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Tour Review
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And Darkness and Death came to the Darkest Continent again… After bringing out “The Haunted” recently, Witchdoctorrecords.com delivered the good even better this time by bringing out Swedish Death Metal Masters Entombed on their Inferno Tour of SA. And we were there to witness this spectacular mesh of evil and aggression on the 3rd of May at the Newtown Hall… But before we get there, I (UT) would like to thank my Brother-in-Metal-Bass Nick Cook for helping me to write this column, to guarantee that you get as much accurate and unbiased info as possible (though I just edited out everything he said that I didn’t like hehehe). Speaking of brothers, it was truly great to see many brothers in metal again after quite a few years, which made this a reunion of sorts. This included members of Agro, Retribution Denied, Gutted Remains, Mesadoth, Deviate, Groinchurn, Gorelock, Angelic Fraud, and of course Misericord and Bedlam. Also present were members of bands like Wonderboom, as well as the Botswana Metal Act “Metal Horizon”. And except for endless complaining about insufficient quantities of alcohol at the bar (let this be a lesson to tour promoters: SA Metalheads party hard!), all were rather content with the knowledge that they would be witnessing true power... Opening for Entombed were three great local acts: Sacrifist, Tyburn (both from Jhb) and Sacraphyx (Cape Town). Each act had 25-30 minutes to deliver the goods, and none of them failed to disappoint. Sacrifist got the difficult job of warming up the stage, and instead set it on fire with grinding riffs, vicious drumming, and an evil shrieking vocal that will tear through a concrete wall. Having watched as well as played with the original Sacrifist line-up many times between ’94 and ‘98, I (UT) can honestly say this line-up is substantially faster and heavier than they were before. Whereas The Liebenberg-brother era of Sacrifist had some good songs (check out the “Liquid Seasons” album), this Sacrifist tends to be less ‘progressive’, going more for good ol’ hard n’ heavy approach. Nevertheless, they manage to retain the melodious qualities that made them kill on stage in the first place. Next up was Tyburn - an act I (UT) have been dying to see, particularly as I have been invited many times by both drummer Ralph and bassist Kallin. From the first bar it was clear that they were not standing back one inch for Sacrifist when it comes to speed, melody, power, or accuracy. Driven by Ralph’s fierce pounding and lead by a vocal style somewhere between the likes of Henry Rollins and (later) Pantera, Tyburn delivered grinding thrash metal with excellent interludes and awesome breaks. I (UT) was also greatly impressed by the artistic bass exploits of young Kallin. Although I personally feel the bass was too soft (don’t we all say that?), it was clear that he was working hard at laying down a thick foundation to support Ralph and the shredding guitars – Very well done. With some luck, we shall lure him into our sacred fold soon… I (NC) remember jamming entombed covers with Ralph in our previous band, so I can imagine this must have been *some* gig for him. Tyburn gave a very good performance on the night, and Kallin is a good bassist with some interesting lines. As for the loudness of the bass, I guess the bass is an instrument that generally you cant ‘hear’ but feel i.e. if the bass is missing…you notice immediately the band is not quite happening. I (UT) Still think it should have been louder though (hehehe)… Ending the reign of SA bands on stage for the night was Sacraphyx, who brought forward what I (UT) regarded as grindcore death metal. But the word Grindcore always reminds me (NC) of bands with dodgy covers and even dodgier lyrics who don’t take themselves or their music seriously… Sacraphyx, I think, take their music more seriously and it shows! They are technically proficient though I felt that the vocals could perhaps have more variation. To me (UT), they were heavier than the other two bands, but this heaviness came at a cost to melody. But then again, melody may not have been their primary objective... A 20-minute break followed, the lights dimmed, and through the relative silence came the sounds of an ominous-sounding bass, slowly echoing through the hall. However, this did not last too long before - and please forgive the cliché – all hell broke loose - “Chief Rebel Angel” indeed! Despite the awesome show put on by the SA acts, The brutal Swedish five-piece did not take long to show why they were headlining the show, quickly reminded me (UT) which region the Vikings came from. They have been doing this for about 15 years, and subsequently know how to put on a deadly (hehehe) show. Entombed were responsible for the buzzing chainsaw distorted guitar sound that made them and Sunlight Studios in their native Stockholm famous during the early 90s (NC). “Chief Rebel Angel” quickly turned into “Demon”, a vicious track from their 1992 “Wolverine Blues” album, followed by some newer songs like “Retaliation”. Though the newer stuff is ‘looser’ and rockier than older material and is not really my (NC) cup of tea, I was really pleased with how they put together the set list (Me, (UT), on the other hand, preferred the rockier songs to the speedblast stuff!). Here I (NC) was thinking that they would favour mostly newer songs, but they had something for everyone. Well, almost, as they did not play my favourite track of theirs – “Crawl”, from my fav album “Clandestine” (yes, I am living in the past, ‘91 was a good year…). Other standout songs in the set included “Left Hand Path” (the title track from their savage 1989 debut album); “Living Dead”(If I (NC) am not mistaken, the only track from Clandestine they played); “But Life Goes On” (even though I (NC) was nearly rendered unconscious after being caught in the mosh haha lights out…everyone), and “Out of Hand”. After a brief moment off stage, they returned to encore with “Night of the Vampire” (this is actually a Roky Ericson cover, I (NC) think) and the vicious “Hollowman”. For me (NC), a definite highlight was also meeting the band after the show. They are friendly and show no ‘I’m a rock star’ attitude. And from the music to the band members. The bassist, Jörgen Sandström, has plenty of stage presence and rock attitude. Those interested should also check out his old band “Grave” – the guy has quite the set of lungs as well! This set of lungs were utilised, as him, as well as both the guitarists, had quite a few bars of backing vocals during Entombed’s set. He was clearly making the vocalist work for stage domination, not only through his size, but also his presence at the tip of the stage, throwing “horns” to the very appreciative crowd every so often… Guitarists Alx Hellid & Ulf Cederlund are seem a little more reserved on stage, but oh my…. their sound is friggin heavy! Vocalist Lars-Goran Petrov was in fine form indeed. I (NC) was glad that he was not as drunk as I’ve seen on some of the bands gigs where he slurred out the vocal lines. I (NC) don’t know too much about the drummer Peter Stjärnvind. I know he replaced Nicke Anderrson but that’s about it. He does have an unusual set-up for a metal drummer – I think he uses only 1 tom apart from the floor tom/s. To me (UT), this drummer deserves a special mention – he played his relatively small (for metal anyway!) kit in such a way that it honestly sounded like he was sitting behind a 12-piece. Very impressive! All in all, after being a fan of the band for more than a decade, it was really cool to see (and more importantly hear) them live (NC). A down side was that considering that Entombed have been going longer than the Haunted, I would’ve assumed they would’ve had a bigger turnout because of this. If people could take the trouble to drive all the way from Botswana to be there, then why the hell couldn’t people from Johannesburg? To me (UT), that’s true SA metalhead style – we complain that noone ever comes out here, but when someone finally does, we rather stay at home and watch TV or go and sit in some overpriced pub somewhere… But alas, after all the exhilaration, when all that was left was a few die hards, many empty beer cans and JD bottles, and a ringing in the ears that would last quite a few days (except for Nick here, who was clever enough to take earplugs with, thereby preventing having to “answer the phone” the whole time) – the thrill of the memory of seeing Entombed could only be misted up by the thrill caused by a rumour of two more vicious acts on their way (the more the merrier!). But more about that when we receive some more confirmation… (Lets just say that we might all be in flames soon…). |
