INSISION (SWE), DEAD BEYOND BURIED,
REMASCULATE & DAWN OF CHAOS –
LONDON PURPLE TURTLE 28/02/10
A sleepy Sunday soon gives way to excitement, anticipation, and the need for some beers, as you go for the journey into London for a quality death metal gig. Nearing the end of their UK leg of the tour, Sweden and the UK unite for a fairly brutal full frontal assault.
Unfortunately, the venue is practically empty when DAWN OF CHAOS comes to the stage. Considering they only had a line check, the sound is pretty good in the Purple Turtle and the new sound booth location makes viewing in the downstairs area much more appealing. Their opening track just passes me by, not really being that interesting, but then ‘Mufficated’ (hmm, yeah, another one of “those” lyrically topical bands) displays a bit more groove and slightly better class. Their “humour” in the lyrics continues somewhat into an array of schoolyard name calling; I am sure the vocalist introduced one song as being ‘Haircut for Retards’ (although none of these songs appear on their EP’s as far as I can tell), but I could have been mistaken. Anyway, a good band musically with plenty of promise, but vocally, this just didn’t do anything for me and the comedy aspect of the live presentation did not move me one bit. There is still time to grow though and on the whole band battled ahead in front of a sparse crowd that did not phase them one little bit. Kudos.
Now I have been really looking forward to seeing Sweden’s REMASCULATE in fact, I am beginning to sound like a broken record the amount of times I was name checking the band. Filthy horrid punk with a majority of grindcore batters your head whilst ones spirit is stirred into the need for chaos. Of course, they had the longest stage set up time of ANY band! The guitar work from Micke is fast and furious; drummer Marcus is very relaxed whilst blast beating away; is this guy asleep!? Well if he is, he is drumming bloody good, there is just complete calm! That cannot be said for the rest of the band who batter themselves through ‘Nuke Kids on the Block’ and ‘Killed by Death Metal’. Another singer trying humour, nope, didn’t work either during the mid-song banter, but hey, the music is really pleasant and refreshing. The bands namesake track makes the crowd, albeit, still tiny, come that little bit closer to the stage…I don’t think these guys bite! In short, a real pleasure to watch, just a shame they had nothing bigger than a ‘large’ t-shirt on sale, unless you wanted to pay £20 for a Remasculate branded Ball-Gag!
DEAD BEYOND BURIED already have numerous live appearances and a stunning debut album behind them. In April their new album will tear you a new a-hole, but in the meantime, they trial some new songs for us little folk. ‘The Many Names of Nothing’ shows some good promise, the drumming is especially top class, whilst this vocalist has a little bit more heart and soul about the lyrics, unlike the previous 2 bands! I only seemed to catch their new tracks during this set, and I did not make that many toilet trips! ‘Inheritor of Hell’, The Last War’ and ‘The Overcoming’ are good death metal tunes, ok this band love Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse (who doesn’t?) but then you remember this is a young band resting on the morals of the masters. A good show, a great drummer and finally some crowd participation!
2007’s Ikon album was a smack in the face and a brutal assault on the mind. So nothing short of brutal is what I expect from INSISION tonight. Brutal death metal from Stockholm, rather than the earthy groove laden classic death normally associated with that city is the order of play. Carl Birath on vocals is a short guy, with a massive set of lungs…man this is loud! Both guitarists Magnus and Roger are displaying some really technical death metal riffs with precision from insision (I couldn’t resist sorry..) and in an utter calm and yet furious way. The calmness must be because they have the chilled man Marcus (from Remasculate) behind the drum kit again! A lot of people were expecting to see Daniel Ekeroth (author of many horror books and the classic “Swedish Death Metal” opus), but replacement Joel (Nominion) is clearly enjoying the stage underneath the massive black gandalf beard! A big stage presence from an underrated band as proved on ‘The Imminent Vision’.
A brutal day, sadly the atmosphere and crowd numbers was somewhat lacking with possibly the amount of death metal gigs on either side of this Sunday making a difference. The people who mattered were there though; no not me, the bands!
http://www.myspace.com/arcanepromotions
Paul Maddison
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