THUS DEFILED - DAEMONSPAWN LAUNCH PARTY
Now this is the way to launch your album in style. Play a gig and invite down no less than 8 bands playing a wide variety of styles in support. This was a bit of an unexpected shindig for so early in the year and it gave us all plenty of chance to check out a load of bands and damage our livers whilst doing so. Mind you I had planned not drinking early and even washing down what I had with some lemonade. Good intentions were laid to waste by a poo pooing Zero Tolerance scribe insisting I joined in drinking till I dropped which I seem to have managed rather well at.
Whilst this was all going on it was time for Dyscarnate who were the unknown quantity of the day as far as I was concerned. They shredded from the offset, fast and furious and very impressive due to the dual vocals of singers Tom and Henry who growled and shrieked their way through the aggressive and unrelenting instrumentation. They also had a few people straight into action down the front punching the air to the flurry of blast beats. As far as this Horsham band were concerned it was a case of someone always has to go on first but the quality here suggested it wont be them for much longer and I could honestly see this lot going down a storm playing with the likes of Cannibal Corpse or Decapitated in the future.
The hills were alive with the sound of bleating. Well actually violent growling was emanating from Necrosadistic Goat Torture. I have kind of overdosed on them in the last week with 2 gigs and a demo and it was Nekrolog from that which they opened with and boy were the guitars turned up loud in the mix. Despite being virtually deafened instantaneously this worked pretty well. Personally I don’t understand people who flock to football matches on a Saturday afternoon. This was the perfect way to spend it, drinking beer and headbanging to heavy metal and corking songs like Death Worm. Despite the guitars being so loud you couldn’t ignore the rabid growls of frontwoman Talkea, Embrace The Wolves, it sounded like she was dining with them perhaps at a Maniac’s Banquet. A corny review for a brutal band, watch out for this lot!
I have caught Dead Beyond Buried a few times now and despite the fact they play a brutal form of Death Metal which isn’t really my thing, they always put on a good show. Living well and truly up to their name they set about trying to put us all 6 feet under with a battery straight out of hell and some scything guitars grinding away with barbaric intent. First number the very deathly entitled God Is Dead threw out a slurry of skewed riffs, slowed down to a gravid crawl and literally exploded into an angry rage again. “Hold onto your head this could knock it off,” are the scrawled words I jotted down along with Prostitute Disfigurement and Gorerotted two bands they seemingly reminded me of here today.
With organs peeling it was time to worship Centurions Ghost who started with a new one to me The Supreme Moment, the opening slab from their forthcoming album The Great Work. With sludgy riffs and pulverising Doom Downs (like beat downs but slower) it was evident that only the strong were going to survive here. Even as a 4 piece the crushing rhythms soiled underwear from 20 paces and as they rumbled into Let Sleeping Corpses Die the gravity behind things could have truly woken the dead. Singer Mark has certainly injected his own stamp on older numbers such as Empyrean (Circle Of God) and by the time they tied things up with Bedbound In The House Of Doom we were finally released from the almighty riffage to stumble blindly to the bar for a much needed drink.
Desolation flew into things strumming away with a melodic finesse that just had you in paroxysms of metal delight. This was a tight melodic workout weaving its way through meandering labyrinthine guitar chords which you could easily lose yourself in and tempted air guitar playing at every twist and turn. If euphoric metal were a genre Desolation would be at the top of it, the delirious complexity of their songs forged ever onward consuming us whole. It was quite amusing to realise that the people reviewing this gig for various publications were the ones down the front headbanging away to the music the hardest. Needless to say this is another band hard at work on a new album, the follow up to The Stone Oracles is one that I am certainly looking forward to.
Devilish Impressions were the sole international act of the day coming over from the frozen vastlands of Poland to treat us to some melodically chaotic black metal. Their symphonic keyboard laden assault was at times downright spooky and came at us a bit like Cradle Of Filth being chased round a graveyard. They looked good on the stage and their make up and utilisation of the space they had made them really interesting to watch. By the 3rd number though and despite some neat chugging bass and solid thrashing I realised that there was a bit of a spark missing here and this wasn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff. However this was my first encounter with the band and listening to the couple of tracks on their myspace I may have been harsh here and would definitely be interested in checking them out again.
Time for some real drinkin’ music (like we needed an excuse) Screamin Daemon were back in town. There was a metal reverend telling silly tales of murder on the stage, naturally all in the worst possible taste. Now tighter than ever and with the added attraction of Gian Pyres on guitar (ex CoF amongst many others). It was laugh a minute at this macabre onslaught of rasping sick vocals, fierce drum beats and buzz saw riffing. The set comprised of no fillers just serial killers and mass murderers of course. Idi Amin got his tribute to genocide in a metal mondo style and the one about Vlad The Impaler certainly didn’t suck. Most my notes from this show were obliterated by beer spillage but if my memory does serve me well they finished us off with a euthanasiastic number about a certain Dr Shipman, complete with Goreskin from Gorerotted joining in with some clinical vokills. If you missed them today catch them supporting GWAR in the UK hurrah.
Showing the versatility of the line up and an excellent choice as far as I was concerned, next up were NFD. A fair few of their T shirts were being worn today and I had to wonder what some of their fans would have thought as the no doubt encountered The Daemon for the first time. The powerhouse anthem that is Light My Way ruled with Peter ‘Bob’ white clasping his rag draped microphone and roaring into it as the sparkling guitars rained down on us. Slower numbers such as Possession grandiosely spiralled out the speakers before the heavy pound of Turbine pummelled on in. NFD had me rooted to the front of the stage (I didn’t even leave to get a beer) no doubt dancing very badly to their highly enjoyable set. 40 minutes just wasn’t enough but they bowed out with Move On Closer to make way for the headliners but are back at the Gotham festival in May with Zodiac Mindwarp!
It had actually been a while since I last caught Thus Defiled and they were set to destroy with both new songs and line-up. In a word this was one hell of an intense performance full of speed and flailing guitars that at times were so damn fast, things threatened to implode. Obviously songs such as And They Shall Fear The Night and Blackreign (Crown Of Horns) were being sampled by us for the very first time. The band had no problems and obviously a lot of practice has gone into these numbers before they were unveiled as they were tight as a gnats chuff. The guitarists Paul C and Paul F wanked their axes for all they were worth and Paul C’s barked vocals steamed through the venue like a gang of muggers on a suburban rail train.
Thankfully there were old numbers such as Of Shadow And Storm to keep us happy and if you didn’t recognise that a cover of Slayer’s Black Magic you must have been paralytic. I literally lost myself in new number Astaroth the one track I had heard a few times via the bands MySpace page. Full of harmonious and convoluted riffs this surged forward in a heady climax of angry roars and flailing leads. Unfortunately the house lights came on meaning that the cover of Death song Evil Dead will have to wait for another day for its debut. Thus Defiled are set to release a split CD featuring some classic covers with Meads Of Asphodel going down the punk route in the near future. Tonight they threw a good party and wrecked far too many brain cells in the process of those gathered. Good show.
Pete Woods
LONDON UNDERWORLD 24/02/07