It’s been a busy 7 days in Dublin City for Death Metal shows in my home town, with the big and totally crushing show in Vicar St last Sunday where Wolves In The Throne Room, At The Gates and the mighty Behemoth really set down a marker in front of a Sold Out venue, here we are again only 5 days later in an absolutely rammed Voodoo Lounge with another 4 band bill.
Tonight I’m not shooting, just at the gig as a fan and it’s another set of Polish legends that are headlining and a band I have somehow managed to miss out on seeing a total of 5 times in the past, yes that is a crazy amount, but this year seems to be the year of me finally getting to see some bands that I have missed the most over the years from an assorted amount of reasons….. so on top of every thing else it’s just great to finally see them live. This is a really strong bill though with openers Bloodshot Dawn, Danish blasters Baest and the always pounding Dyscarnate rounding the night out. With the Stage Times for this show having been brought down even earlier, Doors at 6pm and first band at 6:15, it did make me wonder once again how viable gigs with more bands on the bill are in the age of curfews and venues holding Nightclubs after live shows, but this week I guess things have shown me it’s possible, Wolves In The Throne Room played to an almost full house last weekend and tonight although starting off to around 15 people for Bloodshot Dawn the room rapidly filled up as the set progressed, the tightness of Doors opening and getting people through the Box Office certainly slowing the room filling up a bit.
England’s Bloodshot Dawn have been to Dublin before and are an experienced band that always look comfortable, hopefully we’ll see them back again soon, highlight for me was the excellent “Reanimation” from the album of the same name. Always difficult with such a short set but they ably warm up the crowd for the bands still to come.
Denmark’s Baest are making their first visit to Dublin and appear to be recording the show for a future release. Having only really checked these guys out before the show, and having been impressed by what I had heard, I really wasn’t prepared by just how good these guys are live, their sound was great and they were really up for it, with a frontman that tries to get the audience involved in the show at every opportunity, a very tight and powerful unit and they just sound great. The set here is far too short and judging by the reactions of the crowd as through the set I was far from the only one impressed by this band tonight, a much longer set is needed on their return visit. “Crosswhore” among others separate this band from most in the genre, “Ego Te Absolvo” is another punishing track but not without melody.
Main support tonight are a band I’ve seen many times Dyscarnate, and they’ve always been a cracking band, but something about tonight, I don’t know what but this is the best I’ve ever seen them, there’s little fuss with them, not a huge amount of banter between songs, but a relentless pummeling from a 3 piece that always sounding like they are bigger than the sum of their parts. The solid light colour and smoke machine output really do make it quite difficult to see the band for a lot of the set, but that doesn’t take away much from just how good they are. Having dual vocalists has always worked really well with this band and it continues to do so, Al Llewellyn (Bass/Vocals) is the perfect foil to Tom Whitty (Guitar/Vocals) voice, This is as strong as they’ve been as a band, as always Matt’s drumming is just pounding while remaining varied, each band tonight has managed to lift the crowd to a higher level and the packed venue is definitely loving this set, and for good reason. Looking forward to catching these guys again soon. Tonight for me “The Promethean” is probably the stand out or the set, cracking song, but everything is a highlight.
And so to the headliners, Decapitated, well nothing really needs to be said they absolutely leveled the place, easily one of the top performances I’ve seen in the Voodoo, and probably as busy as I’ve seen the venue since the last lot of work was done on it, packed up front and busy right down to the very back, you could tell that the band were really feeding off the crowd, but it was their brilliant playing and delivery that made all the difference tonight, they sounded brilliant,
Everything in the set fitted perfectly, it just flowed one song into the next as if it was all coming from the one album, not that it all sounded the same, absolutely not, it just all worked together in one set. The tracks off the latest album Anticult are just immense live, and this is a band that are just right at the top of their craft, musically the riffs are just so powerful, drums thunderous, bass so so solid with in that unit and vocals are stunning, this is how you do a Death Metal show, as with Dyscarnate there’s not much fuss, they got on with things, but never come across as a band in isolation, the crowd works in tandem and the atmosphere envelops you, drawing you in. Ending the set with “Sphere’s Of Madness” and the always popular “Winds Of Creation” is just nice. I’m always loathe to say a band could play a bigger venue, that’s not my business, the promoters know what they are doing, but it would be great to see them come back and play somewhere different and fill it too, as tonight has shown there’s certainly an appetite to see this band here. Been a hell of a week and this was a class way to finish it off.
Roll on next week when we have some very different gigs to look forward including another legend in former Queensryche man Geoff Tate again singing those amazing songs from the Operation Mindcrime album, but still ending with some legendary Death Metal in the form of Pestilence (yes another I’ve missed a few times – be it them being refused entry to the country or just bad luck) and sandwiched in between some awesome young Finnish Thrash in Lost Society – bring it on 😉