With club gigs now taking off, UK bands are certainly piling on the number of tours now that the autumn has arrived, despite a fair number of international bands pulling the plug on their tours unfortunately. With a healthy turnout clocking in at just after seven local openers Sloth Hammer were a familiar band that has played the circuit around Leeds and the North Of England. Having seen their improvised sludge noise previously that I wasn’t too enamoured with, I gave the band a chance to hook me in with their dissonant miasmic sludge, tinged with improvised electronics and the vocal terror of two shouters and screamers who were both decked out in balaclavas though the rest of the band wasn’t. At times during their set you were plunged into a torturous nihilistic cacophony as the indecipherable vocal screams and bellowed out chaos added to the tumultuous horror being inflicted on the crowd. Personally, I found it a tad much for my ears, wanting some tune and a hook I could get into, but there’s no denying that the crowd appreciated what they had to offer as I vacated to the bar for refreshment.

Another local act, Helve, changed the mood slightly, but not the density their post sludge tracks saturating the audience with an immersive yet claustrophobic assault. Subtleties on guitar were evident continuously as the band unfurled atmospheric hooks by the truckload balanced by the ultra-dense pulsing sludge that infested their songs. With the vocalist standing in front of the stage, he commanded the audience’s attention, wandering around almost like he was a in daze but capturing the mood perfectly, especially as the rest of the band weren’t that animated on stage. Bathing the stage in blue light added to the atmosphere even if it wasn’t deliberate, conjuring up a glacial aura as their closing song was utterly brilliant and was possibly called ‘Dark Clouds’, though I may be mistaken.

At ten minutes plus duration the song weaved tendrils of bereft melancholy into the appreciative crowd, though the person doing inappropriate woohs continually partly ruined the opening to this song as it was so subtle and emotive. The surge in power was excellent, impacting and drenched in a post rock styling as a cleaner vocal was deployed that I felt could have been used more in their songs if they chose to. The incremental gradations in power made the closer that much more special, and sprinkled with their exceptional ability to adorn calmer more serene passages. It was a shame I didn’t see any merch for the band as I would definitely have bought some.

I’d seen Ba’al a couple of times before, the last of which was at this same venue in November 2019 since which the band has released a debut full length which I hadn’t heard. I was suitably impressed by them the previous times I’d seen them but here they were stratospherically superb. Their emotive, passionate songs blanketed the crowd beautifully, balancing a blackened ethos with post rock guitar work creating epic aura on all their songs.

I believe the band dedicated their set or one of the songs to Owen Pegg from Hundred Year Old Man, who sadly passed away last month, a touching tribute as there was a fluidity to the set that the other bands couldn’t quite accomplish, a level of grandiose majesty felt through their riffs, abrasive vocals and importantly just allowing each song wash over us all. With huge variations in power their subtleties stood out massively as I believe they aired ‘Father, The Sea, The Moon’ where the morose prolonged opening had a pervasive edge before a sludge wall greeted us as the vocalist stood arms outstretched. Subtleties weren’t restricted to the guitar work as the drummer offered his own nuances throughout as the post rock hooks clawed into you and took hold. Flowing into their closer the backing atmospherics compounded the haunting nature of the bands set, as the bassist donned a violin.

Their sense of desolation was palpable, as the violin added another layer of texture to this act’s repertoire before the immense change in energy and intensity. With the song building slowly you felt a crescendo was approaching and it arrived brilliantly, peaking with changes in speed until it dropped back to how it started. Fantastic, scintillating musicality from Ba’al that everyone absorbed, as I eagerly picked up their new album.

Sheffield band Gozer were new for me, they had a mammoth job to surpass the brilliance of Ba’al which I felt they didn’t achieve and even though this was a coheadlining tour Ba’al just seemed to have much more to offer and probably should have headlined. It has to be noted that the band changed the lighting, using two old style table lamps complete with what I would deem as 70s lampshades on the left and right at the back of the stage.

I am not sure what the purpose of this was though they did throw a subdued lighting on proceedings as their sludge metal crushed the audience. There was an impersonal stance to their set with little interaction as the band rarely faced the crowd allowing their droning dissonance to penetrate efficiently, as one guitarist played a tambourine briefly that I could just hear and added some nuance to their set. Was I wholly engrossed with Gozer, not particularly, they felt like an anti-climax after Ba’al even though the crowd was fully engaged with their music, whether this was down to the droning repetition or the lack of atmosphere I’m not sure, though the audience lapped it up, as I decided to head off after playing out on a school night.

Review: Martin Harris

Photos: Andy Pountney