BLACK WITCHERY, ARCHGOAT & PROCLAMATION
If ever there was a line up with utter filth written all over it, this was it. There were only the 3 bands on tonight’s bill with no unnecessary local supports, meaning that all the international visitors had time for long sets. Not that things went fantastically smoothly at first and the late start was apparently due to Black Witchery having been held at customs for a couple of hours.
Spaniards Proclamation were weighed down with an arsenal of spikes and chains and certainly looked up for war. Drums exploded and cantered off and it was evident that their sound was both hard as nails, downright filthy and designed to maim and inflict the nastiest of wounds. The word ‘war’ was fitting as it seemed as the chant was ringing in my ears. I am not sure what they played, in fact there is very little to be found on the net about this horde and they only appear to have released one album ‘Advent Of The Black Omen’ to date. They did play a fast and furious sangria fuelled set of Beherit and Blasphemy worship that pretty much ripped through the entrails of the venue from start to finish. I can also tell you that amusingly one of the band looked a bit like Ming The Merciless from the Flash Gordon movie, downright evil to match the music. Practically everyone in the venue was rammed to the front of it watching this sermon of fire. The words ‘Satanas Luciferi’ were yelled out and death grunts were also thrown at us. New song ‘Rise Of The Apocalypse’ was announced culminating a set of pure hellfire and damnation.
Putting up candelabras and a big banner, we thought Archgoat were going to be on quickly but in fact they took bastard ages setting up, which naturally meant the audience had nothing much to do except drink. Yells of annoyance were finally abated when the lights dimmed and filth pervaded. Musically in more familiar territory here it was time for some ‘Death And Necromancy’ and there were many here pleased that the band had reformed a few years ago and were honouring us with a second visit at this very venue. Angelslayer and Ritual Butcherer looked resplendent with massive spikes and corpse-paint, probably explaining the delay in coming on, this get up must have taken some preparation. It has to be said the production on new (and in fact debut) full length album ‘Whore Of Bethlehem’ makes the disc a bit of a harrowing listening experience. Here though tracks from it like ‘Black Crusade’ sounded excellent and the older fans were rewarded with the likes of ‘Penis Perversor.’ Nihilistic and despondent, with no redeeming features in the slightest, of course this was just the way we wanted things. It was worth getting crushed to the stage and spikes in the back of my neck for this.
Covering Sarcofago track ‘Sathanas’ at the end certainly meant they Archgoat won over this by now maniacal audience.
Raw and impure and “created in order to invoke the order of total darkness evil and blasphemous hatred,” is the mindset behind Floridian band Black Witchery. Must say this was a bit of a treat and we should certainly be grateful for visits from the likes of this lot and Revenge. With Impurath and Tragenda wearing cloaks (and naturally bullet belts) they made a fuzzy wall of sound that hit like an exorcism of treble audio torture akin to the sort of depravity one would expect from Whitehouse if they were a black metal band. The get up had me thinking of Pungent Stench and the Knight Templars from the Tombs Of The Blind Dead movies. The music was not particularly comparable to anyone else in particular but simply raged, full of hate and anger. One track was called ‘Blasphemous Onslaught’ and that is exactly what we got. Whilst this was going on someone from the venue was trying to clean round the audience with a mop which was certainly a surreal sight. Cant say I recognised much of the Black Witchery material but there were covers such as Blasphemy number ‘Ritual’ amongst the cleaving devastation. This was one of the most brutal underground shows to hit for quite sometime and it is great that London is on the European map for such rituals, thanks largely to organisers Stratanael for putting this on.
In fact it seems only right to let them have the last word
"Ooh... it's ending too early", "Ooh...it's ending too late", "Ooh...it's starting too late", "Ooh...it's starting too early", "Ooh...too many bands", "Ooh...not enough bands", "Ooh...I cannot come to the gig, I go to the gym on the day after", "Ooh...please book this band again as it's my mum's B-day", etc...
Pete Woods
LONDON ELECTROWERKZ 19/05/07
We are sorry to organise gigs for poofs like you!