Evile, Wolf & Septic Fatality - Sheffield UK (October 24th 2012)
After taking a lengthy (though involuntary) hiatus from the online world and the music scene for the majority of 2012, many regular readers will be completely unsurprised to see that my first contribution upon my return to Brutalism is an Evile review. But as I always say, good music deserves as much praise as possible, right?
The show was held at the Sheffield Corporation with support from Sweden's Wolf and Rotherham thrashers Septic Fatality, and quite surprisingly this is the first time that Evile have headlined a show here in the big room - usually bands of their level play in the smaller room on the other side of the venue, but my guess would be that since their previous show here sold out (and how!) they decided to upgrade. Great to see them on the larger stage, though admittedly the turnout left the room feeling a little more 'empty' than usual. Being stood all the way at the back in order to write down notes for this review, my view wasn't exactly the greatest so there may be a few slight inconsistancies here and there.
Septic Fatality are up first, to little fanfare from the majority of the crowd for the most part. Though the band play very tightly, the only member of the band with any degree of stage presence is their vocalist - the remaining members of the band just stand there staring at their fretboards - and despite his impressive stage personna, the singer was definitely struggling with his vocals about three songs in. Signs of fatigue started to crack through with his vocals, though to his credit, he managed to pull through quite well in the end. The biggest flaw with this band is their supposedly 'original' songs - having dabbled around in the unsigned British thrash scene for a good seven or eight years now, I've come to expect a few 'borrowed' riffs from classic thrash bands. Hell, thrash is an extremely limiting genre so you're bound to write something that at least sounds similar to older songs eventually right? That's the case here too (plenty of Forbidden and Testament-esque riffs), but Septic Fatality seem to have taken a liking to flat out stealing full sections of songs from other unsigned bands around the country here, the most notable ones being Seregon (Cancer Race) and Hospital of Death (Down That Hatch/Kicked to the Curb). Normally I'd put this down to a pure coincidence, but the fact that the entire sections in question have been replicated note-for-note instead of the just a variation of the guitar riff left me with an extremely sour taste in my mouth. Not one to jump the gun, during the intermission before the next band I decided to confirm/deny this via my trusty mp3 player and sure enough, the riffs, drum patterns, arrangements and segments in general are identical in nearly every way. What made them think that nobody would notice? It's utterly despicable and inexcusable no matter how you slice it, and I wasn't the only one in the venue to notice these bouts of plagerism either. But that aside, the band did admittedly sound very tight and precise overall with some rather faithful-but-predictable renditions of Slayer's "Postmortem" and Testament's "Alone in the Dark" and a moderate crowd reaction down front in the latter half of their set. If the guitarists/bassist improved their stage presence, the vocalist worked on keeping his voice consistant and the band generally stopped passing other peoples music off as their own then they'd be a decent thrash band. Sound and performance gets them a 6/10 score, but since any original thoughts seem to die of lonliness, their composition gets a big fat 2/10 and some pantomime booing. On a final positive note though, their drummer was mightily fucking impressive all the way through!
Swedish heavy metal titans Wolf on the other hand, go down a fucking storm with the crowd right off the bat. I witnessed these guys almost by accident at Bloodstock Open Air a year or two ago and was extremely impressed by what they had to offer, yet I wasn't entirely sure how they'd go down with an Evile crowd - a lot of (younger) thrash fans aren't generally receptive to any non-thrash bands at live shows in my experience so to see such a huge reaction from the crowd was fantastic. Despite being stood all the way in the back to take my notes and subsequently, not being able to join in with the fun upfront, I still found myself going bloody ballistic to tracks like "Venom" and the amazingly titled "Steelwinged Savage Reaper" and the band were on absolutely spectacular form - vocalist/guitarist Niklas Stalvind in particular was obviously enjoying himself just as much as everyone in the crowd was. The band members prowl the stage with such confidence that even the most cynical of people were won over, and at the end of the day, having Wolf in between two thrash band shelped keep the whole 'thrash sound' fresh - if we'd have had, say, Gama Bomb instead of Wolf, by the time Evile rolled around I think a few people would've been a bit tired of hearing thrash. But having Wolf where they were was a fantastic move. It's not necessarily all good though - as brilliant as Wolf are, their Judas Priest-esque heavy metal does tend to start sounding a little bit 'samey' when it's played in such quick succession, and coupling this with a set time of nearly an hour, after a while the enthusiasm from crowd (and myself) did start to wear off. The fun turned into monotony near the end, with numerous gig-goers in my vacinity exclaiming remarks such as "Christ, they're still not done?" and "It was fun twenty minutes ago, now I'm bored". I think Wolf's approach was "We have this a set that's *x* long, so instead of spending a lot of time conversing with the crowd between songs we'll knock out as many songs as we can". They DID socialise with the crowd between tracks, but they were very brief thankyous and the like. While I can admire their determination to give the crowd their moneys worth, I think maybe a shorter set or just more idle banter would've made Wolf infinitely better than they were - but that said, they weren't bad in the slightest. No, far from it. They were utterly fantastic through and through, giving a 100% effort performance, playing tight, very energetic and blatently enjoying themselves for the duration of their set. It was purely the length of their set that really spoiled it for a lot of people in the crowd. Once monotony sets in, that's it - it's extremely difficult to recover from a dreary vibe during a set. And that's a crying shame, really. If it weren't for this, Wolf would easily get a 10/10 score, but as it stands I'm still going to reward them a respectable 8/10. I'll most certainly be watching them again in the future.
