EARTHRIDE, THE GATES OF SLUMBER, CENTURIONS GHOST & THE LAMP OF THOTH
I was pleased to arrive in the nick of time for the lighting of the esoterically named Lamp Of Thoth as their ‘I Love The Lamp’ demo had really impressed with its classic doom vibe. This was I believe only their second gig and it was evident the 3 piece had a solid groove, a flair and at times a gallop about them. Vocally there were croons, roars and a beseeching call magickally evoking things from very dark places. Songs had Satan mentioned a fair bit lyrically and musically I guess you could cite Pentagram, Rev Biz, St Vitus with a sprinkling of NWOBHM in there. There was a nice witch-burning scuzz from the bass and guitars here and you could almost smell a tramp being set on fire here, but that could have been the venues toilets.
If I had a beard I would certainly have stroked it to the unholy spells and incantations of this druid doom and to put it simply their brand of ‘Ancient Fire’ rocked. Watch out for this Yorkshire legion.
Centurions Ghost had their organ out (ooh err) and the band were all bearded apart from new guitarist Fed (as she’s a lady). Milly behind the drums looks worryingly like Charlie Manson with his, and like dodgy cultists it was a case of ‘Only The Strong Survive’ as we drunk the juice down to them. Zombies, should they run or crawl? Well as far as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is concerned, this bitch bit and then some. Basically this was a heavy and intense display and as soon as this review is finished I am sitting down to have a first listen to brand new album, ‘The Great Work.’ This isn’t a particularly unbiased review as this lot are mates but the album will certainly be covered by an impartial scribe make no mistakes.
And so to The Gates Of Slumber, big blokes with big hair and for that matter a big bass, oh big riffs, yes guaranteed. Looking like the sort of gentle giants who pick the screaming heroine up in an articulated lorry with a serial killer on her tail this was the sort of beefy sound akin to the wheel rolling over the fiends head as the credits roll. Jason McCash certainly wielded his instrument dangerously using the bass like a mighty beef cleaver, compared to the guitars cutting sword motion. ‘Feast Of The Dead’ fuck me is there a zombie theme going on here, was certainly not running it stalked but certainly did so with no escape in mind. Actually it was a time for torture as well, not witch-burning this time round but ‘Broken On The Wheel’ can be rather painful too. This was what is best described as a chuggathon with scalding guitars and the speakers were just about coping with the buzz emanating from the stage.
The very sweet smell of leafy things filled the air, people best start enjoying this whilst they can as we are soon going to have a complete ban on smoking in the UK and gigs like this will be a strange affair to some. Some blues laden mellow licks accompanied the haze before the gravity plunging doom rained down and flattened us. With Karl Simon literally wanking his axe off, there was little in the way of slumbering going on here. TGOS certainly climaxed in style and to a big round of applause left the stage with ‘Angel Of Death’ ringing in our ears.
Can’t say I knew much of Maryland band Earthride apart from the fact they perhaps lived in trailers and slugged back moonshine all day. Fuck me I don’t think I have ever heard a guitar sound literally so earthy as they rumbled into things with ‘Fighting The Devils’ (what zombies not good enough for you)? This had a sound that was positively organic, smothered in manure, scuzzy, decrepit and rotting. Singer Dave Sherman was busy spitting his beer all over me, cheers, but this was a small price to pay for worshipping the extreme fuzz. In a way Earthride were the sort of band that made you want to smoke, toke and poke and the anthem sounding ‘Vampire Circus’ was a cataclysmic blood orgy of the she devils and a half.
At times they had a groove and vocal delivery that really reminded of Motorhead their title track ‘Earthride’ certainly emphasised this point. The most amusing thing was that Sherman kept us all entertained riding an imaginary motorbike on stage, one of these days you might just give Blackie Lawless a run for his money.
All 4 bands played straight up excellent performances tonight, more doom gigs like this please!
Pete Woods
LONDON UNDERWORLD 25/04/07