etc. of which they had a tour shirt that was snapped up by loads of people including yours truly. It was a privilege to watch this debut live show and whilst my energy levels weren’t brilliant they delivered a pristine set packed with nuances but laced with melodic aggression that started with ‘Dead Loons’. Their atmospheric drenched set teemed with musicality offering wonderful sonic beauty drenched in blue light on the opener.

With smoke billowing periodically the band continued with ‘Bodies Under The Falls’ as each song was cheered by the appreciative and knowledgeable crowd. They blended their set into an almost fluid constant, as ‘Black Soot And Red Blood’ linked in with ‘Killing The Giants As They Sleep’; it was masterful to watch as the string adornments were low in the mix and you really had to focus to hear them, but worth it when you caught them on the ear.

The band could do no wrong as ‘Into The North Woods’ linked with ‘Know Hope’ each being cheered when they started as the band crafted possibly the most diverse set of the weekend and concluded with ‘The Long Road (Part 3: The Sigh Of Summer)’.

The subtlety of this band belies the weight of their music, as the closer delivered the final sonic embrace before I headed off into the much cooler Scarborough night than last night only to find my fine companions had stuffed my bag with a cartload of flyers when I opened it back at the hotel room. Gits. (MH)

Review: Martin Harris & Giz

Photos: Andy Pountney (@shot_in_the_dark_photography2)

Pentagram Shot: Sam Marshall 

Part 3