Finally, it's time for Evile - giving me the biggest and most welcome surprise of the night by opening their set with an exceprt of the instrumental "Hundred Wrathful Deities" from their second record. From here on, it becomes... well, actually it's pretty standard for an Evile show. The "HWD" intro is pretty much the only genuine surprise that Evile have in store for everybody, possibly with the exception of "Man Against Machine" from their debut which hasn't been played for a while. And I mean this in both a good and a bad way - every single time I've seen Evile, I've left satisfied, yet I go knowing exactly what songs I'm going to hear. Their live shows are usually some of the most fun you'll ever come across so long as you don't mind a rather standard setlist - this said though they're utterly fucking devastating onstage as usual, with Ol Drake giving people the crazy eyes and Matt belting out lyrics with fanatical intensity better than ever before during the likes of "In Dreams of Terror" and "Centurion". Matt has constantly surprised me with his vocal abilities every single time I've seen him live or heard him on an album, getting better and more confident each time and this is no exception. Hell, if anything the band have made the few tracks from their first record "Enter the Grave" sound even better nowadays, with renditions of the title track, "Schizophrenia" and *groan* "Thrasher" sounding even more frantic and insane than their studio counterparts, bringing them more in line with the bands later releases. In fact, I'd actually say that out of everything Evile played, the material from "Enter the Grave" stood out as the absolute best of the lot next to "Infected Nations" and "Metamorphosis", the only two tracks (except the intro) played from the album of the same name. Speaking of which, the lack of material from the second album was a colossal disappointment for me as I absolutely love that record - yet there's absolutely no signs of "Now Demolition", "Time No More" or "Nosophoros" anywhere, as a large majority of the bands set is composed of tracks from last years "Five Serpent's Teeth" album. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's to be expected as any band is going to want to push their latest release, but it would've been great to hear a bit more of the older stuff. Speaking of "Five Serpent's Teeth", this was the first time I'd ever had the pleasure to hear the almighty 'ballad' "In Memoriam" live, a terrific song dedicated to the late great Mike Alexander that really helped offer some variety to the bands proceedings (despite making me a bit teary in the process). Other tracks from the album, such as "Eternal Empire", the ravenous title track and lead single "Cult" get predictably insane responses from the crowd, who go absolutely fucking berserk throughout the entire set with Matt Drake goading them the entire way there. Unfortunately, the night was cut short after "Schizophrenia" due to the venues licensing policies so despite fans pleas for "Killer from the Deep", "My Parasite" and even the bands well-received cover of Pantera's "Cemetery Gates", Evile had to leave the stage without the massive, climatic encore that would've cemented the show as one to remember. Despite being on top of their game as always and having such a spectacular reaction (as always!) it did kind of feel like "just another Evile set" for me to an extent - maybe due to the omission of a few fan favourites, maybe because of their lack of an encore or possibly just due to the simple fact that I've seen Evile more than any other band. It was far from disappointing - it was almost exactly what I'd expected - but it didn't have the same 'oomph' factor for me personally as many of their previous shows had. This of course mattered very little later on when I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money getting shitface drunk with Ol and Ben, which pretty much perked up any disappointments I had at the time hahaha. Evile get a 9/10, with the aforementioned gripes knocking them down from the perfect ten score. Once again, they've proven that they're still a relevant force to be reckoned with.
SETLISTS:
WOLF:
Make Friends With Your Nightmares
Hail Caesar
Full Moon Possession
Voodoo
Steelwinged Savage Reaper
Skull Crusher
Evil Star
The Bite
K-141 Kursk
Genocide
Venom
Speed On
EVILE:
Hundred Wrathfull Deities (Intro)
Enter The Grave
Cult
In Dreams of Terror
Centurion
Man Against Machine
Metamorphosis
In Memoriam
Thrasher
Eternal Empire
Five Serpents Teeth
Infected Nations
Schizophrenia
EDIT (06/04/13): Members of Septic Fatality have since informed us that they have taken note of the observations made during this review, and taken appropriate action to remedy the source of the problem. Dave Ingram and everyone at Brutalism would like to thank the band for their cooperation and understanding over the the matter.
