TERRORIZER GRINDHOUSE – ABGOTT, SEREGON, THE BELONGING, H.O.D AND TEUTOBURG FOREST
WAKEFIELD SNOOTY FOX 04/07/10
It’s a good year since I ventured over to Wakefield, and this has been the first thing to tempt me in a while. Two bands had pulled out, and it if seems like a bit of a mis-matched line-up it’s because the venue was double booked and so we were essentially getting two gigs for the price of one – so I am told. Opening band, Teutoburg Forest almost set the stage ablaze when a stick of incense is knocked over, but wouldn’t say they set it ablaze in the more figurative manner. On album, main man Donn handles all instruments and today it’s session musicians that bring the music to fruition, with the drummer serving up vocals. Frankly, it comes across as a live version of the clichéd “bedroom” demo recording – messy and unpolished. While there’re some decent riffs and melodies buried in there somewhere, they don’t come across particularly well today and ultimately there is little to set them apart from the hordes of other generic black metal outfits (though I have to admit listening to their recordings on MySpace they sound much better). There’s a dark ambience courtesy of the candles at the front of the stage, and great effort has clearly gone into painting themselves up, but that is where it ends and this is the kind of unholy racket I’m just not drunk enough at 4:30PM to appreciate.
You can trust Hospital Of Death to get the crowd moving, and ‘Down The Hatch’ goes our afternoon dose of thrash metal, to be taken with a swig of beer of course. As ever, these lads seem comfortable on the stage, frontman Rev D. engaging in plenty of banter with the crowd between songs and putting over a certain Northern humour, while his falsetto vocal shrieks out like an ambulance siren with a touch of Russ Anderson (Forbidden) in the delivery. The riffs are chunky and powerful and delivered with the precision of a surgeon with a scalpel, while the bassist and guitarist swing their guitars and strut across the stage with a kind of energy that makes them fun to watch. A cover of Anthrax’s ‘Ode To Billy’ gets the heads banging, though not quite as much as the more widely recognised ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ which naturally goes down well and suits the bands speed metal application. A good, fun performance.
Whatever drugs they slipped me in the hospital of death were sure making me feel drowsy by the time The Belonging hit the stage. I was not impressed with this band the last time I saw them, though I was determined to give them a fair go tonight as that was a few years back and bands can improve, right? Actually there are a couple of tracks that do impress somewhat; ‘Oracle Of The Night’ has some harsh, hypnotic tones counterbalancing the crushingly heavy undercurrent of bass, drums and rhythm guitar, while I like the slow paced ‘Dreaming Darkness’ which is quite atmospheric. On the whole I find their black/death hybrid to be rather tedious and uninspiring, and I have heard it all too many times before. It doesn’t take me long to get bored (although perhaps not as bored as the bassist looks to be!) and speaking of dreaming and night I somehow manage to drift off for a brief spell. Yawn.
Thankfully Seregon’s death-thrash assault went a long way to revive me. It’s their 5 year +1 day anniversary show and considering I’ve never seen them give a half-assed performance I’m surprised they’re still carrying with them that “unsigned band” tag – won’t someone sign them up? Their brand of thrash is much more serious and aggressive than the party stylings of H.O.D earlier. There’s a primitive stomp to their sound, and of course to say they borrow quite a bit from early Sep is an understatement, but they pull it off with finesse. A decent frontman can make all the difference, and James Moore is the kind of one that has a rather magnetic presence and he appears truly feral as he paces the stage spitting pure anger down the microphone. Tracks like ‘Kingdom Of The Blind’ are charged out at full throttle and get the crowd members swinging their hair about in the pit, and all in all this is a band that go from strength to strength and predictably gave a jolly good show!
Abgott have been making regular appearances on the MTUK website for several years now, yet tonight is somehow the first time I’ve personally managed to see them live. Their last album, Godfather In Black narrowly missed my top 20 album list last year and so I was quite looking forward to their performance. Their set is unleashed with the initial biting fury of ‘Kronos Cosmic Throne’ which blasts its way into a hellish oblivion. This lot put on a top notch visual display, all corpsepainted up to the nines they are incredibly photogenic especially with frontman Agamoth pulling the kind of faces that would send small children crying home to mamma. There’s a classic metal influence that bristles across most obviously on the blistering guitar solos and Thanatos and Triserial really work the stage strutting and posing in a manner that would befit many a stadium rock veteran. It’s great to hear the likes of ‘Lustmord’ with its rather tumultuous progressive attack and ‘Deathfugue’ both from the latest offering, the latter of these crashing out with a brazen swagger and clean vocals which add a little dash of colour to proceedings. A cover of Megadeth classic ‘Holy Wars’ goes down a treat and no doubt kept the local thrash crowd sweet and they do an outstanding job of it too! Having to miss half their set for my last train is a bummer and a sign of the crap transport links that make gigs in Wakefield such an unappealing idea to me when the alternative is a £20 taxi ride. Nevertheless this rounds off an enjoyable afternoon/evening of metal!
Luci Herbert
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