SERPENTCULT, SARDONIS AND WITCHSORROW
UNDERWORLD LONDON 13/09/09
In an ideal world this gig would have been a lot busier, the turn out was pretty miserable to say the least. It was not that surprising I guess as Electric Wizard had played a week ago, Orange Goblin the night before and practically every line on the underground had some sort of engineering works affecting them. The 30 of us or so who were in for the first band grabbed beers and then stood around whilst opening band Witchsorrow shook the place and made us bow heads at the assault like trees being battered in a storm. Despite the fact that I have seen this trio a few times already they are always an interesting proposition and put on a great show that quickly had us captivated. Bassist Emily Witch threw out heavy rumbling and fuzzy riffs and I found my legs twitching as they hit. In fact I seem to have a bastard of a bruise on my knee after banging it on the stage in time with the music. One song was surprisingly fast for a doomy number with the drumming hitting like bullets and ripping into us. I was reminded of something out the 70s too as it had a sort of bastard Steppenwolf feel to it. Necroskull had the audacity to dedicate a song to himself for driving to the venue; we can only assume that it was a slow and punishing journey. Mangling Mayhem’s classic ‘Freezing Moon’ into new dimensions was a good way to finish things and this was an admirable Malleus Maleficarum of a show which saw the band on fire, lucky it’s not 1500 really.
I had no idea what to expect from Sardonis who had come over with the headliners from Belgium. I was rather surprised when I realised it was just a duo and even more so when I heard how loud a noise they made. They kind of set about making an apocalyptic racket and one that basically put the mental into instrumental with songs such as ‘Thor’ which was indeed mighty. They pretty much mixed things up musically with a doom backbone but at times galloping into thrashy flourishes and a bit of a progressive twist here and there for good measure. The difficulty I had was deciding on whether to play air guitar or drums to them, it was impossible not to lurch around to the ever changing sound which mixed with lots of cider must have looked incredibly daft. The set seemed over far too quickly but definitely left an impression.
Possibly the only thing I could complain about as far as Serpentcult are concerned is the fact that they could do with some new material. However having a chat with Frederic before they played I was informed that this is pretty much imminent. It’s a minor criticism anyway as their debut album ‘Weight Of Light’ is a cracker and tonight we pretty much got the whole of it bar one song, along with a couple of numbers from EP ‘Trident Nor Fire.’ The sound was excellent as they crunched on with ‘Screams From The Deep’ rising up to consume us all with twisting turning riffs and singer Michelle’s bewitching vocals. Mind you she even threw in a death grunt or two so was not all sweetness and light. Older number ‘The Harvest’ was akin to being hit over the head by a lump of lead, it flattened with Steven’s bass ploughing through us. The band interacted perfectly, utilising the stage and looking really comfortable despite the low attendance, I guess they knew this material back to front by now and the players really hit a groove at one point giving the singer time to leave them to it and catch a quick breather back stage. They only played about 8 songs finishing off with ‘Serpentcult’ itself leaving us pretty deafened as we made our way off on the slower than normal journey home. Hopefully it won’t be such a cult performance next time they play here and more brethren will be out to worship.
Pete Woods
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