The show was held at the Sheffield Corporation with support from Sweden's Wolf and Rotherham thrashers Septic Fatality, and quite surprisingly this is the first time that Evile have headlined a show here in the big room - usually bands of their level play in the smaller room on the other side of the venue, but my guess would be that since their previous show here sold out (and how!) they decided to upgrade. Great to see them on the larger stage, though admittedly the turnout left the room feeling a little more 'empty' than usual. Being stood all the way at the back in order to write down notes for this review, my view wasn't exactly the greatest so there may be a few slight inconsistancies here and there.
Septic Fatality are up first, to little fanfare from the majority of the crowd for the most part. Though the band play very tightly, the only member of the band with any degree of stage presence is their vocalist - the remaining members of the band just stand there staring at their fretboards - and despite his impressive stage personna, the singer was definitely struggling with his vocals about three songs in. Signs of fatigue started to crack through with his vocals, though to his credit, he managed to pull through quite well in the end. The biggest flaw with this band is their supposedly 'original' songs - having dabbled around in the unsigned British thrash scene for a good seven or eight years now, I've come to expect a few 'borrowed' riffs from classic thrash bands. Hell, thrash is an extremely limiting genre so you're bound to write something that at least sounds similar to older songs eventually right? That's the case here too (plenty of Forbidden and Testament-esque riffs), but Septic Fatality seem to have taken a liking to flat out stealing full sections of songs from other unsigned bands around the country here, the most notable ones being Seregon (Cancer Race) and Hospital of Death (Down That Hatch/Kicked to the Curb). Normally I'd put this down to a pure coincidence, but the fact that the entire sections in question have been replicated note-for-note instead of the just a variation of the guitar riff left me with an extremely sour taste in my mouth. Not one to jump the gun, during the intermission before the next band I decided to confirm/deny this via my trusty mp3 player and sure enough, the riffs, drum patterns, arrangements and segments in general are identical in nearly every way. What made them think that nobody would notice? It's utterly despicable and inexcusable no matter how you slice it, and I wasn't the only one in the venue to notice these bouts of plagerism either. But that aside, the band did admittedly sound very tight and precise overall with some rather faithful-but-predictable renditions of Slayer's "Postmortem" and Testament's "Alone in the Dark" and a moderate crowd reaction down front in the latter half of their set. If the guitarists/bassist improved their stage presence, the vocalist worked on keeping his voice consistant and the band generally stopped passing other peoples music off as their own then they'd be a decent thrash band. Sound and performance gets them a 6/10 score, but since any original thoughts seem to die of lonliness, their composition gets a big fat 2/10 and some pantomime booing. On a final positive note though, their drummer was mightily fucking impressive all the way through!
Swedish heavy metal titans Wolf on the other hand, go down a fucking storm with the crowd right off the bat. I witnessed these guys almost by accident at Bloodstock Open Air a year or two ago and was extremely impressed by what they had to offer, yet I wasn't entirely sure how they'd go down with an Evile crowd - a lot of (younger) thrash fans aren't generally receptive to any non-thrash bands at live shows in my experience so to see such a huge reaction from the crowd was fantastic. Despite being stood all the way in the back to take my notes and subsequently, not being able to join in with the fun upfront, I still found myself going bloody ballistic to tracks like "Venom" and the amazingly titled "Steelwinged Savage Reaper" and the band were on absolutely spectacular form - vocalist/guitarist Niklas Stalvind in particular was obviously enjoying himself just as much as everyone in the crowd was. The band members prowl the stage with such confidence that even the most cynical of people were won over, and at the end of the day, having Wolf in between two thrash band shelped keep the whole 'thrash sound' fresh - if we'd have had, say, Gama Bomb instead of Wolf, by the time Evile rolled around I think a few people would've been a bit tired of hearing thrash. But having Wolf where they were was a fantastic move. It's not necessarily all good though - as brilliant as Wolf are, their Judas Priest-esque heavy metal does tend to start sounding a little bit 'samey' when it's played in such quick succession, and coupling this with a set time of nearly an hour, after a while the enthusiasm from crowd (and myself) did start to wear off. The fun turned into monotony near the end, with numerous gig-goers in my vacinity exclaiming remarks such as "Christ, they're still not done?" and "It was fun twenty minutes ago, now I'm bored". I think Wolf's approach was "We have this a set that's *x* long, so instead of spending a lot of time conversing with the crowd between songs we'll knock out as many songs as we can". They DID socialise with the crowd between tracks, but they were very brief thankyous and the like. While I can admire their determination to give the crowd their moneys worth, I think maybe a shorter set or just more idle banter would've made Wolf infinitely better than they were - but that said, they weren't bad in the slightest. No, far from it. They were utterly fantastic through and through, giving a 100% effort performance, playing tight, very energetic and blatently enjoying themselves for the duration of their set. It was purely the length of their set that really spoiled it for a lot of people in the crowd. Once monotony sets in, that's it - it's extremely difficult to recover from a dreary vibe during a set. And that's a crying shame, really. If it weren't for this, Wolf would easily get a 10/10 score, but as it stands I'm still going to reward them a respectable 8/10. I'll most certainly be watching them again in the future.
