OPETH & CYNIC
BRISTOL ACADEMY 21/11/08
First things first. In the interests of an unbiased review, I will admit that since having seeing Cynic at Wacken this year, I have had something of a fixation with them, and Opeth have started to bore me with their incessant touring and relatively unchanged sets. With Cynic, I was fully expecting this to be the greatest gig of all time, but due to a motorway accident, I arrived having missed some of their set. Once I had got over my feeling of being robbed, I got to fully appreciate the concert.
Cynic did not fail to impress. Their sound was exemplary, as was the musicianship. The set consisted almost entirely of material from the new album, Traced In Air (as I later verified ‘How Could I?’ was the only Focus track). The band seemed to be fully enjoying playing together, and now performing more like a regular band in support of their new music, than a group of veterans on a reunion tour. Whilst there was no doubting that many of the crowd were there for the evening's main act, the small pockets of diehard Cynic fans made their presence known, amazed to be watching arguably the greatest progressive metal act of all time.
Following the Cynic set, with a sneaky detour round the back, I ran into the band packing up their gear. Once the few autographs had been signed, I was left talking to Paul Masvidal (vocals, guitar), and Sean Reinert (drums), two of the founders of the band, and two of the founding fathers of death metal, who were in Chuck Schuldiner's Death back in the Human days. Whilst Paul seemed more interested in discussing philosophy and spirituality, Sean answered a few key questions about the future of Cynic. Firstly he commented on how much he and the guys were enjoying the tour, and were impressed at the support they were receiving every night of the tour. He also mentioned that 'rumour has it, we will be doing a full UK tour with Meshuggah next year, or so a little birdy told me, so you heard it here first. When I quizzed him over the length of the reunion, he seemed to think that the band were no longer doing a one off reunion, and that the way things were going on the Traced In Air tour, he hoped 'there would be at least another two or three more albums and tours in them yet.' Cynic were easily the most down to earth and easy going band you could ever wish to meet, and stunning musicians to boot.
As Cynic went off for dinner, the opening crunch of guitars to ‘Heir Apparent’ marked Opeth taking the stage. Amid smoke and raucous cheers, Opeth rattled off the first few songs of their brilliant set list. With Axe on the drums, bringing his impeccable death metal style to the band's progressive sound, Opeth have a new edge. Akerfeldt remained relatively quiet for the majority of the set, which was a great relief, as his brand of blindly arrogant and sarcastic comments are perhaps one of the worst aspects of their live show. Whilst the vocals needed to be louder throughout the whole set, the supplementary voice of the audience more than made up for it, and Opeth's set went down a storm. Whilst the parting comments of the band couldn't have made the encore any more predictable, their return to the stage for ‘The Drapery Falls’ was a very welcome one. With such long songs, obviously many in the audience felt aggrieved for certain songs being omitted, but given the ludicrous curfew ensuring the club could be turned around by 10pm, it was far from the fault of the band, who delivered a quality set covering most of their illustrious career.
Dan Cowen
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