Finally, it's time for Evile - giving me the biggest and most welcome surprise of the night by opening their set with an exceprt of the instrumental "Hundred Wrathful Deities" from their second record. From here on, it becomes... well, actually it's pretty standard for an Evile show. The "HWD" intro is pretty much the only genuine surprise that Evile have in store for everybody, possibly with the exception of "Man Against Machine" from their debut which hasn't been played for a while. And I mean this in both a good and a bad way - every single time I've seen Evile, I've left satisfied, yet I go knowing exactly what songs I'm going to hear. Their live shows are usually some of the most fun you'll ever come across so long as you don't mind a rather standard setlist - this said though they're utterly fucking devastating onstage as usual, with Ol Drake giving people the crazy eyes and Matt belting out lyrics with fanatical intensity better than ever before during the likes of "In Dreams of Terror" and "Centurion". Matt has constantly surprised me with his vocal abilities every single time I've seen him live or heard him on an album, getting better and more confident each time and this is no exception. Hell, if anything the band have made the few tracks from their first record "Enter the Grave" sound even better nowadays, with renditions of the title track, "Schizophrenia" and *groan* "Thrasher" sounding even more frantic and insane than their studio counterparts, bringing them more in line with the bands later releases. In fact, I'd actually say that out of everything Evile played, the material from "Enter the Grave" stood out as the absolute best of the lot next to "Infected Nations" and "Metamorphosis", the only two tracks (except the intro) played from the album of the same name. Speaking of which, the lack of material from the second album was a colossal disappointment for me as I absolutely love that record - yet there's absolutely no signs of "Now Demolition", "Time No More" or "Nosophoros" anywhere, as a large majority of the bands set is composed of tracks from last years "Five Serpent's Teeth" album. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's to be expected as any band is going to want to push their latest release, but it would've been great to hear a bit more of the older stuff. Speaking of "Five Serpent's Teeth", this was the first time I'd ever had the pleasure to hear the almighty 'ballad' "In Memoriam" live, a terrific song dedicated to the late great Mike Alexander that really helped offer some variety to the bands proceedings (despite making me a bit teary in the process). Other tracks from the album, such as "Eternal Empire", the ravenous title track and lead single "Cult" get predictably insane responses from the crowd, who go absolutely fucking berserk throughout the entire set with Matt Drake goading them the entire way there. Unfortunately, the night was cut short after "Schizophrenia" due to the venues licensing policies so despite fans pleas for "Killer from the Deep", "My Parasite" and even the bands well-received cover of Pantera's "Cemetery Gates", Evile had to leave the stage without the massive, climatic encore that would've cemented the show as one to remember. Despite being on top of their game as always and having such a spectacular reaction (as always!) it did kind of feel like "just another Evile set" for me to an extent - maybe due to the omission of a few fan favourites, maybe because of their lack of an encore or possibly just due to the simple fact that I've seen Evile more than any other band. It was far from disappointing - it was almost exactly what I'd expected - but it didn't have the same 'oomph' factor for me personally as many of their previous shows had. This of course mattered very little later on when I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money getting shitface drunk with Ol and Ben, which pretty much perked up any disappointments I had at the time hahaha. Evile get a 9/10, with the aforementioned gripes knocking them down from the perfect ten score. Once again, they've proven that they're still a relevant force to be reckoned with.
SETLISTS:
WOLF:
Make Friends With Your Nightmares
Hail Caesar
Full Moon Possession
Voodoo
Steelwinged Savage Reaper
Skull Crusher
Evil Star
The Bite
K-141 Kursk
Genocide
Venom
Speed On
EVILE:
Hundred Wrathfull Deities (Intro)
Enter The Grave
Cult
In Dreams of Terror
Centurion
Man Against Machine
Metamorphosis
In Memoriam
Thrasher
Eternal Empire
Five Serpents Teeth
Infected Nations
Schizophrenia
EDIT (06/04/13): Members of Septic Fatality have since informed us that they have taken note of the observations made during this review, and taken appropriate action to remedy the source of the problem. Dave Ingram and everyone at Brutalism would like to thank the band for their cooperation and understanding over the the matter.
